Peculiar Journeys

WNEP Theater, along with founder and playwright Joe Janes, create one of the most memorable theatrical experiences anyone who saw it could imagine: Metaluna and The Amazing Science of the Mind Revue.

Life happened, as it always does, in 2011. On my birthday in 2012, I took inspiration from Charles Bukowski for my next tattoo.

Following the trials and triumphs of the earliest days of Chicago's WNEP Theater, the gang come back from their success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and nail down a triumvirate of theatrical and artistic successes with The Stink of Destiny, The Lost Weekend, and Monte La Grosjambe presents Sex eat one Femme.

The fourth tattoo on my arms, this one includes some audio from the late Hunter S. Thompson and the tale of being caught between a rock and a hard place but enduring nonetheless.

In today's journey, Don walks us through the creation of a complete mind screw of a double long-form improv show and both the preparations and trip to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (complete with some original clips from "The Armageddon Radio Hour" as voiced by Jason Meyer, Phill Arensberg and Joe Janes.)

Tattoo number three is from Kerouac and a year of one of the most contemptuous relationships in history.

Episode 30 joins the intrepid band of 1990's improvisers who dared to start a theater company in their second bar show, the dissolution of the company, the mounting of "Motherless Stage Whores," and the inevitable comeback thanks to a parody of Golden Age Radio.

In the second of ten tattoo story episodes, I recall some of my strident art vs commerce thoughts of 2008/2009 and what lead to the tattoo the states "Ars Gratia Artis."

Fall, 1991.

Having graduated from the Second City Training Program, Joe, Jeff and Don start an ensemble of actors, writers and improvisers and put up their first two shows with mixed results.

In this first episode of Season Three, Don starts the tales of the flesh with the story of his first (of ten) tattoo in 2008. “DADA its wie DADA” has more meaning than he expected and this story takes us from his second divorce through the history of DADA art, WNEP Theater’s version of it, and finally the experience of getting a virgin tattoo at age 42.