Kate Zambreno

One of the classic story lines of comedy is the stranger-in-a-strange-land setup. Take a giant with a feisty case of Tourette's Syndrome and make him teach first grade. Set a nymphomaniac in a convent. Make a bumbling moron the president of the United States. Presto -- funny.

Or, have Mick Napier, legendary Chicago improv criminal -- infamous for pushing this gimmick to the limits by throwing "Coed Prison Sluts" in jail or making pedophilia a riot in "Tippi: Portrait of A Virgin" -- go viva Las Vegas. Napier, founder and artistic director of the Annoyance Theater, creator of the longest running musical comedy in Chicago ("Coed Prison Sluts"), and notorious for outrageous antics like splattering tons of fake blood or using a live donkey on stage, is making news again.

Asked by Second City owner Andrew Alexander to take his improv schtick to the Strip, Napier departed in late February to direct a group of nine bandits in the new Second City venue in Bugsy's Celebrity Room at the Flamingo Hotel. But never fear, the mild-mannered yet mischievous Napier, who's become a Chicago improv icon, isn't ditching us for good. He'll rub shoulders with Penn and Teller for less than two months, then return home for the second reason he's been making the news.

The Annoyance fireballs promised they would return after a temporary hiatus (the theater left the scene a year ago after its Clark Street headquarters was ground into a parking lot). It wasn't a goodbye, Napier and Co. said, it was a "see you later."

But it didn't seem at all certain that the dark-meat side of the Chicago improv triangle would ever return. Many predicted that the Annoyance was on its way to that great toilet bowl in the sky, potty humor on the improv scene flushed down forever. And except for company members appearing at fellow improv company's stages, and a couple of scattered shows like the recently closed "Teenage Sports Parade" at the TinFish Theater, there's been nary a peep.

Enter stranger-in-a-strange-land, part two -- Napier eschewing his trademark white T-shirt and James Dean jeans for a suit, mugging for the business section of the Chicago Sun-Times, plugging his new enterprise, Annoyance Productions, a "national comedy content distribution company."

No joke. Napier's dead serious about turning technical, trading in his circus geek gimmicks for techno geek toys, fiercely determined to make films, TV shows, handheld content and wireless content, all based in Chicago and all with the Annoyance brand name. The company that once put on the show "www.comallovermyface" is traveling to cyberworld, spreading Annoyance antics to an even larger audience.

Napier's all business pitching his proposition, placing in the top ten finalists among 600 applicants in the Midwestern Prairiefire business proposal competition. Through the contest he received valuable services from a Chicago-based consulting company to help flesh out his vision and realize his dream of expanding the Annoyance into not only a theater, but a fulltime production facility and training center.

"From where I am with the Annoyance, if I can't make it a production company, then I'd rather not have it," he says, adding firmly that the Annoyance will settle in a new space only if his proposal for financing succeeds.

Napier began the Annoyance Theater eleven years ago with the mission statement of absolutely not having one. "I wanted to be able to create a theater where people could really do whatever the fuck they wanted to," he says.

Now, using the same freedom, he wants to create the same kind of boundary-bending humor that originally made Annoyance, but to actually sell what they're doing to the world. "I think that all kinds of people out there want to see the weird stuff we do."

Projects in the making for Annoyance Productions include "The Mick Show," a shockjock talk show, "Rook," a dramatic series written by Annoyance member Jennifer Estlin, "Peep," a half-hour sketch comedy about two aliens observing Earth and a series of original wacky animated shorts created by Napier.

Plus, after returning from Vegas, Napier plans to put together a Website, containing only broadband entertainment like videos and animation, to complement the already up and running www.annoyanceproductions.com.

As Napier turns serious about his comedy, he's no longer making it up as he goes, though he says the spirit of improv will still be the core of Annoyance Productions. "It will always be the part of the way I create stuff."

The company is still prioritizing their training program, teaching the next generation the brash aggression that is their namesake, with classes keeping up a "pretty healthy" enrollment. And Napier is still performing, taking on "Weaselicious," an "almost anti-improvisation" free-form troupe that performs "sporadically" at Improv Olympic.

And, as Annoyance takes a leap into the great beyond, they're hoping to make a splash. "It's more possible than it's ever been for Chicago," says Napier, of housing a competitive production studio. "I'm not sure Chicago believes that yet, but I do."

(2001-03-08)

Also by Kate Zambreno

ENTERTAINING DON HALL
It was the most amazing prank on Earth, or at least in the Chicago theater scene. The year was 1995, and, under the auspices of a traveling avant-garde German clown troupe called Die Hanswurste (translated, "Jack Sausages," or, explains Hall, "basically an idiot who knows nothing but thinks they do"), four improvisers from Chicago made audiences leap through flaming hoops.
(2001-02-01)

GOING APE
Thursday night on the LSD and there it is -- a giant purple gorilla, perched on the front stoop of one of those swanky drive residences.
(2000-11-23)

EAT ME
Finley is back in Chicago, where she was born and got her start, to promote her new collection of writings "A Different Kind of Intimacy," and she is in love with the irony and just plain art of it all: where she has been, how she's arrived, especially reading at the Borders set by the backdrop of Michigan Avenue and the cheesy Victoria's Secret music from next door.
(2000-11-16)

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