Keeping Warm With Three Legged Race

By Alex Joyce
Contributing Writer and Stand-up comedian

Chilly winter Fridays at the Apollo Theatre on Lincoln may seem rough, but non-stop laughs and some smart and funny sketches will keep you warm and toasty. Three Legged Race’s “Awkward Turtle” show makes it feel like a day at the beach. Definitely a top quality sketch comedy show in an intimate room for an affordable price.

I had seen Three Legged Race perform improv before at Johnny O’Hagan’s Irish Pub. They had all the tools and were quick on their feet then, so I expected them to bring the funny at a sketch show.

They didn’t disappoint.

Fourteen sketches, all got laughs. This is a show that had something for everyone ’s sense of humor.

This is a show with sketches about perverted muppets, amateur burglars, singing German men with mustaches, and a eulogy at a cat funeral. What more could you ask for?

All of the performers bring something to the table. Each of them complimenting the other making the show go smoothly and keeping the audience laughing. Their personalities easily lend themselves to a large cast of memorable characters, and a wide array of accents and personas make an appearance.

I have been to many bad sketch shows. Lots of them. But what's painfully obvious at a bad sketch show is how close it is to being a good one. There are one or two elements not clicking and it drags the whole show down. Not this show.

Three Legged Race have great writing, superb timing, interesting characters, and leave you wanting more. They truly commit to every character and the audience loves them for it. When there is a sketch about Bromance you can’t really half ass it. It came as no surprise they nailed it. A theatrical highlight for me.

The premises alone for the sketches make the show stand out. These aren’t your run of the mill, crazy cabbie, inappropriate co-worker type sketches. Extreme Homeless Makeover, and Tickle Bear stand out as very funny and bizarre enough for you to think about later and wonder “Jesus, how do they come up with this stuff?”

They are out of their minds. It’s a hilarious show that will feed anyone’s comedic appetite. It’s also an educational show; you will learn 17 uses for puke that I’m sure you never thought of.

This is a show that could easily be in a bigger venue in the near future. So, head down to the Apollo through Feb. 27, check these people out and support live comedy.

Alex Joyce hosts an open mic Thursday nights at Johnny O'Hagan's Irish Pub at 9 p.m.

Like this review? Want to see more? Be sure to check out Comedy Corner Magazine this summer. The reason you learned to read.

Show in progress

By Greg Landgraf
Member of Three Legged Race

Really, we’re lucky.

Three Legged Race opens its first sketch show, Awkward Turtle, at the Apollo Theater Studio on Friday at 10:30. That’s a little less than 48 hours away. The week before a show—any show—opens is, well, miserable. Cast and crew are exhausted, everyone’s stressed, and divas have a habit of turning their most diva-tacular.

By any theatrical standard, therefore, we’re in great shape. About the worst thing that’s happened so far is that tonight, the group collectively reached the conclusion that we’re incredibly sick of our closing song.

That’s not a knock against the song. I wrote it, about a year and a half ago, and frankly, it’s pretty darn infectious. So we’ve been rehearsing it for several weeks, but even before that we would sing it to each other as an odd form of greeting. If you come to the show, you’ll enjoy the song, and it will ingrain itself into your brain. (In fact, that’s part of our marketing plan: You’ll find yourself humming it and, well, have to explain yourself.)

We’ve just sung and heard it so much lately, if you hum it to us, you’re probably going to get smacked.

Beyond that, the process has been pleasantly free of drama. The cast, our director, and our understudy/tech person still get along. No one’s gotten injured or blown out vocal cords. Best of all, the show is pretty much ready: We did a run-through tonight with full props and costumes, and the number of glitches could be counted on one hand.

So what is the show actually about? Well, it’s a sketch show, so it’s about a lot of things: depressed dancing bears, cake and racism, Sesame Street, cats both dead and attack-trained, bat mitzvahs, and the love that exists between two guys. The common thread, though, is the hilarity of awkward situations. (The name, incidentally, comes from a hand gesture that can help you get out of any awkward situations: toss up the awkward turtle by putting one hand on top of the other, palms down; then wiggle your thumbs like two stubby little turtle legs; then yell out “Awkward turtle!”; and then get on with your life. People give it to me all the time.)

The show is also, in my decidedly biased opinion, terrifically funny. So I hope you’ll come check it out.

Awkward Turtle runs Friday nights at 10:30 from January 9 through February 27 at the Apollo Studio theater, 2540 N. Lincoln.