Nestled between a few ethnic restaurants in the bustling streets of Belmont, the Playground Theater is a cozy venue that holds about 40 people. Inside, improvisers hustle to bring life to average people’s updates on Twitter in the theater’s newest production.
“The Tweet Life” innovatively combines the spontaneity of improvised comedy with the humdrum of a person’s ordinary tweets. Armed with just a few chairs and scraps of paper containing the tweets to use that night, improvisers must find ways to bring humor to these short statements. In the 25 minutes of the performance last Friday night, improvisers tackled a man’s tweets about Bill Brady’s campaign advertisements, reckless drivers and Cat Stevens all to hilarious ends.
While many improv groups and theaters have uploaded videos of performances to websites like YouTube, featuring it so closely in a production provides unique challenges, says Mike Dwyer, one of the producers of “The Tweet Life.” According to Dwyer, Twitter has become an incredibly important part of today’s culture.
“I think it’s kind of a mirror to what’s going on in our culture of where the public and private are meeting,” he said. “The private is shrinking to a more public forum. Twitter is one of many different channels that people are using to communicate out to a broader audience of people.”
Dwyer said the idea for the production came when he was trying to develop ways for the theater to incorporate more social media. With the help of the theater’s marketing director Kara Jakubec and its president Matt Barbera, “The Tweet Life” was born.
“Why don’t we take that to the next step and bring it into the theater and use it as a form of entertainment and try to engage people that aren’t even necessarily in Chicago to take part in the show?
So far, audiences have been responding well to the show. The producers of “The Tweet Life” were even contacted by “America’s Got Talent” for their Chicago auditions.
“There are times when we have audience members who come and are blown away by this concept and having this story come out,” Dwyer said.
To be chosen as the source of inspiration for the improvisers, one simply has to tweet “I want in on the #Tweetlife” to the Playground Theater’s Twitter. Then, the producers choose a volunteer and invite him or her to the next show. That person’s tweets for the week are printed out and slipped into the actors’ pockets minutes before the show begins. From that point on, no one knows what will happen next.
Len Kendall, a Chicagoan who works in digital public relations and has around 8,000 followers on Twitter, was someone who wanted in. An avid fan of the website, he has updated his account with nearly 30,000 tweets. When asked what he likes about the website, he said he’s a fan of how it is a bigger, more open network.
“I like the constraints of 140 characters. It forces you to think in short spurts. Being funny is really hard because you have so little breathing room,” Kendall said.
After his tweets were picked for a recent performance, he said it was interesting to see other people interpret his thoughts onstage.
“They took them and told an entire story on what seemed simple to me,” he said. “I’m reminded that people actually read what I write, despite the numbers of followers I have. Sometimes I forget it’s not me talking into open space.”
Dwyer doesn’t see the popularity of social networking websites like Twitter or Facebook diminishing any time soon.
“People will not stop using their phones to text each other or post what they’re doing or market using these tools,” he said. “Things won’t go backward.”
Tickets for “The Tweet Life” are $5 on Wednesdays and $10 on Fridays and are available at the Playground Theater’s box office on 3209 N. Halsted St. For more information, visit www.the-playground.com.
