Electric Arc Radio
The Electric Arc radio show defies definition. It's a radio show but it's not actually broadcast on the radio. It's a variety performance that has been referred to as “Garisson Keillor on crack.” What can I say? The performers swig beer out of the bottle while reading from scripts, and the audience swigs along with, trying not to snort Summit out of their noses in response to the quirky antics of the characters.
The house band and narrator set the stage for each unique performance with their theme song about four writers living in a fictitious house in a South Minneapolis neighborhood. The writers compose their own adventures which bump into one another like so many billiard balls, punctuated here and there by songs from various local bands.
During tonight's installment, Sam, the writer who lives in an upstairs room of the house with his own hot tub and mustachioed girlfriend, got word of a tiki bar for sale at the neighbor's (inexplicable midwinter) garage sale. He enthusiastically purchases it and sets about invading his house mate Brady's sacred basement room to set up his for-profit enterprise. Herbach, another house mate with a princess bed and a thong collection, is aghast at this blatant display of capitalism and protests by constructing a Brazilian-style slum for the workers, just across the kiddie pool in that very same basement. As the fourth house mate Steph (who's room is a cubicle on the stairway landing) goes into a breakdown over the methods by which she can gain some respect, pandemonium ensues. Brady, the self-style king of Norway, whose bedroom is that selfsame basement, seeks the counsel of both Mohamed the paperboy and Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman who now conveniently lives in a tree house in the authors' backyard (where he spends his time playing clarinet.)
If it sounds confusing, don't worry. I had no idea what to expect from this production, despite have read various articles about it. As I said, the Electric Arc radio show is impossible to define. But oh, will it make you LAUGH!
Tickets are $8 per person, and shows are currently being held at the Ritz Theater in Northeast Minneapolis. Check the Electric Arc Radio website for scheduling, and bring cash for refreshments if you'd like to drink along with the performers!
