The Sloppy Joes get into their performance. Photo by Jeff Baker

In Which Mike Gets a Little Sloppy

by Jeff “Mike” Baker

Regular readers of this blog know that the past few years have been rough for me.

So tonight, I went out and got sloppy. That is I went to my old Alma Mater, Newman University here in Wichita to catch a show from their student improv group “The Sloppy Joes” who I had never seen.

There was a nice crowd in the Jabarra Black Box theater and the Joes didn’t disappoint. Taking suggestions for a setting, an addiction (pineapple!) or even a crime (vandalizing a jungle gym) the Joes proceeded into flights of fancy ranging from Caesar’s court to a sports network play-by-play.

The laughs from the audience of maybe 40 people were genuine, including from me. I seriously needed a good laugh, and it does have a power to take you away from troubles for a while.

There was nothing like this on campus when I went there back in 1978-’83, and I doubt they could have gotten away with the very funny semi-musical breakup between two boyfriends.

With the suggestions from the audience, poop seemed to be the order of the evening with the sports network broadcasters calling a toilet-cleaning contest and a superhero (“Backpack Man”) emerging from a Port-A-Potty.

After the hour long show one of the members said he wondered if the stuff would “work” this show. It did. And I told them I needed the good laughs.

I went into the theater with my mask on but pulled it off midway through the first improv sketch. If I get COVID it was worth it.

The performers for this show were:

John Suffield

Corbin Molina

Minh Nguyen

Isaac Iseman

Daniel Cubias

Dannicka McGraff

Austin Schwartz

ADDENDA: When I went to see the show I did not have my notebook and did not get the performer’s names. Thanks so much to the folks at their Facebook group for providing them. I’ve added them to the article. If anybody who sees this knows them, please show this blog to them. Thanks! —-mike

Here’s a brief snippet of the performance I put on You Tube. You can make out the laughter at least!https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LHdC7fFOGcY