The Dark Room is your one-stop shop for comedy, theater, events, entertainment,
rehearsal space and recording studio facilities (both pre- and post-production).
2263 Mission Street, between 18th and 19th San Francisco, CA 94110
Call 415-401-7987 for info.
Stepping out of their usual hang, FRISCO zips across town for two special shows at The Dark Room! In addition to their trademarked nonstop comedy that combines elements of both short and long form improv, the company is throwing in a little variety just for some...variety.
These shows will also include some stand-up comedy, a dash of musical comedy, a pinch of sketch comedy and more! Don't miss this chance to see FRISCO in a new light at The Dark Room, February 5 & 6!
The members of FRISCO are Breck Baird, Chris Blair, Austin Broyles, Anthony Hill, Brendan Hill, Colin Higgins, Peter Kim, Allison Page, and Shasta Phillips.
Sammy Wegent and Allison Page can't possibly be serious. Not only did they date on and off for six months and do a show about it in December, they are now both single and living in the same apartment. It can't be healthy but it's most certainly hilarious. Wegent & Page are back with new material about breaking up, breaking down, and breaking barriers when it comes to love in general. Through sketches, improv, monologues, and their own brand of "professional" banter, Wegent & Page will make you laugh. A lot. Mostly because you'll be glad you're not in a two person comedy team with your ex.
Happy Forever: The Life and Death of an Italian Cat
In a remote Italian fishing village lived a simple housecat. Not until her death, did her life get complicated. Based on a real happening, this is a fictional play about the unofficial mascot of the swimming cities of serenissima… and about her desecration.
Tickets: $10 at the door.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 Three shows: 7, 8, 9pm
Rick Shapiro & Dan Carbone
About Rick Shapiro:
“Searingly honest, the most transgressive comedian in America today…He’s the toast of New York’s Lower East Side underground scene” – Penthouse Magazine
“Equal parts Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Lou Reed. Shapiro is New York’s most lurid funnyman – a real star.” – NY Press
"…an explosive comedic talent, a sort of punk-rock, white Richard Pryor with a literary bent, part Iggy Pop, part Phillip Roth” – New York Observer
“Downtown New York provocateur Rick Shapiro debuts with a CD of hard-edged, uncompromising stand-up comedy. As far from the mainstream as it is, “Unconditional Love” still manages to speak universal truths and expose many of our follies.” – Billboard
“His pointed observations on pop culture are pure brilliance” – TimeOut New York
“Rick Shapiro is a top comedian” – Howard Stern
About Dan Carbone:
“Dan Carbone is not of this earth! He is a true transplant from the real nether-lands. Not from the land of tulips and windmills, but from a region between retardation and genius!” – George Kuchar, Cult Film Director
“The snatches of comic surrealism Carbone performed were among the funniest things I’ve ever seen on stage; hilarious and elegant and really, really weird.”
– Michael Scott Moore SF Weekly
“In a town where every conceivable wrinkle in solo theatre seems to have been ironed out long ago, Dan Carbone crept out from under the bed and lit the mattress on fire.” – Brad Rosenstein, Bay Guardian
Tickets: $8 at the door.
Saturday, February 27, 2010 8pm
Dan Carbone:
“Up from the Ground”
& “There Be Monsters!”
“Dan Carbone is not of this earth! He is a true transplant from the real nether-lands. Not from the land of tulips and windmills, but from a region between retardation and genius! His mind is a bridge where wisdom and infantilization cross deep waters. His mental imagery contains all the garbage that has been flung at him from kindergarten on up. The deep waters of his mind have washed that garbage and beached it in strange formations for all to view. Like seashells they sing the tunes of their birthplace.” – George Kuchar
Bay Area absurdist writer/ performer Dan Carbone (whom the SF Bay Guardian has described as “Jonathan Winters meets Cocteau”) presents an evening of two award-winning Solo Performance pieces, “Up From the Ground” and “There Be Monsters!”
“Up From the Ground” is a tragi-comedy about a Southern family entrance by a holy flower-like thing growing in their cornfield that Brad Rosenstein of the SF Guardian pronounced as “Brilliantly Demented!”
“There Be Monsters!” is a collection of surreal vignettes and dream sequences involving characters such as a monkey astronaut, a dead Elvis waiting on the Highway of Eternity in a limousine and Jesus paired with a hallucinatory monkey named Jungle Bell. Michael Scott Moore of the SF Weekly said of this piece that it “almost made me fall out of my chair.”
Check out the promo video “Debbie & the Demons!” by Mike Kuchar:
Tickets: $8 at the door.
Saturday, March 6, 2010 10pm
Dan Carbone:
“Ol’ Blue Balls” &
“Debbie & the Demons!”
Bay Area absurdist writer/ performer Dan Carbone (whom the SF Bay Guardian has described as “Jonathan Winters meets Cocteau”) returns to the Dark Room for an evening of new works including “Ol’ Blue Balls” about a chance encounter between Frank Sinatra and a little girl in the 1950s, “Debbie and the Demons” a woman wreaks havoc all around the globe (sort of like if Godzilla were directed by Kurosawa) and “The Koreans,” about a surreal, true-life encounter between Carbone and some young Korean students on the streets of downtown Oakland.
Tickets: $8 at the door.
