BWW Reviews: Friday Night Laughs with the Ladies of CHICKSPEARE

One of the best ways to end the stress of a busy work week is with a few laughs. Best place to find those laughs right now is at ComedySportz LA, where the classically-trained, comically-proficient ladies of CHICKSPEARE take over the courtyard on Friday nights and improvise a one-act Shakespearean comedy guaranteed to start your weekend right.

Seriously witty. Playfully fun. It's one of the best kept secrets in LA and a thoroughly enjoyable evening of comedy that the whole family will love. Plus the chicks calling the shots during this lively hour of Elizabethan improv are a lively and attractive group who dive into an idea heart first with all the commitment of a delightful bunch of pre-schoolers playing dress up.

The show is performed in the round, outdoors under the stars, with the audience seated at comfy café tables cozy enough to make it feel like you're in a friend's backyard. Bring a casual dinner and a bottle of wine or pick up some snacks in the garage on-site as you relax before the show. Period music sets the mood and the crowd is friendly. It really is a great way to unwind.

Using a suggestion from the audience - at this performance it was a piece of advice you'd give someone in love - six members of the all-female troupe (Jen Bascom, Gale Brennan, Jennifer Flack, Holly Gray, Kelly Holden-Bashar, and Lauren Pritchard) told a brand new tale of two independent Elizabeths, one sweet, one wild, inspired by the words, "Thou must love thyself unconditionally."

Throwing herself fully into the story, wild Elizabeth who is resisting her arranged marriage, blurted out that "if a woman does not want to be wed...she will be tied to the bed" and just like that, five messily arranged wooden cubes became the lumpy focal point of several hilarious scenes. Meanwhile, sweet Elizabeth wanted more from her life than running her family's donut shop - the shop of the round pastry - and a chance meeting with the other Elizabeth's fiancé (whom no one had ever seen) would change the course of her love life.

Mistaken identities, a journey on small burros, women playing men, a slow-motion fight montage, a song, a dance, and a fair amount of rhyming couplets are boisterously thrown in for good measure. No two performances will ever be alike but what you can count on is that the evening will contain plenty of laughs. It's a great value for the ticket price and the kind of show you can see more than once because it's always a new story.

This one's a no-brainer. The conventions of Shakespeare and the fearlessness of modern improv make outrageous bedfellows for the versatile gals of CHICKSPEARE who conquer on all comic fronts. The laughs are contagious, the joy always present, so go and let yourself be carried away by their charms. They'll do the heavy lifting to erase the worries of your week. All you need to do is relax and have fun. It's an evening I wholeheartedly recommend.

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