Poster Child

Sketch Comedy Troupe Show #2

Performance Space Orlando • September 2, 1999

Carl F Gauze

The four Poster Children assembled another hour’s worth of loosely related sketch routines, capturing the 20-something angst of those still dangerously close to high school. Some segments work better than others, and the best opens the show. Pseudo-gay Dirk comes out to his live in girlfriend when he’s caught red handed with a copy of Playboy . He’s not actually gay, but just pretending. They shower together to save on utilities, but now the truth is revealed, it all becomes disgusting. He’s not gay, he’s just sensitive.

Another well done series of segments, various high school students do a class show and tell. The BMOC jock shows off his underwear collection, each item forcibly taken from another student “257 down, 97 to go – you know who you are!” Suzi Burnout, a Goth chick, and a cheerleader all show similarly useless stuff, and by the end of the show, you see they are all tied together by today’s most secret vice – nicotine addiction.

The only really unfunny segment involved the pretend fight between two cast members, supposedly driving one of them out of the show just before opening. The gag is set up repeatedly throughout the show, but by the end, it never goes anywhere. This was the only flaw in an otherwise giggly funny show. Watch for these four in next year’s Fringe Festival. ◼