Matthew S. Starr

The ( ) Class I took at UCB with Chris Gethard and 26 other mad improvisers culminated in the most exciting time I have ever had on stage.  While it is impossible for me to explain this show to you if you were not in attendance, and the thesis of the show was that only those in attendance would get to enjoy it, I have written a full recap of everything that happened that night on stage at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. 

I delivered the opening monologue which established the theme for the show and was accused afterwards of having pre-written it. I assure everyone I did not, but this accusation only adds to my joy of thinking about this show because I came away feeling like we got away with something.  

Here is the full recap:

Lights up
—Opening monologue about the world’s greatest restaurant in Spain that is closing. The restaurant only has 50 seats, so not everyone gets to enjoy it.  This theatre is like that and the audience has the menu. They may eat and drink anything comedy they like, all they have to do is order.
—Players enter the crowd as waiters welcoming them to the restaurant and taking first orders. Chairs and tables are set up on stage. Josh gives someone in the audience a beer. 
—First order up, from Jesse, a scene about eskimos. 
—Klinman and Noah take the order and begin.  Connor walks in.
—The next order is up…It’s like, a naked lady and a sister with brussel sprouts. Josh, Samantha (?) get up on stage but focus goes to JD who steps forward, little notebook in hand.
—JD announces the changes to the menu for the night. Sadly, the restaurant is out of the Don Fanelli, the Dru Johnston, the Laura Willcox, both kinds of Georges, etc. Players begin to ask how the Jackie Jennings is. She has some kick and goes well with the Phil Jackson. The audience requests to try the Jennings and Jackson.
—Jackie and Phil stand off to the side as Josh and Samantha play out their scene.
—Exit Maelle to the bodega to purchase Jimmy Fallon Ben and Jerry’s and Vodka. Exit Starr to the Rite Aid for mini donuts.
—Return, Jackie and Phil are completing their scene.
—Maelle pulls up her two customers onto the stage and seats them. Welcomes them to the restaurant. Walks backstage to get their food.
—Starr up to offer them a serenade of any song they choose while they dine.  Food is served to the audience members. They request N’Sync’s “Bye, Bye, Bye”
—Bye, Bye, Bye begins to play on the speakers. Mayer, Murph, Dennie, Starr, Holmes, and Kolsky (!) perform the song, complete with crazy vocals and dance moves from Holmes and Mayer.
—Josh takes a seat at adjacent table as the song ends. Mudon is his waitress.  The two audience members are still eating their ice cream on the stage and stayed there until they finished it.  Josh orders a kind of stew that Mudon calls “New England bullshit.” She walks backstage. Josh begins talking to the audience members as another patron at the restaurant. Jesse walks and sits across the table from him, “If you don’t want to be on this date with me, just say so.”
—Maelle brings Josh a bottle of water, Poland Springs, offering that it’s from New England. The water makes Josh upset and he throws the open, full bottle of water on the stage. Huge water explosion.
—Murph walks in with a single paper towel to try to dry it off. Dennie joins him guarding people from stepping on the water. They both start doing straight slapstick pratfalls in the water.
—Klinman walks over to the audience members still eating ice cream and offers them something. Maelle accuses of him of sniping her table and they both go backstage and are heard screaming at each other about tips.
—As the screaming is going on, mini-donuts for everyone!
—Mini-donuts are being distributed when another customer is brought on stage, who wants to eat dinner with Harvey Milk. Cutler obliges and plays a pretty spot on Harvey Milk eating dinner with the customer. 
—Cutler and the customer enjoy their conversation.  They are joined by their waitress, Kolsky as the girl member of N’Sync who was kicked out of the band because she sucked and was going through a tough time. Samantha was antagonizing Kolsky for being so shitty in N’Sync and for aborting the child of Joey Fatone, the fat, ugly member of the band.
—JD walks out from the back curtain.  “Bad news, the restaurant didn’t make rent and has to close.”
—Lights down. On the god mic, “And the sun set on the restaurant, and it reopened as a Borders.”
