Bluff City Liars (Photo: Courtesy Bluff City Liars)
Improv and music go hand in hand. After all, how do you make music without a little bit of improv? But Zephyr McAninch, director of the improv troupe Bluff City Liars, wanted to add more music into their improv because who doesn’t like a little bit of music with their improv? So they came up with the two-night Liar’s Ball, where the Liars will play improv games inspired by and backed by the tunes of Louise Page on Friday and Rosey on Saturday.
“Our regular shows typically don’t have a musical element,” McAninch says. “Every now and again, we’ve been able to work in a musical game. … But the ball aspect is there’s music very heavily integrated into the show [with the special musical guests].”
This ball will be the Liar’s second, with last year’s featuring Dandelion Williams and HEELS. “It was just such a success. I think it’s my favorite show we’ve ever done,” McAninch says. “It makes me feel like more of a rock star right there with the band. Everything we’re doing is a little bit silly, but it feels cooler when you’ve got Rosey giving you the backing track for your doo-wop song, or you got Louise Page laying down the piano for Hoedown [a musical improv game you might recognize from Whose Line Is It Anyway?].”
The show will also give audience members a chance to hear Page’s and Rosey’s originals in between games. “I can’t recommend these bands enough,” McAninch says, “so I’m excited for the possibility of getting to introduce somebody to either of them.”
But, of course, being the improv aficionado they are, McAninch is also excited about the possibility of introducing anyone and everyone to improv. “I think everyone should try improv,” they say. “I was the quiet, shy one before I started doing improv [in college], and when I told my parents I joined an improv troupe, they said, ‘You?’ … I just kind of fell in love with it. It’s a wildly fun, massively accessible art form, and it’s weirdly applicable to so many other parts of your life.
“Improv is just not knowing what’s happening. That’s everything that’s ever happening in your life. And on top of that, when kids play, they’re just improvising; they just have fun. We forget how to do it, so I just want to help people remember how to do it.”
So, in addition to shows like the ball this weekend where folks can watch childlike play in action, Bluff City Liars hosts a free improv workshop where attendees can take part in the play themselves at TheatreWorks@The Square on the first and third Monday of each month at 6 p.m. “It is no-commitment,” McAninch says. “You just drop in whenever you feel like it. We adapt what we’re talking about that week to who is there and what skill level is present.”
Keep up with the Liars at bluffcityliars.com, where you can also purchase tickets for the upcoming Liars’ Ball.
Liars’ Ball, TheatreWorks@the Square, 2085 Monroe, Friday, June 7, 8 p.m. | Saturday, June 8, 8 p.m., $12/advance, $15/at the door.
Kevin McDonald grew up in the suburbs outside Toronto, Canada. When he was a teenager, he started making the 45-minute trek into the city to take an improv comedy class at the legendary Second City theater which had produced some of the most significant comedy talent of the last 50 years. “It was a bus, a subway, and a bus to get there,” he says. “I remember for the whole 45 minutes before my first class. I was so nervous, I did a thing that you don’t do in improv: I started writing jokes so I could try to use them when I was at an improv. Of course, it never worked out. It never goes that way.
“I went to Second City workshops, and everybody was over 30. There were only two teenagers in the class. It was me and another teenager named Mike Myers.”
Myers would go on to fame as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, then as the star of the Austin Powers film series. McDonald teamed up with another friend he met at Second City, Dave Foley, to found The Kids in the Hall. The comedy troupe, though born in improv, started concentrating more on writing sketches as they gained a cult following by performing at the Toronto punk rock club The Rivoli in the mid-1980s. SNL producer Lorne Michaels discovered them and developed a sketch comedy show, which debuted on CBC and HBO in 1988. Over five seasons, The Kids in the Hall would go on to become a big influence on all kinds of comedy in the 1990s and beyond. As documented in the 2022 film The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks, success definitely went to their heads, and after the harrowing production of their 1996 movie Brain Candy, the Kids wouldn’t work together again for more than a decade. They eventually reunited for an excellent sixth season on Amazon Prime in 2022.
McDonald has appeared in numerous films and TV shows, from Lilo & Stitch to Arrested Development. He’s also forayed into stand-up comedy, which the self-described shy guy says was a difficult transition. “You stop being afraid when you find your own voice,” he says. “I found that my voice was telling stories — I can tell a funny story. In fact, the rock opera was a story I was going to do in stand-up. Then I thought it was too big for stand-up, too operatic.”
When McDonald appears at Memphis’ Black Lodge on Saturday, April 13th, he will be performing Kevin McDonald: Superstar. “I’m doing a rock opera with the gang — I don’t use that word enough, I should use the word ‘gang’ more often — the gang from Bluff City Liars. I wrote it, even though I can’t write songs, and I sing the lead, even though I can’t really sing.”
As you might expect from the title, McDonald says the first song in the cycle is about his Jesus Christ Superstar fandom. “I was a Catholic as a kid, and the only thing I liked at Catholic school was when one of the teachers showed us Jesus Christ Superstar. I was in grade seven and I fell in love with it. I’ve seen it, I’m guessing, between 40 and 50 times.”
