LAST COMIC STANDING LIVE
WHEN: Monday, October 4, 8 PM
WHERE: McCarter Theatre Center, 91 University Place, Princeton
TICKETS: $25
609.258.ARTS (2787)
Who doesn’t need a good laugh? Even better, a whole evening of them? Last Comic Standing Live stars the finalists from the seventh season of the Emmy-nominated hit series, which returned to NBC in June, hosted by Craig Robinson (star of The Office). The 2010 edition of LCS follows an all-new group of unknown comics selected from open casting calls, plus invited comedians from all over the country—the best, brightest and funniest all competing for $250,000 and the title of “Last Comic Standing.” (Disclaimer here: my former neighbor’s grandson, Myq Kaplan, was a semi-finalist this summer—he was #6 and missed the final 5—and I voted for him as many times as I could. I love his intellectual, deadpan humor.)
Pat Metheny: The Orchestrion Tour
WHEN: Thursday, October 7, 8 PM
TICKETS: $25
609.258.ARTS (2787)
What do you do if you’ve been the superstar of the jazz guitar world for 35 years and have won every award and poll in sight—including a record 17 Grammys? Well, if you’re Pat Metheny, the answer is simple: “and now for something completely different.” His Orchestrion (also the title of his latest CD) is literally a one-man band, a kind of modern “Rube Goldberg player piano,” employing a literal wall of instruments sitting in cages and carpentry, on rods and risers, all triggered from his guitar with the aid of digital technology. There are pianos, vibes, a marimba, drums, guitarbots, mallets—everything but the kitchen sink. And the music Metheny’s written for this contraption, with its shifting tonal center, ranges from post-Coltrane jazz to Brazilian pop, with plenty of room in between for his own solo improvisations. As The New York Times put it, “The Orchestrion is still lunacy, but it breathes.”
REDUCED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY in The Complete World of Sports (abridged)
WHEN: Saturday, October 9, 7:30 PM
TICKETS: $25
The bad boys of abridgement are back! After applying its fast and funny approach to Shakespeare, the History of America, The Bible, Western Civilization, and All the Great Books, the RSC now sprints through the world of sports at record-breaking speed with its new championship comedy. Is bowling really a sport? What about poker or competitive eating? Which is more boring: baseball or cricket? Why is curling in the Winter Olympics? It promises to be a marathon of madness and mayhem as the world’s great sporting events are shrunk down to theatrical size.
