A mere four weeks after the January show, “A Tail of Nine Lives,” Northwestern improv group Mee-Ow is ready for their second show of the quarter. “The Mee-Ow Kids Solve a Murder at Chuck Fuffalo’s” promises to be even more fun, raunchy and random than the last show
Equal parts improv, sketch comedy and rock and roll, most Mee-Ow shows feature sketches unrelated to each other. But this time Mee-Ow created a storyline set in a run-down theme park, Chuck Fuffalo’s. The production team built an elaborate theme park set with bright lights, a Ferris wheel background and a cat with a cowboy hat.
Producer Tracey Cook, a Communication sophomore, says she’s bent on making the show “a whole experience,” with theme park fun from start to finish. Mee-Ow will offer food and activities before the show to set the mood.
But the show still contains a large amount of improv, said Weinberg senior and Mee-Ow cast member Josh Waytz. Even the sketches aren’t set in stone. “It changes every night. Everything gets swapped around,” he said.
With two shows in less than a month, the cast has spent hours writing and revising completely new material. “I’ve seen these folks more in the last few months than I’ve seen my notebooks,” Waytz said.
The tight schedule doesn’t worry cast member Tim McGovern. “Being under pressure of time always is creatively beneficial because you can create so much,” the Communication senior said. “Being under a gun, you could write an epic novel.”
An entire third of the show is unscripted, and the only way to practice is by playing improv games. Cast members create punchlines to jokes, invent characters and dance around. This weekend, though, they’ll have to adapt to audience input.
“We’re pretty much prepared to do anything,” McGovern said.
Mee-Ow presents “The Mee-Ow Kids Solve a Murder at Chuck Fuffalo’s” in the Louis Room in Norris on Thursday at 10 p.m., and Friday and Saturday at 8 and 11 p.m. It promises hilarity, loud music and spontaneity — with maybe a bit of random dancing for good measure. And it may just cure your winter quarter blues.
“The weather is gloomy, the midterms are piling up like a stack of flapjacks,” Waytz said. “Life needs a little comic relief.”