Cleveland’s hottest show is “PTG Live!” This place has everything: nickel back (pack), the word core repeated too many times, oddly considerate robbers and a political commentator who decided to read The Observer only to bring up the Dan and Phil content.
The time has come once more for “PTG Live!.” The Players’ Theater Group (PTG)’s take on late night comedy, a la Saturday Night Live (SNL), returned Oct. 24 for its fifth run in the Walter and Jean Kalberer Black Box Theatre. This semester, the slate featured a faculty monologue, a student musical guest—Before Closed Doors—and six sketches, which were all entirely student written, acted and produced.
In standard fashion, “PTG Live!” began with a cold open. “Core Core” tackles the issue plaguing every ex-Pinterest girl’s mind: the over romanticization and categorization of life. Cleveland is hit with a supervillain-induced plague: everyone is identifying with niche aesthetics that make no sense! The cure? Bland, deeply uncool software engineers. Though “Core Core” was the weakest sketch of the night, it deserved a light chuckle. “PTG Live!” quickly builds momentum and finds its groove in successive sketches.
After the cold open, “PTG Live!” jumped straight into the tongue-in-cheek humor that I love about the show. “Beers and Brotherhood” sees four frat guys play their first round of DnD. The twist? They’re oddly woke. As they fight fictional demons, a brother addresses his inner demons while another uses DnD as a form of self-expression. It’s a silly, ironic, heartwarming comedy at its finest, making for a great first sketch.
“Lesbian or Mormon” asks the audience an impossible question: is a woman with a hippie, peaceful, crystal enthusiast persona a lesbian or just a Mormon woman in Utah? Our protagonist—Crystal—ties herself in knots probing to find out if Evangeline is queer as well. In a triumph for our protagonist, her intense speculation was all for naught: Evangeline is a lesbian and Mormon! While Crystal is confused as to how someone can be queer and Mormon, the last beat of the sketch points out the irony in her belief, revealing she is another queer religious person as she herself is Jewish. It’s a simple premise with a lot of thought behind it that works.
Keeping with the silly tone, the sketch that follows was truly ridiculous. “Backpack full of Pennies” shows a mess of a man—Cash, ironically—getting robbed by Rich Robins. He hates his wife, he’s barely functioning and he doesn’t carry any currency besides pennies (which, for this sketch, were represented with nickels). The sketch closes with Cash getting lectured, then let go by Rich, and was immediately followed by Producer Raaghuv Vazirani begging for his nickels … back. This Penny has been informed that the sketch was not an extended Nickelback joke, and the crew simply could not get their hands on enough pennies for the performance. One can only hope that Vazirani got his nickels back.
The final sketch “Patent 6004596” was confusing; I don’t quite know why it works. For those of us who may not have an encyclopedic knowledge of U.S. patents, this is the patent for “Sealed crustless sandwich”—Uncrustables. The sketch brings us into that fateful day in the pitch room when “Patent 6004596″ was granted. “Patent 6004596” is an observational comedy that makes no sense and doesn’t really need to. If this makes you as distressed as it clearly made the PTG cast, fear not; “Patent 6004596” is now expired.
Circling back to the middle of the show, as always, fourth year Mary Coulter returned with the smash hit “Coultaire Report.” This go around, Coulter, perched upon a chaise lounge, got an upgrade: a projector on a white sheet. It is hard to summarize the “Coultaire Report” succinctly. Coulter jumps around such important topics as Furry Con coming to Cleveland, more bees being on the ground than usual and a lament about PTG being unable to perform in everyone’s favorite depressing but beautiful lecture hall, Strosacker Auditorium. Coulter has a stage presence that would rival any late night host, which is why this semester, I spoke with Coulter about their process of writing, one of the best things to come out of PTG Live.
Penelope Cloonan: “The Coultaire Report” is consistently one the highlights of the show for me. What is your process when writing and starring in “The Coultaire Report?”
Mary Coulter: So “The Coultaire report” was my dad’s idea at first. He teaches at a college in Pennsylvania, and they used to do a comedy show called “Faculty Follies” where all the faculty would put on a sketch comedy show. And while we don’t do that, I wanted to use his idea of the “The Coultaire report,” which he took from “The Colbert Report,” which was a 2010s Stephen Colbert satirical, political commentary kind of bit. So, he adopted it for the college where he works, and then I adopted it for Case Western. My process for writing it is just thinking of pop culture ideas. I usually don’t write it till about the week of or maybe a few days before. What’s a silly joke, what are things that people are talking about, whether they’re good or bad, and what can I say that’s funny about them? A lot of times it feels like I’m just doing five minutes of stand up, which I don’t mind at all; it’s not something I usually do, but I like doing it in the “The Coultaire report.”
PC: What drew you to this style of partially political, partially straight observational comedy?
MC: It’s really just a cross between “The Colbert Report” and “Weekend Update.” I wanted something like that in our sketch comedy show.
PC: You’re a graduating fourth-year—what brings you back to PTG and “PTG Live!” each semester?
MC: I’m actually the president of PTG. My friends have been producing PTG Live! for as many semesters as it’s been happening, and “The Coultaire Report” goes off so well. It’s [PTG Live!] made by pretty amazing people. I just love doing theater, performing and telling stories, so I always come back. Every semester I say I won’t do it again, and then every semester I come back, which is so silly.
PC: Most importantly—you mentioned in your monologue that you read The Observer to catch up on campus happenings—do you have a message for our readers?
MC: Case Western does have a theater department, and that’s surprising to a lot of people, but it’s awesome. Always come see our stuff. Free Palestine. Awesome. Thank you so much for asking me to do this.
You heard them! PTG has a full slate of shows this semester. If you’re looking for something experimental, on Dec. 5 check out “Neofuturism,” which advertises 30 plays in 60 minutes. PTG always puts on a good (cheap) show.