Saturday, April 3, 2010 10pm
The Business
Best Alternative Comedy show in San Francisco. Featuring comedians from Comedy Central, SXSW, and the Comedians of Comedy tour!
Tickets: $5 at the door.
Wednesdays at 8pm
Bad Movie Night
Every
Sunday 8PM $5
In the tradition of Mystery Science Theater 3000, except you can't tell which ones are the robots. — David Manning
Cinema is our culture's dominant art form.
It holds up a mirror to who we are.
It reflects our society, our dreams, our hopes, our fears.
Our films are how future generations are going to judge us.
Unfortunately, most of them suck.
Seriously, though—ever notice how you can't walk down the street or open a magazine or stand in line at a store or simply exist without ads for some dumbass multi-zillion dollar movie about a talking kangaroo
being shoved down your throat?
And then they expect you to pay fifteen dollars to see it in some googolplex, and after sitting through a half hour of commercials? Or watch it on DVD and have to sit through even more commercials and anti-piracy ads that you can't skip past? Doesn't it all just piss you off?
If so—or if you just like to have a good time—then Bad Movie Night is for you.
Laugh with the hosts riffing on the movie. Yell your own comments. Try to figure out what the hell "Skull Films!" means. Help yourself to the free popcorn. Enjoy the non-alcoholic beverage of your choice purchased from the store across the street. (Don't worry if the guy behind the counter glares at you. He does that to everyone.)
Originally, The Transformers was a cartoon teevee show which existed solely to sell toys. Refer to our writeup on Masters of the Universe for more on this particular phenomemon, plzkthx.
In 1986, The Transformers: The Movie came out while the series was on the air. It wasn't great, but it was better than one might expect for an animated movie based on an animated teevee series which existed solely to sell toys.
It got a PG rating, the hero died, and Orson Welles did a voice. Oh, remember that "You Got the Power" song from Boogie Nights? That's from The Transformers: The Movie.
We kid you not:
Twenty years later, the director of Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys II (coming to Bad Movie Night this May) makes a live-action version, simply calling it Transformers, in keeping with our post-literate times.
It was a big hit. (Which is not so much the fault of Hollywood so much as it is everyone who paid ten bucks to see it, but pick pick.) So he makes a sequel, this week's feature.
It's also a big hit, grossing $400M. If not for James Cameron's 3-D smurf movie, it would be the highest grossing movie of 2010. Also a big hit in 2010 was Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. USA! USA! USA!
Anyway, Michael bay is now making the third live-action movie based on a twenty year-old animated teevee series which had already spawned one animated movie.
The third one.
Fuck Hollywood. Fuck Hollywood so hard.
Your hosts Sherilyn Connelly, Jim Fourniadis and Maura Sipila don't actually hate Hollywood. They just want to see it burn.
Upcoming Phlegms:
February 14, 2010
Public Enemies
Johnny Depp (boy, is there anything he can't do?) stars as Chuck D in the story of the controversial hip-hop group's rise and fall.
Prohibitive pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Mikl-Em, Tristan Buckner and other gangsters.
February 21, 2010
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
John Travolta steals a subway car, which probably means Muni's going to increase the fares again. Fuck!
Wackiness ensues, but safety requires avoiding unnecessary conversation.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Jim Fourniadis, David Capurro and other fare jumpers.
February 28, 2010
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
The prequel to Red Dawn (which we'll get to next month).
Adamantium pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Mikl-Em, Maura Sipila and other mutants.
March 7, 2010
Ghost
Admit it: this movie made you cry way back when. ADMIT IT!
Ectoplasmic wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, Ziad Ezzat and other psychic friends.
March 14, 2010
Next of Kin
Patrick Swayze and Liam Neeson as avenging hillbillies who...wait, what?
Inbred pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Tristan Buckner, Wylie Herman and other moonshiners.
March 21, 2010
Steel Dawn
According to the movie poster, he is the desert warrior, carving the future with his sword. I'm pretty sure the sword is his penis.
Phallic wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, Dan Foley and other road warriors.
Bad Movie Night's Fifth Anniversary!
March 28, 2010
Red Dawn Patrick Swayze (not pictured here) plays a high-school football player leading a bunch of kids in a battle against multicultural commies.
Fun fact: being our anniversary show, this will be the sixth time we've done this movie.
Socialized wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Tristan Buckner, Jim Fourniadis and other Wolverines!!!11!!1
April 4, 2010
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton in a very, very seventies movie sorta kinda not really based on Abbey Road. Or maybe it was Pet Sounds? One of those Rolling Stones albums.
Bell-bottomed wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Jim Fourniadis, Mike Spiegelman, and other lovely meter maids.
April 11, 2010
Purple Rain
Animals strike curious poses, what with the heat between me and you.
Paisley pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Mikl-Em, Dan Foley and other glam slammers.
April 18, 2010
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker Gwen Stefani was right—this shit is bananas. Sure, she was referring to something else entirely, but it doesn't change the fact that this movie is B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
Wackiness which is neither bad, dangerous nor invincible ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, Maura Sipila and other Neverlanders.
April 25, 2010
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
Spoiler alert: Snape is actually a good guy. (Or is that a different series?)
Pubescent pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, The Cock-Ts and other dropouts.
Hey
People!! New designs just in time to totally miss the holidays!!
Visit
either our Dark Room
store or our new Maggie
store and buy our shirts and tiles. They woulda made a great
Holiday gift!!!
