Improv Comedy for the Whole Family, Close to Home

Get on over to Baird Center, where Dreamcatcher Repertory Theatre, professional Theatre in Residence, opens its sixteenth season with its improvisational comedy troupe, Multiple Personality Disorder, on Saturday, September 25.  This evening promises laughs from start to finish,  affordable, appropriate for the whole family, and close to home.

Multiple Personality Disorder features a cast of Dreamcatcher regulars, including Harry Patrick Christian, Laura Ekstrand, Noreen Farley, Dave Maulbeck, and Jessica O'Hara-Baker, and will feature several special guests.  The troupe is directed by Maulbeck, who is now appearing at the Magnet Theatre in New York with his sketch comedy group, Chet Watkins.  The show includes improvisational comedy sketches that use audience suggestions to shape the scenes that the actors instantly create onstage.  Performers use ingredients such as everyday objects, strange maladies, and unusual circumstances to cook up unconventional mini-plays that appear and disappear in a matter of minutes.  At the troupe's previous performances, sketches have taken place at an emotionally volatile Starbucks, on a beach in Tahiti, and on an episode of The Dating Game, where the contestants are particularly peculiar.

Previous Patch reviews of Dreamcatcher lauded the group as "funny and fresh." "Every member of this small ensemble cast is outstanding," wrote reviewer Theresa Burns earlier this year. Likewise, their work with the summer program for children earned praise and plaudits. The group was recognized again this year by the state with an arts grant. 

Multiple Personality Disorder will appear (and disappear!) at Dreamcatcher on Saturday, September 25 at 8:00 p.m.  Tickets are $10.00 when purchased in advance online, and $15 at the door.  The cost of tickets to the show can also be credited to the purchase of a season pass, which will provide admission to all of Dreamcatcher's shows throughout the season.

Check back next week when Arts writer Donald Pun takes us behind the scenes with Dreamcatcher.