This is just a quick note of thanks for a great debut! On April 22nd we had our first official show as a theater and over the next 10 days we put on 11 more. Philly Theatre Week was a great platform to show ourselves to the world. A thank you to Katherine Clarke and LaNeshe Miller-White for their hard work in making Theatre Week happen this year. It gave us a nice festival to debut in, but also gave the overall Philly Theatre Community a larger spotlight it has sorely missed. As long as enough people keep getting vaccinated through the summer, Fall should be decent and next year’s festival will be on stage again. With Crossroads in tow.
We had great performances from existing shows such as Study Hall and Not Yet Rated. Study Hall welcomed Robert A. George (Bloomberg Opinion), Lauren Vidas (Election Attorney), and Dr. Paul Offit (CHOP). The show with Dr. Offit, Study Hall’s Facts About the Vax is one of the more important shows we’ve done. It’s full of information that you need to hear if you are not yet vaccinated. If you missed the show, you can watch it here. Not Yet Rated, which as done short runs focused on specific genres, opened up and di their first all-genre run. Though the audience chose rom-com 3 times, each was original, expertly played, and hilarious. We will be making a couple of those shows available to stream soon.
We welcomed The Future, one of the longest running improv teams around, to our virtual stage. Hilarious as always, they entertained for over 45 minutes on the suggestion of “mansion.” I’m already looking at having them back to do something sooner than later.
We had our first live podcast with Oh Snap! An MCU Podcast Live. The show was a blast to do and we’ll be doing more soon- probably during Loki in June. We also debuted Extree! Extree! Comedy Inspired By News which was a ton of fun. Each show features a mix of performers and a mix of topics, so you’ll never see the same show twice in any way. Extree returns on Sunday, May 22nd @ 7pm.
A huge thank you to all that made it happen. Dan Corkery, Jon Plester, and Fred Brown, thank you for your video and music work. Thanks to Shannon Fahey, Karen Coleman, Ronnie Spettacolare, and Whitney Rumble for their graphic design work. And special thank you to all the performers that did this initial run. So funny. So smart. So easy to work with. So thankful for each of you.
A big big thank you to the audience that followed us and the audience that discovered us over the last 2 weeks. None of what we do is possible without your support. That said, we have some shirts for sale! It’s not really a fundraiser. Hopefully we never have to do a fundraiser. I have a fair amount of money in Dogecoin, so keep your fingers crossed, ha. But, if you want a Crossroads Comedy Theater shirt ($20) or a Study Hall shirt ($15) you can get them in all sizes and several colors. Money goes to operating costs, which includes paying performers for every show.
See you in a few weeks!
Mike Marbach
