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.