As for the rest of the rock opera, McDonald says it is “based on a true story me and Dave Foley from The Kids in the Hall are involved in.”
Backing McDonald will be Memphis folk punkers HEELS. “Brennan [Whalen] and I are both huge Kids in the Hall marks,” says drummer (and comedian in his own right) Josh McLane. “The fact that Brennan is the musical accompaniment and I’m the narrator is a dream come true to say the least!”
“We’ve had a blast working on this show,” says the Liars’ Amber Schalch. “It’s been an excellent way to stretch out our comedy muscles, and we couldn’t be more honored that he’s coming to Memphis to perform and do workshops with us.”
Before the show on Saturday, and then again on Sunday, McDonald will be teaching two comedy workshops with the Bluff City Liars. “Kevin McDonald is such a skilled comedian that he almost makes you think you’re not funny yourself, but then he’s such a good teacher that he alleviates that fear with as much ease as cracking a joke,” says Zephyr McAninch, who was with the Liars when they brought McDonald to Memphis before the pandemic.
Bluff City Liars’ Michael Degnan says the show is not to be missed. “Growing up, The Kids in the Hall were incredibly important and influential on my developing sense of humor. Getting to learn from and perform improv with Kevin when he last came to town was a dream come true. Now getting to help bring his work to life takes that dream to a new level, and I’m ecstatic that we’ll get to do so alongside HEELS and Savannah Bearden who have both been responsible for so much great entertainment in Memphis for the last decade.”
See Kevin McDonald Superstar at Black Lodge on Saturday, April 13, 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at tinyurl.com/2bhjpy2z.
Bluff City Liars, an improv comedy troupe in Memphis, returns to the Brass Door this Friday to improvise an entertaining mix of short-form and long-form scenes at its sixth Improv Underground (iU).
The group will start the evening off with a few games of short-form scenes similar to what can be seen on Whose Line Is It Anyway?
“We always open the show with a game called Change,” says Brandon McAninch, director of Bluff City Liars and producer of Improv Underground. In this game, two comedians will play out a scenario, and at any point McAninch can call for one of the players to change the last thing they did or said.
Moriah Drinkard Loya
“Yes, and …”
“That’s always fun because I think that kind of encapsulates the idea of improv,” he says. “The players say something, and then the rug is pulled out from under them, and they have to improvise something new off the cuff.”
After that and other short-form games like Freeze Tag and line games, the troupe will move on to their specialty: long-form.
“A common joke is that long-form is for improvisers,” McAninch says. “It’s kind of like improvising a pilot episode of a TV show.”
One of the group’s favorite scenes involves asking an audience member to tell them something amusing about the town they grew up in, whether that’s an interesting person or town lore. “Then, we’ll try to show the audience what we think a typical day in that small town looks like,” says McAninch. “Of course, it’s always far from typical.”
And, in true holiday spirit, the troupe is changing it up for this show with a new format and a new holiday twist.
Improv Underground VI, The Brass Door, Friday, December 6th, 8-10 p.m., $5.
If Monty Pythonare the Beatles of TV sketch comedy, The Kids in the Hall are Duran Duran. I borrowed that line from Kids co-founder Kevin McDonald, who’s been known to use it in his standup routine. It’s a great gag because it’s a terrible metaphor. If we’re being honest, The Kids are more like The Zit Remedy of comedy. Or maybe the Triumph of comedy. The point is, they were Canadian. Like Loverboy. They were also smart, savage, and over-the-top.
What’s Kids in the Hall Co-Founder Kevin McDonald Doing in Memphis?
Critics were mean to Brain Candy, but the Kids only feature film looks pretty good in hindsight. What’s not to appreciate about an evil Pharma company’s mad, mad, (mad, mad, mad) rush to commodify health, market an untested happy pill, and warehouse a nation? It’s a dark, borderline cynical fable of success and corruption that, for being implausibly white, pairs beautifully with Boots Riley’s surreal romp, Sorry to Bother You. Both are comic book-style journeys to the dark heart of the Winning class — A tour through the gilded rooms where the real party (inside the party) never stops and things are always weirder, dumber, and way more evil than you’d ever expect. But mostly dumber.
Local comedy fans have good reason to be excited. McDonald is on his way to town to lead a pair of workshops and perform an intimate program of comedy three ways: Standup, sketch, and an improv jam with Memphis’ own Bluff City Liars. Here’s what McDonald told The Flyer about being a Kid, teaching comedy to people who are terrible at comedy, and whether or not super dreamy TV host Darcy Pennell ever got to roll with The Hell Riders. (Spoiler alert: SHE DID!!!)
What’s Kids in the Hall Co-Founder Kevin McDonald Doing in Memphis? (2)
Memphis Flyer: Okay, I’ve been waiting 25-years at least to ask this question.
Kevin McDonald: Okay.
MF: Darcy Pennell. Did she ever finally get to roll with The Hell Riders?
KM: Sure. It’s my imagination, sure she did. She did a story. It was supposed to be a story for one weekend but she fell in love with Ace, the second in command which was frustrating because his name was Ace, so you’d think he’d be in command. But he was second in command. And she fell in love with him and they stayed together a year and then he broke her heart and she went back to the TV business. There, I made that up.
