What to see and hear (and then speak about) at See.Hear.Speak.Four
Comedy for all the senses
Chuck Watkins
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Like we've been saying for months, the Awesomest Depression is coming, so maybe it’s time to bask in all the ridiculous technological advances that have been made in the last half-century before you’re pawning them to buy five-cent apples. Then again, all those iPhones and Wiis and CraigSpaces and so on also tend to get in the way of the most basic entertainments, like storytelling. So the question becomes: How best to fiddle while Rome slowly burns?
ColdTowne Theater realizes that’s a tough decision to make, so this weekend it’s presenting the fourth-annual See.Hear.Speak festival, where the democratization of technology collides with bare-bones human entertainment, all in the name of funny. Here are four acts plucked from the festival fray that ought to appeal to both nostalgia for days gone by and days soon to be gone by.
The P! Company
The audio-visual realm has long been the province of nerds, and they don’t come much nerdier than The P! Company’s Andy Petruzzo and Kyle Sweeney. But whereas most are content with using their technical expertise to shout about their obsessions on the Internet or upset the delicate balance of the Greek system at a major university, Petruzzo and Sweeney use theirs to craft bizarre universes where lightsaber skills = free pizza and extraterrestrials hang out at weddings looking for salt. It’s not all science fiction for The P! Company—they also have a thing or two to say about proper partying—and as the troupe’s interests have recently taken a more tuneful direction, it will be appearing as part of Friday night’s musical lineup in addition to Thursday night’s video sketch showcase.
The audio-visual realm has long been the province of nerds, and they don’t come much nerdier than The P! Company’s Andy Petruzzo and Kyle Sweeney. But whereas most are content with using their technical expertise to shout about their obsessions on the Internet or upset the delicate balance of the Greek system at a major university, Petruzzo and Sweeney use theirs to craft bizarre universes where lightsaber skills = free pizza and extraterrestrials hang out at weddings looking for salt. It’s not all science fiction for The P! Company—they also have a thing or two to say about proper partying—and as the troupe’s interests have recently taken a more tuneful direction, it will be appearing as part of Friday night’s musical lineup in addition to Thursday night’s video sketch showcase.
Chuck Watkins
Music may be a new arrow in The P! Company quiver, but it’s long been part of Chuck Watkins act. Hence the squirrelly stand-up’s role as master of ceremonies for the “Hear” portion See.Hear.Speak.Four. Three-fourths of his way through a project where he set out to record an EP for every season of the year, Watkins uses a digital looping station to recreate his songs onstage, punctuating them with goofy stories about school, family and credit cards. As evidenced by this incredibly brief Velveeta Room performance, Watkins is a master of comedic economy, the bastard son of Steve Martin and producer/composer/mad scientist/live-looping enthusiast Jon Brion.
Music may be a new arrow in The P! Company quiver, but it’s long been part of Chuck Watkins act. Hence the squirrelly stand-up’s role as master of ceremonies for the “Hear” portion See.Hear.Speak.Four. Three-fourths of his way through a project where he set out to record an EP for every season of the year, Watkins uses a digital looping station to recreate his songs onstage, punctuating them with goofy stories about school, family and credit cards. As evidenced by this incredibly brief Velveeta Room performance, Watkins is a master of comedic economy, the bastard son of Steve Martin and producer/composer/mad scientist/live-looping enthusiast Jon Brion.
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