Coming up this weekend is one of my favorite annual occasions. No, I’m not talking about Valentine’s Day, even though any holiday with cards and chocolate is pretty awesome. This weekend is the Keenan Revue! This year’s Revue, Revue’s Clues: A Private Investigation, will once again be performed inside Stepan (that glorious geodesic dome) on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:00pm. Ticket distribution was last week, so if you don’t have a ticket, now’s the time to start bribing your friends with Starbucks or pints.
As always, it’s sure to be full of crude humor, jokes targeted at various women’s and men’s dorms (cough BP, Stanford, and Zahm, to predict a few), religious jokes, and all-too-true stereotypes. You can always look forward to a few of the Knights taking their clothes off, hopefully accompanied by whipped cream. There are even promises of witty and thoughtful humor, which should help move the Revue in new directions.
I asked this year’s producer, senior accounting major with a studio art minor D.J. Valenti, and director, senior science-business and supplemental Spanish major Briggs Hoyt, what students could expect from this year’s Revue and what they liked best about it! They make no promises, but it sounds Noel is back with a new puppy, “Hey Katie” jokes will abound, and the Knights are set to have even more fun than the audience.
What are you most excited about for this year’s Revue?
Hoyt: Every year the men behind the Revue strive to outdo the previous years, and so far that trend has held strong. Last year was an amazing show, so it’ll be hard to beat, but I believe we’ll do it. What’s probably most excited is that we distributed 4000 tickets in record time this year, probably due to the fact that last year’s show was such a hit.
Valenti: This year, we have really focused on increasing the production value of the show. I mean, there is only so much you can do to turn Stepan into an acoustically and theatrically friendly space but we have focused on the little improvements. The audience will explicitly see some of these changes (i.e. increased use of rear stage projector, better costumes, etc.) but others they will likely not notice (i.e. better lighting and sound rigging, higher quality speakers, etc).
How is this Revue different from past year’s Revues?
Valenti: Every year we focus on a couple of small things to make the Revue a more enjoyable experience. This year we aimed to improve the musical acts, and utilize the rear stage projector more often to set scenes and aid in our attempts to be funny.
Hoyt: Aside from that, the 2015 Revue will follow the same general tried-and-true format as the past year. Yet the content is of course going to be entirely original. There will be plenty of cheap laughs, however this year the amount of thoughtful humor, social commentary, and wit outweighs that of last year’s show.
What does the planning of the Revue entail?
Hoyt: We start up to 5 months prior to the show the nitty-gritty scheduling, fundraising, and multitude of emails to make sure the show can even happen. Once that’s settled, then begins the hours of unproductive joking around that eventually evolve into ideas and ultimately skits, and followed by even more hours of practicing, planning, and fine tuning the show to eventually create the work of art that we debut Thursday night.
What can audience members expect from this Revue?
Valenti: The audience should expect a show that will have a wide range of entertainment. There will be skits that are simply absurd and funny for that reason, but then there will be skits that you will feel bad laughing at because they are meant to make us think about certain situations and concepts that aren’t addressed too often on campus.
Hoyt: You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fidget uncomfortably, you’ll fall in love, and you’ll question everything you thought to be real in this world. All within 2 hours.
Favorite skit?
Hoyt: I think this year “The One Friend” is going to be my favorite skit, because it’s a perfect blend of laughs that’ll give you an ab workout with underlying social commentary.
Valenti: I’m on team “Dear Katie”. It’s an acoustically performed love ballad about a Notre Dame girl. The way that Nick Linsdstrom expresses his thought through song is captivating and I think the audience will be in for a treat.
Will Noel and/or Bacon be making an appearance this year?
Hoyt: Bacon has graduated from ND and moved on with his life to further pursue becoming a seeing-eye dog/great house pet. However, a new puppy has joined our ranks, and I can neither confirm nor deny whether he’ll be making an appearance, you’ll just have to go to the show to find out! And of course the most famous Knight of them all, Noel Terranova, will be making an appearance.
Valenti: Only thing to add is that the new Pup’s name is Champion (Champ for short). In his four short weeks of tenure at Notre Dame, he has increased the female presence in Keenan by 634%.
What do you hope your Revue legacy is?
Hoyt: We lie at an intersection of Revue history where we’re trying to take what years ago used to be mostly crude humor and turn some of that around to be truly thought-provoking, witty comedy that comments on ourselves, the University, and the world at large, while of course still eliciting laughs. I hope this is the legacy we help leave.
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