MF: Fantastic. Good for Darcy.
KM: Darcy Pennell was based on a local Toronto host of a TV talk show named Dini Petty.
MF: I didn’t know the character was inspired by one person. I’d assumed it was an amalgamation.
KM: Well, the name was. She sort of acted kind of forceful and strong. I can never do impressions, so I took this one aspect of her show that I really found interesting and I put it in Darcy Pennell.
MF: Nice. Can you tell me a little about the thing you’re doing in Memphis with Bluff City Liars? They said you’d reached out and found them. Is this a thing you do regularly? Find regional improv groups and then do workshops and a show with area comics?
KM: Yeah. I’ve been going around North America and doing that for the past four or five years. I spend weekends and I go to theaters with improv troupes and I teach them the Kids in the Hall method during the day. When I’m not doing cartoons or shooting stuff or doing my big podcast Kevin McDonald’s Kevin McDonald Show — I’ve got one coming out with Weird Al Yankovic and Tim and Eric.
MF: Oh, cool. I just saw he’s on tour and coming to The Orpheum in Memphis. Weird Al. Not Tim or Eric.
KM: He won’t be there this weekend will he?
MF: No, I don’t think. I think that’s a 2019 date. I just saw the announcement.
KM: It would be amazing if he was. He’s the nicest guy in the world. He sorta looks like he’d be the nicest guy in the world, and he is the nicest guy in the world. Anyway, I spend my weekends teaching and performing like I will Sunday night.
What’s Kids in the Hall Co-Founder Kevin McDonald Doing in Memphis? (3)
MF: It’s a cool thing. Gives comics and writers access to your process. To a Kids in the Hall experience. And also we get a chance to see you perform. What’s the origin story for this project.
KM: Well, I moved to Winnipeg. And I thought I wouldn’t get as much TV and film work as I’d been getting. I still get a lot, but I have to fly to places. So I had to think of something else. So, I have these boring theories about sketch comedy that I’ve been bring people for years with at cocktail parties. And I was performing at Toronto Comedy Fest with Scott Thompson of Kids in the Hall, and they asked if I could teach. And I said I could throw something together. And I kinda liked it. And then I developed this thing. I guess it’s been six years, actually.
MF: I remember one time hearing you talk about the writing process with Kids in the Hall. About how you really thought the writing was the strong suit. Is that a focus of the workshops?
KM: Yeah. I think writing was sort of our strength. I think we’re all really good performers, so that gets into the writing. I teach the students writing through improv. So writing and performing are the same thing. But it all starts with the idea. And I think we were all very good with the idea. Then we learned how to go from an idea to a whole sketch through improv. Then when we got the TV show we had to actually write them down. Then we became like writer-writers. And we had to be performer-performers.
What’s Kids in the Hall Co-Founder Kevin McDonald Doing in Memphis? (5)
MF: I don’t want to say dark, that’s kind of an attitude, but there was a tone. I was watching some old sketches today and thought they were funnier than I did the first go-round. And prescient.
KM: Funny you say that. There are some things about the show that if I watch today by accident I’ll be like, “Oh, why was I complaining about that scene? That’s a really good scene?”
MF: Funny that way. And the film Brain Candy, looking back from 2018 it’s like you were looking into a crystal ball. I know you were just responding to the advent of Prozac and drug marketing…
KM: Yeah, exactly, it was. It was Prozac, but that was like the beginning of all of it, wasn’t it?
MF: There’s that line after your character has been invited to the secret VIP party inside the VIP party and wakes up with two women in bed. They’re called over to sign legal waiver saying the night never happened.
KM: It’s nice of you to say that. I don’t know if it’s a fluke or…
MF: It’s anachronistic, I know…
KM: But I’m very proud of the movie. It’s not just a good comedy movie, it’s sort of a good movie movie. It is sketchy, but we wanted to do a movie that was a whole movie but had great parts because we were a sketch troupe. And by whole I mean W-H-O-L-E not H-O-L-E.
MF: Yeah, that would be awkward.
KM: Bad plan.
MF: When you go out and work with troupes are the ideas they bring in already kind of Kids in the Hally?
KM: I don’t think so. Maybe I’m to close to it. Sometimes it’s an idea that reminds me of an old idea of ours and they don’t know it. But a lot of times it’s more Saturday Night Live or Key and Peele. And a lot of times it’s just bad because a lot of them are just starting out on sketches and I know my first hundred were probably horrible.
MF: That’s the learning curve. But what do you do with that, just rip the Band Aid: “You’re horrible, let’s work on that.”
KM: At first I didn’t know what to do, but now I know how to work with lots of things. What we do is, on the first day I break everybody up into groups and we improvise. Then that afternoon we work on turning those improvs into sketches. But then they get homework. The have to bring in a comedy premise on Sunday. I pick my five favorites and we work on that all day. Sometimes there’s a lot of good ones.
What’s Kids in the Hall Co-Founder Kevin McDonald Doing in Memphis? (4)
Moriah Drinkard Loya 