So, what is a crapshoot, exactly?  Basically it’s something risky — something that depends more on luck than on skill … something that has an unpredictable outcome.  But the secret to the success of Rising Sun Production’s monthly show Crapshoot! is that while a lot of it is wildly unpredictable, it’s sitting on the shoulders of talented folks who have a solid improv foundation and are pretty much ready to handle whatever gets thrown at them.  More luck than skill?  I’d say there’s skill aplenty here, and it comes zooming at you at 90mph in this variety show.  The result is a boisterous, crazy, sometimes chaotic but always hilarious night of pure enjoyment that offers up nothing but silliness, fun and entertainment.

The format for Crapshoot! is simple – and they stick to it. Part improv (well, more than part) part talk show, part audience participation, part balls-to-the-wall hilarity … these folks will do anything to give the audience a good time and I left with my sides hurting from laughter.  Just be warned if you answer their sweet-faced “Do you want to play a game?” with “Yes” then your name is going into the pool of volunteers who will be called up to the stage.  While it’s all in good fun, if you don’t want to play, make sure you don’t submit your name card.  If you do wanna play however … be ready for anything.

Each show is different but I can assume the basic premise will be the same. On my night host Mia Y. Anderson had the audience in the palm of her hand as she immediately warmed us up with material that was both prepared ahead of time as well as tossed off on the spot. As a full-fledged bisexual she had full license to flirt with any and all who caught her eye, and she did so with a naughty wink that never went too far.

There was just enough variety – served up in short segments – to keep the movement going: a talk-show format, some interviews with “Nurse Betty” where questions were taken from the audience, a game show (cue giant puffy dice) that was so hilarious I couldn’t catch my breath. The audience is encouraged to liquor up beforehand (and during!) so the looser the crowd the better the show.

Intersperesed between all the games, fake commercial breaks, and white fly girl dancing, there is some out-of-the box improv done on the spot to real life postcards and love letters – supplied by the audience.  (“BRING YOUR POSTCARDS, HIGH SCHOOL LOVE LETTERS, DIARY ENTRIES AND BREAK UP STORIES AND SEE YOUR MEMORIES ACTED OUT LIVE ON STAGE FOR THE AMUSEMENT OF OTHERS!” Click here to submit. All names will remain confidential.) Bad handwriting often proved to be the speed-bump which brought this otherwise funny bit to a halt.   I’d suggest perhaps vetting the cards before hand – not for content but for legibility.  Still, on my night the audience gamely rooted the cast on and was duely happy with the results.  It’s all in good fun, folks.

Coming in at just around an hour this later show is the perfect way to start an evening of hi-jinx of your own … see the show, get in a few laughs and then hit the great bars in the area. While almost all of your experience may vary, chances are this capable cast will do right by you.  You’ll have a blast.  And that, my friends, may be a crapshoot, but it’s also a pretty safe bet.

The cast I enjoyed on Thursday June 21st for Crapshoot! was:

Host Mia Y. Anderson
MC/Pianist/Closing Act: Michael Burns
Fly White Girls: Samantha DeSimone, Amanda Berry, Haley Selmon
Cowboy Deuce: Ryan Dursek
Nurse Betty: Sarah Norris
Jackie Walker: Haley Selmon
Wish you Were Here (Postcards Players): Mike Burns, Sarah Norris, Ryan Dursek, Amanda Berry
Post-Apocalyptic Mailman: Carl Fengler
Game Squad: Amanda Berry, Sarah Norris, Carl Fengler

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Goodnight Lovin' Trail Featuring Nic Mevoli & Olivia Rorick (Photo by David Anthony)

Have you ever stupidly misplaced something that was really important to you?  Just walked away from it, not realizing it was out of your hands until it was too late?  Remember that panic that gripped you to the very core?  How your blood turned to ice in your veins and your heart pounded so loud you could hear it in your ears?  In John Patrick Bray’s One-Act, Goodnight Lovin’ Trail, this is the moment we meet a traveler who’s just realized he’s left behind the most important thing he owns – Della: his guitar.  Without Della this stranger feels like  ”a wave of the ocean hung out to dry.”

It’s the middle of the night and Lee (Olivia Rorick) is the lone waitress working the diner when the stranger (Nic Mevoli) rushes in, desperate to find the guitar he somehow lost track of during the night.  He’s retracing his steps in the hopes that someone will recognize his rare guitar.  Lee hasn’t seen it, she tells him, but she has an idea where someone who came across it may want to unload it, and she give him the address of a pawn shop which is, of course, closed at this time of night. It becomes obvious soon enough that Lee knows exactly where Della is.  But she’s not telling.

With nothing much else  to do the two settle down and share stories of their lives – the kinds of stories that tip out so easily when two people are alone together in a diner in the middle of the night.  Late at night, we’ll tell strangers secrets.  The more the two talk the more the stranger is sure his guitar will turn up; “Anything that is lost usually wants to be found. She‟ll find her way back to me.”

What unfolds between these two people is a perfect moment suspended in time, an act that can only exist when anonymity fuels a relationship and all guards come down.  Lee and the stranger may never cross paths again, but their stories get written on top of one another’s for one night, and maybe that’s more important.

Goodnight Lovin’ Trail is about as perfect a one act play as I’ve ever come across; effectively comprised of all the parts that make a play work: characters who are brimming with contradiction, both hopeful and hopeless  and  a story line that  drops in on the surface of these lives like a perfect teardrop.  The arc is heartbreaking and real and, under the direction of Akia who uses a restrained hand, the actors play their parts straight-on neither tipping too far into needless brio or hopeless subjugation but just walking the line of solid truth.  This play will leave you with tears glistening in your eyes – no small feat for a show that clocks in at just over half an hour.

A perfect gem found along a dusty trail; Goodnight Lovin’ Trail will leave you remembering the things you’ve lost along that road that stretches out behind you.

~~~

FRIGID New York Festival 2011 will run February 23-March 6 at The Kraine Theater & The Red Room (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1sr Ave and Ave A). Tickets ($10-$16) may be purchased online at www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444. All shows will run 60 minutes long or less.

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