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A few years ago (okay many years ago), I had the honor of working with and getting to know some people from a place called The Annoyance Theatre in Chicago. I thought that particular group of quick-witted, warp speed moving, pop culture devouring, political skewering people was among the most brilliant comic writers/performers I could ever know. It turns out that I was right, and the rest of the world has not only gotten to know many of those people by name, but we welcome a good number of them into our living rooms via the dozens of television shows and movies they appear in regularly. Others of this company are on stages across America. I am proud to call many of them friends to this day.
If you read other reviews of mine, you will know that I have found that same level of brilliance in an actress named Alexandra Billings. Interestingly, she is also from Chicago, which causes me to wonder what's in the water there. It was Katie’s Corner (a show by Alexandra Billings) that introduced me to still another comedic, character actor who you should get to know: Danny Casillas and his creation of Frieda Laye. But wait, this gets better. Frieda Laye is best known for one of my favorite Spanglish Classics, "Chico's Angels," a web series about three crime-fighting Latinas. If you're still with me on this, also from "Chico's Angels" is Oscar Quintero, who plays the voluptuous Kay Sedia. Kay Sedia is not from Chicago, but from Mexico, and sadly, I know all too well what's in the water there.
After seeing Danny as Frieda in a performance of Katie’s Corner, I simply had to go see 
what an entire sketch comedy show would be like if it were built around a single fictional person playing variations of themself. In this case, Danny's "Chico's Angels" co-star Oscar Quintero as Kay Sedia. So, I ran to see Sketchy Queens at the Cavern Club Theatre in Los Angeles. The bottom line here, is that you should do the same.
The show asks the musical question, “What happens when you combine a Tennessee beauty queen and a Tijuana high fashion model who just happen to be 2 of America's top selling Tupperware Divas?” The answer: about an hour and change worth of hysteria. The laughs in this show come like lightning strikes. But if lightning ever struck this often or frequently, the city of Los Angeles would burn to the ground like Tara in Gone With the Wind.
Kay’s more than capable co-star in this insanity is Dee W. Eye: a Tennessee beauty queen who is now apparently, the #1 selling Tupperware salesperson in America. The other integral part of this show is the group of gifted improvisational actors who are greek chorus, actual chorus, featured characters, comic foes, freaks, geeks, pop stars and stoners. All of them work seamlessly via the direction of Kimberly Lewis, to whom I can only say, “Brava!”
I can’t talk much about what the content is without spoiler alerts, but I can tell you there are some particular highlights to look for: oh wait… I can’t even tell you that. I’ll go about this a little differently. I’ll tell you what didn’t work. Very little. Even while waiting for the lights to come up after a scene or costume change, the audience was completely engaged by…. Oh wait, that would spoil it.
This show is in a limited run through the weekend. Easter Shmeester, trust me you’ve got NOTHING better to do than to see this group of lunatics make you laugh so hard you’ll cry and need a tissue. But when you ask for that tissue you’ll only get…damn, I almost spoiled it again.
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