The Silent Theatre Ensemble consisted of many talented individuals, and over time, a few grouped and started their own thing. The Wild Party Variety Hour became its own monster even though it remained under the umbrella of Silent Theatre. The Harmonious Hunks, an a capella group, first began as a variety act joke performed at Columbia College as part of our send-off on our bicoastal tour. Sadly, only rehearsal footage exists from that performance:
But the group went on with more permanent members in Nick DuFloth, David Yondorf, Dan Howard, Brendan Balfe, and eventually Victor Holstein. They even reprised the bit for a Wild Party Variety Hour in 2010 with a more polished version you can see here:
There was also the Oona Tramps, which began as short little silent videos:
The above was filmed while we were on tour in San Francisco in 2006 and it features the famed artist Lee Harvey Roswell who drew these awesome paintings of us:
Oona Tramps eventually grew into its own entity with Kyla Webb, Gillian Hastings, and Matthew Massaro at the helm and featured other ensemble members. Here’s a live video of those shenanigans:
In 2010, Matthew Massaro spearheaded an Oona Tramp style full production called ACME: (live) Action Cartoon with Music and Entertainment, the product of which can be seen in the main video above. Slightly filtered to bring out the cartoon feeling, the production ran for six weeks to a late-night audience at the Prop Thtr. Matthew Massaro would sit in the directorial (and, sometimes, assistant directorial) chair on numerous occasions following this production, making him one of the five people ever to direct for the company.
This month’s social media fodder in chronological order (click on the image to read the description):
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