Michigan Boogie

The Extension: Audience Participation Theater

At The Rubaiyat

Cabaret theatre comes to Ann Arbor next week with the opening of The Extension, a new improvised musical revue that will run at the Rubaiyat for ten weeks through the summer. The Extension cast is gathered from the Boston, New York and national touring companies of The Proposition, an improvisational theatre revue which has been wowing them on the East Coast for years. The Extension is directed by Allan Albert, director of the Proposition.

The Extension comes to Ann Arbor through the efforts of managing director, Drew Sparks. You might know this worthy Ann Arbor citizen as former owner of Grizzley Furs, director of the Shirley Chisolm campaign, a founding mother of the Ozone Parade, and former manageress of Radio King and His Court of Rhythm and the Mojo Boogie Band. Drew spent the last year in Boston as publicity director of The Proposition. Not long ago she returned to Ann Arbor with a conviction that what this town needed was new forms of entertainment, and cabaret theatre was the clear answer.

Empressario Sparks explained, "There is an evident high interest in theatre these days--most visible in the music theatrics of groups like Iggy and the Stooges, Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa. But obviously it is the music that is dominant. We need to find a theatre that satisfies all sorts of audiences, from hipsters and rock 'n' roll fanatics to the older housewife...Cabaret theatre is a universal sort of theatre entertainment, but it has been long lost in Ann Arbor."

Cabaret theatre--you can eat, drink, and with The Extension, you can participate in the performance. The audience is handed a list of categories as they enter the Rubaiyat. The cast of four actors/actresses calls upon the audience for suggestions from the categories, which include "pet peeve", "fictional characters", etc. After a brief huddle on stage, the cast performs an improvised musical product growing out of the audience suggestions, complete with songs, dances and repartie.

The variety of suggestions guarantees that each performance is entirely different. Every audience wants to be the most outrageous, so the suggestions can become vulgar, ridiculous or perhaps insane. The audience might make seemingly impossible suggestions, but they plug for the cast to accomplish these impossibilities. It is exciting and involving to watch the experienced improvisational cast pull together some connected piece out of the widely unrelated suggestions. All of this is accompanied by a pianist, who naturally adds suspense, intrigue or whatever essential element.

With a format like that the Extension looks like it will sweep Ann Arbor off its 150-year old feet. The show opens at the Rubaiyat, at 102 S. First Street, on Thursday June 6, and will run every Wednesday through Sunday until August 10. Shows are at 9:30 nightly, except for Friday at 9:30 and 11:30. Admission with dinner is $1.50 on Friday and Saturday; and $1.00 on Wednesday and Thursday; without dinner it is $2.00 on Friday and Saturday and $1.50 on Wednesday and Thursday. As for dinner, the Rubaiyat is expensive but Empressario Sparks has reassured me that it is excellent, with something to please every palate.

Ellen Frank