What do you do when your show is THREE WEEKS before the spookiest night of the year? You celebrate OKTOBER FEST! That's right, dust off the old lederhosen-- we're going to Bavaria! Hold on to your knickers, guard your Hosentürl and get ready for the OKTOBER 5th Show! We know you'll want to get ready for a fine evening of beer consumption by learning a few useful phrases:
* Ich will dich. - I want you. * Zieh das aus! - Take this off! * Bitte hör auf! - Please stop! * Sachte! - Easy tiger! * Das war seltsam. - That was weird.
(phrases and image courtesy of Jon De Keyser)
That ought to get you through the night. Oooohh, that's a rather hot look, actually.
Anyway. . .
Expect the usual fantastic guest acts, another puppet show, a visit from our favorite restaurateur, a few scantily-clad and brilliant ladies and one mummy. . . we mean, Bill Wood. Halloween Screams Early for the Empire Revue! See you there!
Can you believe that back in the day a show like ours would have had its own digs? That's cool, no problem. We like the little stage we haunt, one evening a month, at AS220, and we love it when you pack the house! But you know what we miss? We miss the good old FTP.
We had, for four short years from 1935-1939 a NATIONAL THEATRE in this great country of ours and it was called The Federal Theatre Project, part of the New Deal, approved by one of our favorite Presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The FTP gave hope to the hopeless, as the country struggled to climb out of the pit of the Great Depression. Headed by Hallie Flanagan, The Federal Theatre Project pulled actors, directors, stage hands, set and costume designers, writers SHOW FOLKS out the bread lines and put us all back to work! Even a brash young man named Orson Welles got his big break, stateside, with his direction of Voodoo Macbeth which featured an all-black cast! REVOLUNTIONARY!!
The FTP was disbanded in 1939. The deal was apparently too new-- the FTP was labeled, "Communist." Welcome to the dawn of the Red Scare. . .
Today, lots of artists like us who make our own work, cobble together a living just short of Piracy. And we live to have the kind of fun we muster up at the Empire Revue-- we're grateful for your patronage. For two years we've been sweatin' and dancin' and singin' and foolin' around, for your amusement, and ours! Thanks to the generous folks at AS220 for giving us a home, and thanks to EMPIRE LOAN for their unwavering sponsorship.
We're living in a different kind of great depression, now-- if you know a patron of the vaudeville arts who'd like to become one of our intrepid sponsors, come on up at the end of the show and let Keith Munslow know!
