Although Capitol Hill is supposed to be all about nightlife, the folks at Balagan Theatre felt the after-hours theater scene needed a little boost.
"Theater Schmeater is still doing their stuff, and there's some other shows around, but it felt to us like the late-night theater was rapidly disappearing from Capitol Hill," said Balagan founder Jake Groshong. "It felt like something was missing."
With a new performance space at 1117 E. Pike St., it also felt like Balagan had a stage to offer. So the group has created "B Side," a program of late night entertainment for the Hill's party crowd. Rather than exclusively produce their own shows, the Balaganim (as they like to call themselves) decided to invite others to play in their sandbox.
"There's an enormous lack of performance space on Capitol Hill and we wanted to give an opportunity to other groups," said Groshong. "We are focused on quality control, however. We want to make sure that the B Side shows are high quality. In the past, other theaters have opened up their late night venue to anyone who wanted it, and then a bad show became associated with that theater."
For the first "B Side" show, Balaganim Ryan Higgins suggested "Suave," a sex advice improvisational show run by Jet City Improv veterans Ian Schempp and Douglas Willott.
"Ian and I play two guys, I.S. and the Dougie," explained Willard. "They're the type of guys who can swing through a party, hit on everyone there and yet nobody minds it."
In short, the pair are supposed to be the ultimate in suave sophistication, and just the type to field questions about everything from staying committed to your girlfriend to anatomical queries that can't be reproduced in a family newspaper.
"Sometimes we give a good answer to a question, sometimes we just give very bad advice," said Willard. "Whatever will be funnier. About half the time, the questions that we get seem to be serious, people want to know what we think, and the other half of the time they just trying to mess with us."
The show is definitely adult in nature, said Willard, although there are no age limits posted. "I think if I saw a kid in the audience, I would stop the show and take the kid and the parents outside to explain that it doesn't take a village to raise a child-just two smart parents who know enough not to bring an 8-year-old to a sex advice show."
On the other hand, a teenager might enjoy it, he added.
"When I was 15, going to a show like this or not going to a show like this wasn't going to have much effect on me, I was still going to think about sex all the time," said Willott.
Although the humor remains raunchy, Willard and Schempp steer away from cheap insults. When somebody started getting "nasty" about a fat girl sitting in the audience, Willard said that they turned the silly questions back on the guy, wanting to keep everyone feeling good for the night.
"Suave" started out a year ago in the University District, where the largely student crowd tended to stick to questions about long-term commitment and even the mildest four-letter word cracked them up.
"A lot of [the students] were in relationships and had long-distance issues, somebody going to another school or something," Willard said. On Capitol Hill, the questions tend to be more racy. "Here we've noticed a lot more 'how to' sex questions, topics that you'd think they'd already explored on their own."
Whatever the question, Willard hopes the answer makes the audience laugh and maybe even go out into the night feeling just a bit more suave.
"We love to have the audience leave feeling sexier than when they entered," he said. "Maybe somebody will walk out of the show and walk up to somebody with more confidence."
"Suave" closes on Saturday, Nov. 10, as Willard and Schempp both have other plays to rehearse. "We're each directing shows that the other one is acting in," said Willard. But the pair hopes that the sexy advice show can return to Capitol Hill's late night in 2008. "We'd love to come back to Balagan, it's a really great space."
Balagan's mainstage show "Cloud 9" also closes on Saturday, Nov. 10. The space will stay dark for December as the Balaganim work on finishing their remodel, said Groshong. "We'll be adding hardwood flooring and permanent walls, among other things."
Groshong expects the construction and related paperwork to be done by mid-January, when both the mainstage and the "B Side" will reopen.
Rosemary Jones writes about arts and entertainment for the Capitol Hill Times. She can be reached at editor@capitolhilltimes.com