—Connor out on stage. Noah sitting reading at the back. Somebody was arranging books on the other side of the stage.
—Mayer, a new employee at the Borders who used to work at the restaurant asks Connor what he should do about his orders that didn’t get placed. Connor advises that he not bring his baggage to work with him, like he used to when his wife died.  It was established by Noah that is was very funny when Connor’s wife dead, and though he was in pain, they all laugh about it now.  It is also established that Noah is a Border’s premium rewards member and so he is allowed to just sit in the cafe with one coffee.
—Mayer’s order was for a Sex on the Beach and chocolate. Mayer decided that was like a romance novel.  He pulls a book off the shelf. Maelle steps forward and begins to play out the pages of the novel. She is joined by JD as Fabio.  Unfortunately, she is blind, which according to JD is “Too bad because his appearance is his best features.”  Dennie on stage to sell them some chocolate as a little Italian boy.  Fabio beats up the little Italian boy and returns to the Maelle.  Josh becomes waves lapping up on a beach. Maelle stands with her back to JD who pulls her close and says, “I have entered you.”  Connor asks JD if he is a rewards member. JD and Maelle exit.
—Jesse walks up and asks Connor why he’s been writing himself into all of the books. 
—Starr brings a girl from the audience on stage. Addressing Connor the manager, when this was a restaurant, she would have gotten her order of a birthday cake with 30 candles, but since it’s a Borders what can we give her?  Connor offers to sign her up to be a premium rewards member like Noah, and Klinman gives her two mimed books.  The whole crowd sings happy birthday to her. 
—Kolsky places the order for “A Thanksgiving Dinner with no Turkey.”
—A 20 seat dining room table is set up. Noah is thankful for being alive. People begin to wonder aloud about where the turkey is. Klinman and Murph are trying to take care of it.  People get upset that they aren’t at the table. They say the turkey is important.  It is established that Murph is Klinman’s new girlfriend and that we don’t like her. Murph knocks over the bar on the stage, which upsets Mayer because his vase was on it.  Mayer begins trying to put his vase together.  Drespel brings up that we invited his new girlfriend to our dinner and then made her cook for us, so it’s on us that she’s acting like a bitch.  Starr asks about the elephant in the room, the seat next to Connor is empty that’s where his now dead wife would have sat.  People laugh about his mourning her.  Jackie sits in the chair and everyone gasps and shrieks. She is the ghost of his dead wife.  
—Connor talks to the ghost of his dead wife, made possible by wishing on the Thanksgiving star.  Drespel asks Connor why, when given a wish for anything, he still wished that his wife was a ghost.
—We see the night that Jackie died.  Connor is driving, Jackie and Jesse are in the backseat, Maelle is behind them, as their dog.  They see a squirrel, Phil, and they stop.  Jackie gets out to investigate and is kidnapped by the squirrel. 
—Back to the dinner. Jackie is asked if she has ghost powers.  Can she turn back time to fix Mayer’s vase? Can she turn back time to restore the closed restaurant?  She tries.  Starr makes the box of mini donuts begin to float and flap it’s top.  The stage clears and the restaurant is returned to its status with Noah and Mudon sitting and eating mini donuts.
—Next order up is for clowns. Clown music starts playing and a myriad of people move about the restaurant as clowns. 
—Phil up in the center stage.  He has an order from a very powerful audience member named Lucas who says that if he doesn’t see a scene outside of the theatre, he will kill Phil. The move is made to go outside. 
—Outside, a completely separate film crew is set up for whatever reason.  The audience lead by our actors gathers round their equipment and asks their actors to play the scene out for the crowd. 
—Out comes Pat Baer who informs the crowd that show is over and that they must disperse. 
—Holmes pulls up in his real unmarked police vehicle with the blue and red lights blinking and begins asking what the hell is going on. 
—The show ends with the crowd disoriented and curious about what is reality and what is not.  Eventually, they move to the end of the street with the members of ( ) thanking them for attending. 
—The show is over?

Run time for the show: 50 minutes.