Practical Theatre Company proves you can go back home
Series of shows on stage at Evanston’s Studio5: ‘This is a great town to be old and funny in’
You can go home again and the proof is in the three members of the acclaimed Practical Theatre Company, Victoria Zielinski and her husband Paul Barrosse and their pal Dana Olsen. They made their return to the local stage scene in December and had such a fine time, such a creative and commercially successful time, that they decided to stay.
Olsen put it like this: “People get funny in their old age. It turns out this is a great town to be old and funny in. Our audience gets the references. That’s a good thing, for us and them. So yeah, we’d wanted to keep the party going for a while. At least until we have to replace the bentwood chairs with mobility scooters.”
Their new theatrical home is Studio5, operated by their old friend Steve Rashid who was also once a member of the PTC. He is a musician, performer and producer, and married to Bea Rashid, a choreographer, dance educator and theatrical director. She is also the director of Dance Center Evanston and founder of the Evanston Dance Ensemble. Together the couple runs Studio5, a performing arts venue that features all manner of events.
If you possess a sturdy memory, you should be able to raise a smile or two recalling that the Practical Theatre Company was formed by Barrosse (from Cleveland), Zielinski (a South Sider) and some other Northwestern University alums in 1979. You might have visited the gang’s former “homes,” the 42-seat storefront John Lennon Auditorium on Howard Street and a 150-seat space in Piper’s Alley (now the Second City e.t.c. Stage).
Its shows were not only wildly entertaining but also influential. Smart and silly, witty and wonderful, they attracted a lot of attention, here and elsewhere. In 1982 some big shots came here from New York and plucked the four cast members of the PTC’s “Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee” to join the “Saturday Night Live” crowd. (Zielinski was to have been part of the show but had to bow out due to the demands of her law school studies). And so it was that Barrosse, Gary Kroeger, Brad Hall and a young woman named Julia Louis-Dreyfus moved to New York and “SNL”; the latter married Hall and, of course, went on to massive stardom on “Seinfeld” and beyond.
There were more PTC shows such as “Art, Ruth & Trudy,” which moved from Club Victoria to the Briar Street Theatre and then ended its nine-month run at the Vic Theatre. But soon enough Barrosse and Zielinski married and moved to Los Angeles. Olsen was already there, going directly from Northwestern to becoming a staff writer for “Laverne and Shirley” and then writing for many other TV shows and making such movies as “The ’Burbs” and “George of the Jungle.”
Barrosse and Zielinski devoted their Los Angeles lives and careers to raising two daughters. Once the girls were in college, they started to collaborate now and then with Rashid and Olsen. They eventually moved back here as did Olsen; Rashid had stayed.
Their December show, titled “Vic & Paul & Dana’s Post-Pandemic Revue,” was a delight and played to packed houses. One of those who saw it was Jason Brett, long a fixture on the local theater scene as an actor, producer and co-founder, with pal Stuart Oken, of the Apollo Theater. He was also a producer of the 1986 film comedy “About Last Night,” based on David Mamet’s play “Sexual Perversity in Chicago,” and later an executive with the Second City.
Brett knows comedy and talent, and I asked him to write me a review of the show. He did: “Over the years, the high reference level satire and keenly observed behavioral comedy that were the founding principles of Chicago-style sketch comedy, has devolved into a brash, vulgar sameness that leaves you more agitated than amused.
“Not so with the Practical
Theater Company. The recent show demonstrate their OG, Jedi mastery of the form. Whether it’s a scene about the gods Zeus and Hera in marriage counseling, a mathematics professor experiencing woke-ism and cancel culture (“1+1 is 2. But what if 1+1 identifies as 3?”), the torrid correspondences between Jane Austen and James Clarke or a rap song about suburban living, PTC’s rich dialogue, big characters and whip-smart choices reanimate the intelligence, wit and sidesplittingly funny humor that is the hallmark of Chicago-style comedy.”
This current residency began quietly a couple of weeks ago with a screening of director Preston Sturges’ riotous 1944 movie “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek.” The threesome talked about Sturges’ life and career and had what Barrosse called “a bit of a
trivia contest.”
The rest of the “season” rolls on with the “Practical Theatre on the Air,” a comedy show in the form of an old radio broadcast, with music from Larry Schanker, PTC’s original music director (April 8 and 9); “A Practical Birthday Party” (April 15), celebrating the PTC’s 44th birthday; “The Bard’s Birthday” (April 23), a Shakespeare-themed bash; “Silent Comedy with Larry Schanker,” (April 30), featuring silent films and music; “Stand-Up Comedy Night” (May 13 and 14), with Olsen hosting some of the city’s best comedy club performers, as well as Emilia Barrosse, Paul’s and Victoria’s daughter, who has written for such shows as HBO’s “Veep”; and then the yet untitled revue for a June 8 through July 2 run.
Paul Barrosse calls this series
“eclectic,” and that it is but it is also provocatively ambitious, and that’s the way the PTC has always been. He adds, “This schedule expresses the various facets of our artistic interest, from Shakespeare, to rock ’n’ roll, stand-up comedy, and what we like to think we do best, the classic improv comedy revue, with a twist or two.”
Rashid is happy to have his friends back on his stage, saying, “This has been bubbling up for a couple of years. You hit a point in your life when it’s too late to make old friends, and finally getting to goof around onstage again with lifelong pals is just such tremendous fun.”