Thursday, March 14, 2024
6:30 pm Doors // 7:30 pm Show
All Ages
$20 (+taxes/fees) Advance General Admission // $25 (+taxes/fees) At The Door
Ticket purchases are final and non-refundable
Curtain Call: Letters to My Friend Louie Anderson premiered to rave reviews at the 2022 Minnesota Fringe Festival. Now a newly expanded version of the acclaimed performance comes to The Parkway stage for one night only!
Comedian Jason Schommer explores a remarkable friendship with Minnesota comedy icon Louie Anderson in a series of hilarious adventures and poignant life lessons, shared through theater, stand-up comedy, and storytelling.
Written and created by Jason Schommer, directed by Michelle Schwantes, and with music by violinist DGS.
For many years Jason Schommer opened for comedian Louie Anderson in Las Vegas and on tour. What began as a chance meeting at a promotional event grew into a deeply profound, once-in-a-lifetime friendship filled with hilarious adventures and poignant life lessons. Starting simply as a celebrity and a fan, Louie and Jason eventually became mentor and mentee, then boss and employee, and ultimately close friends.
Through a series of letters Jason wrote to Louie after his passing, Jason shares hysterical real-life moments blended with deceptively ordinary and mundane events. This show paints a vivid picture of the power of friendship and its highs and lows and twists and turns. From a first hello at a grocery store in St. Louis Park to a final goodbye at a hospital in Las Vegas, the audience is taken on an incredible journey over thirteen years of friendship. Stops along the way included the stages of Las Vegas, clubs on the road, a garage sale in Minnesota, The Rosie Show in Chicago, an airport in Japan and so much more!
Curtain Call: Letters to My Friend Louie Anderson takes the audience through the power of friendship and how one person can change another's life. Blending elements of traditional theater, stand-up comedy, and storytelling, this show is as unique as their friendship was and just as unexpected. Curtain Call: Letters to My Friend Louie Anderson is a revealing, witty, hilarious, emotional, and intimate look at Hollywood, celebrity, and friendship. Inspired by Louie and his books to his deceased parents (Dear Dad: Letters from an Adult Child and Hey Mom: Stories for My Mother But You Can Read Them Too), this show is an homage to Louie's legacy and his meaningful connection to his beloved family, friends, and fans.
What audiences are saying about Curtain Call!:
“Schommer is an expert storyteller, and an even better guide through life and loss.”
“You’ll greatly enjoy this show!”
“Bravo!”
“A mix of storytelling and standup that I won’t soon forget!”
“Storytelling at its best!”
“The right blend of comedy and sentimentality.”
“Very moving and funny.”
“Laugh out loud funny!”
“So touching and entertaining.
“Wonderful tribute to Louie Anderson!”
“Great blend of humor and heart!”
“Funny, moving tribute!”
“Felt the love and joy…and loss.”
“Honest and vulnerable. Beautifully done.”
Jason Schommer (pronouns: he/him/his) is a stand-up comedian and storyteller who spent two years as the opening act for comedy legend Louie Anderson in Las Vegas and toured with Louie regularly. Comedy icon Louie Anderson said, “Jason is funny, clever, smart, and on his way to the big time!”
As a stand-up comic, Jason has performed all over the USA as well as Canada and for the US Military in Japan. Jason has worked with such comedy superstars as Chris Kattan (Saturday Night Live, Night at the Roxbury), Josh Blue (Last Comic Standing champion), Judy Tenuta (Grammy Award Best Comedy Album), and Tim Meadows (Saturday Night Live, The Ladies’ Man).
Jason’s sharp wit and spur of the moment playfulness keeps the audience on the edge of their seat with crazy and absurd “is-this-really-happening” stories to jokes with unexpected twists and turns and off-the-cuff riffs. The laughs come fast and furious as Jason mines everyday life, turning the seemingly mundane and routine into comedy gold.
A regular performer at The Moth, Jason has won numerous Story Slam competitions and was invited to perform at the GrandSlams at The Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul (2016, 2023) and The Guthrie Theater (2018) and at the Pantages Theater (2022). Jason has been heard nationally on The Moth Radio Hour as well as featured on the podcast.
Jason has worked in New York City for The Rosie O’Donnell Show and has worked behind the scenes in Hollywood as a stand in for Louie Anderson on the FX television series Baskets. In 2017 Jason released his first live comedy album “Confessions of a Local Celebrity.” Most recently Jason went viral on TikTok by starring in a video with Dave Ryan from KDWB and hitting over 5.3 million views.
DGS (pronouns: they/them/theirs) has studied and performed the violin with many artists in multiple genres, though their heart has always been drawn to creating something for themselves.
Performing on a five stringed instrument, DGS has both violin and viola at their fingertips, and the addition of live effects expands their sound palette even further. With a tap on the body of the instrument, the violin transforms into a kick drum. A synth pedal shifts the octaves down into a synth bass. Pizzicato in their hands is performed more like a guitar or mandolin, and ambient reverbs create synth textures uniquely voiced by the instrument’s timbre. All of these sounds are created and recorded live into a looper to transform this one person into a string quartet, a live band, and many shades and combinations in between.
They invoke similarities to artists like Lindsey Stirling, Nils Frahm, and Hans Zimmer; The reflective and pensive ability of instrumental and classical music combined with the pulse and staying power of a Top 40 hit is a combination that inspires them most. Instrumental riffs lay the foundation while dense symphonic strings collide with dance-worthy beats. Melodies soar over top with earworm-worthy hooks while the sub octave bass roots and grounds the bottom end.
DGS has a way of speaking through their music that captivates any and all who stop to listen.