For the past eight years, actor/writer Mitchell Fain has been dressing up to be "Crumpet the Elf" in Theater Wit's annual production of David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries. But for some reason the rights to the hit one-man holiday show were restricted for 2016.
"As an actor, it's great to know that I have a gig at the end of the year," said Fain about all his previous years as a veteran Crumpet.
So with no Santaland slated for this year, Fain got the courage to approach Theater Wit artistic director Jeremy Wechsler with the idea of sharing his own holiday-themed stories onstage. The result is the world-premiere of Fain's This Way Outta Santaland ( and other Xmas miracles ).
"I just decided to invite people in, we're going to have a cozy little time and we're going to tell some stories," said Fain, emphasizing how the show also stars his dear friend Meghan Murphy ( famed for her cabaret persona as "Big Red" ).
"Without bias, or actually, with bias, [Murphy] is the best singer-actress in Chicago," said Fain, also happy to have Second City stalwart Julie Nichols aboard as the show's music director.
Several of the show's stories are written and rehearsed in advance, while others will pull from Fain's improv training and work at The Second City by drawing out tales from the audience. But don't worry if you're averse to audience interaction. Fain says it's more of a conversation instead of making audiences physically doing silly things.
"One of the challenges of doing a one-person show of someone's story over and over again is to give the audience the feeling that it's happening for the first time and that it's personal," said Fain about keeping Santaland Diaries fresh each night. "This time around, since I had the opportunity to do something new, I'm actually going to create that for real."
Fain is tackling topics like finding home and how the holidays put a spotlight on how a person can fit in ( or doesn't ).
"As a gay, Jewish person, the holidays can sometimes feel like they're not for me or about me," Fain said. "Also, I think the show is about how we make our own home—create our own families of choice."
At the very least with This Way Outta Santaland, Fain doesn't risk having audiences confuse him for author/speaker David Sedaris.
"A lot of people don't know what he looks like," Fain said. "I can't tell you the number of times somebody would come up to me afterward and say, 'David, we love your books.'"
This Way Outta Santaland ( and other Xmas miracles ) plays from Friday, Nov. 25, through Friday, Dec. 23, at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Bemont Ave. Tickets are $20-$29. A special Windy City Times Night performance is slated for 8 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6. Call 773-975-8150 or visit TheaterWit.org .
Note: Mitchell Fain is a former co-host of The Windy City Queercast, a podcast once produced by Windy City Media Group, which publishes Windy City Times.
Camp for Christmas
There's no question that actor/writer/artistic director David Cerda is the driving force behind Chicago's premier camp theater company Hell in a Handbag Productions. But if you were to nominate Hell in a Handbag's most valuable supporting player or designated scene stealer, that honor would go to actor Ed Jones.
For more than 15 years, Jones has made audience roar with laughter for outrageous Handbag characters in both female and male drag. Jones gets a chance to shine even more as the title character in Cerda's world-premiere comedy The Rip Nelson Holiday Spectacular, a sequel to 2010's The Rip Nelson Halloween Spooktacular.
The has-been actor Rip Nelson is an amalgam of camp actors like Rip Taylor ( The Gong Show ), Charles Nelson Reilly ( Match Game ) and Paul Lynde ( Bewitched, The Hollywood Squares ).
"They were campy and they weren't initially openly gay, it wasn't ever overtly stated, but it was like a big wink to the audience... I related to them because they were just being themselves and were very flamboyant," said Jones about first seeing actors like Lynde and Reilly on TV in the 1970s. "So when I got to do this character, it was actually a homage to them."
The blended character was actually a necessity because Handbag's original plans to center their 2010 spoof of variety TVs specials around Lynde were challenged by the estate that controls the late star's likeness. But Jones is ultimately glad that he's not tied to a single celebrity.
"Actually the character is more like me instead of them," Jones laughed. "As a kid, I wasn't open about being gay, but I was campy, sarcastic and flamboyant so there's a lot of similarities to myself."
For the Nelson's holiday variety show circa 1982, Cerda has taken delight in bringing together all sorts of odd celebrity pairings. The guests include Dom Deluise ( Tommy Bullington ), Liza Minnelli ( Alexa Castevecchi ), magician Doug Henning ( David Lipschutz ) and even Bruce Jenner ( Chazie Bly ).
"One of the things about the guests we have is like on those TV variety shows of the 1970s and '80s, there's such a weird hodgepodge of guests," Jones said. "These people would never be in the same room together under any other circumstances."
Though Jones has performed with other companies like Factory Theater and the old Bailiwick Repertory, he considers Handbag Productions to be his home.
"I'm just a huge fan of [Cerda's] writing and his comic sensibilities and I love the fact that I'm able to in his shows," Jones said. "I'll be in them as long as he'll have me."
Hell in a Handbag Productions' world premiere of David Cerda's The Rip Nelson Holiday Spectacular continues through Friday, Dec. 30, at Mary's Attic, 5400 N. Clark St. Preview tickets are $16 through Friday, Nov. 25. Regular run tickets are $28-$30 with VIP tickets packages beginning at $42. Call 800-838-3006 or visit HandbagProductions.org .
