Comic strippers trying to prove that funny is sexy

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This article was published 24/04/2017 (3433 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

STRIPPED DOWN: David Milchard, a star member of the stripper parody and improvisation group the Comic Strippers, confesses he commits the cardinal sin onstage. “I pride myself in never cracking up, but this show sometimes makes me crack — it’s so playful and silly,” he says of the Vancouver-based group, which plays the Garrick Theatre on May 6.

The Comic Strippers criss-cross Canada and the United States and rehearse new dance numbers anywhere.

“We were coming back from Kamloops and Roman got a new idea, so we pulled off on a side road, had the tune Don’t You Wish Your Boyfriend Was Hot Like Me?, turned it up full blast and worked a dance right there.”

Milchard says they do about 60 shows a year. “We’re interactive with the audience and after they see the show they’re invited onstage to take photos with us.

“We’re funnier than we are sexy! But then funny is sexy, isn’t it?” he says. Tickets are $34-$39, at ticketfly.com. For groups, call 204-942-7469 for box office prices.

STIFF SELLS TICKETS: Tickets for the all-dentist musical comedy show Lucky Stiff, which runs from May 4 to 7 at the University of Winnipeg’s Asper Centre for Film and Theatre, are scarce as hen’s teeth. The troupe is now doing four days of performances and selling tickets to the dress rehearsal. If you want precious tickets, call your dentist’s office.

Based on the novel The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo by Michael Butterworth, the plot revolves around an English shoe salesman who’s forced to take the embalmed body of his recently murdered uncle on a vacation to Monte Carlo. Should he succeed in passing off his uncle’s wheelchair bound corpse as alive, Harry Witherspoon stands to inherit $6 million. If not, the money goes to the Universal Dog Home of Brooklyn or his uncle’s gun-toting ex!

Manitoba dentists in the show include Dr. Ken Hamin, Dr. Jonathan Archer, Dr. Kristin Cuthbert, Dr. Ilana Shapera, Dr. Adriana Gomez, Dr. Billy Kettner, Dr. Frank Hechter, Dr. Cheryl Bacala, Dr. Jerry Abells, Dr. Karen Rosolowski, Dr. Sarah Keating, Dr. Robin Szmadyla, Dr. Patrick Mao, Dr. Hoda Hosseini, Dr. Katie Davidson and Dr. Sherry Ghodousi.

FIFTY-YEAR UFO ANNIVERSARY: A three-day event marking the unidentified flying object sighting by Stefan Michalak near Falcon Lake in 1967 happens May 19-21. Well-known UFOlogist Chris Rutkowski says the object was “35 feet in diameter and 12 to 15 feet in height” and glowing red. It landed in the bushland near Falcon Lake. Michalak was out in the woods doing some amateur prospecting and saw it, Rutkowski says.

A door opened and something that sounded like high-pitched voices could be heard. It took off spewing a big blast of hot gas and Michalak had burnt clothes and second-degree burns on his chest to help prove his claim.

Michalak received medical help and alerted authorities, which included American officials. Flocks of scientists and media descended on the site, and also on Michalak’s house in River Heights for months. Years later, Michalak’s son Stan and Rutkowski discussed the incident on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries.

The 50th anniversary of the sighting starts with a 7 p.m. Cinematheque screening on May 19 of David Cherniak’s film UFOs: The Secret History, which explores the history of the UFO phenomenon from the late 1940s to today, followed by a panel discussion with Stan Michalak, Rutkowski and Cherniak.

On May 20, a book co-authored by Stan Michalak and Rutkowski titled When They Appeared launches at McNally Robinson Booksellers. Michalak recounts the chaos in their River Heights home caused by the event and Rutkowski reveals never-before-seen documents. The book includes Stefan Michalak’s first-hand account My Encounter With the UFO, which was published in 1968.

On May 21, groups at Falcon Beach Ranch will take escorted horseback rides to the site of the Falcon Lake sighting, followed by an evening fireside, dinner and UFO chat with Rutkowski, Michalak and others.

HOUSE CONCERT AT YOUR PLACE? Singer-storyteller Kate Ferris says she and esteemed colleague, poet/comedian Peter Paul Van Camp (former MC at the Winnipeg Folk Festival) would love to entertain at a few more house concerts in May before Van Camp goes touring east and then again in June, before a B.C. tour.

“There are several days open while he’s in Manitoba and you could help a couple of wondering… er, wandering minstrels fill those spaces,” Ferris says.

If you would like to host “an evening or afternoon of poetry, music and gentle mayhem,” you can email kateferris713@hotmail.com. As host, you provide a big enough room and seating and sell tickets to your friends and neighbours to pay the entertainers.

Ferris and Van Camp will be performing May 7 at 2 p.m. at the BHIGG House, 337 Oxford St. For info call Dave Clements at 204-488-1267.

Got tips? Cool events happening in your world? Been rubbing shoulders with stars? Know of new bistros, entertainment venues and bars opening? Email Maureen your tips at mscurf@shaw.ca