April and May are full full full for Fancypants Productions! Fast on the heels of the artistic triumph that was our premier Crooners Showcase, We are of course returning on our traditional 4th Sunday to delight our regulars with another CROONERS, hosted by the inimitable Chester Vanderbox!

This Sunday, April 26th at 7pm and 9pm CROONERS Cuts a Rug, songs about dancing! Guest stars will be announced soon, but in the meantime you as our newsletter subscriber get first crack at the discount for the 9pm show!

Mark your calendars for Mondays in May, SWITCH/BOARD is back with four more nimble, effervescent evenings of anarchy!

For added entertainment value, we follow each SWITCH/BOARD with a free screening of a the film that inspired the prompt! Every Monday in May at 7pm, SWITCH/BOARD will undertake one of these auspicious themes: 

★ Monday, May 4th– MURDER BY EXTENSION

Chic NY amateur sleuths of the 1930’s stumble upon murder and Manhattans at a British manor house! Whodunnit is anyone's guess.

–followed by the Hitchcock classic Dial M for Murder

★ Monday, May 11th– THE TIP-OFF

An anonymous phone call leads to a citywide person-hunt! Badges, guns, and 70’s neckties battle for supremacy in this gritty action-packed thriller!

–followed by Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic film The Conversation, with Gene Hackman

★ Monday, May 18th– LONELYHEARTS’ HOTLINE

Callers at cocktail hour unload their marital strife on a radio show call-in host who’s got problems pouring in on Line 2!

–followed by the Doris Day/Rock Hudson sexcapade Pillow Talk!

★ Monday, May 25th– SAVED BY THE GRAHAM BELL!

80’s teen comedy meets 80’s historical rock opera, in this high school romance about the inventor of the telephone!

–followed by masters of time, space, and flying phone booths: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure

In preparation for this next set of shows, we interviewed improvisor extraordinaire Nicole Odell!

What did you think you were getting into with SWITCH/BOARD? Did the first shows meet your expectations?

One of the delightful things about collaborating with Fancypants is the freedom of imagination of the artists involved. When I was told that they'd like to do a series of improvised radio plays, based off of old movies, and including a live, improvised score by Brendan Getzell, I wasn't completely sure what that would look or feel like. However, I've learned that if I say yes to a Fancypants production, not only will we figure it out together, but it'll most likely be completely unlike anything I've done before. True to form, the first series of SWITCH/BOARD was a tightrope-balancing blast!! It's hard to describe what it feels like to come to the end of a completely improvised story and knowing we landed the plane. And yes, I know I'm mixing my metaphors here.

What's your history of collaborating with EnSeanTé?

EnSeanTé and I first met when we attended a "comedy writer's audition" for Killing My Lobster (KML), San Francisco's longest-running sketch comedy troupe and nonprofit. We hit it off immediately, and we were very excited to discover we'd both made it into the KML writing pool. Our collaboration deepened after I attended the first Fancypants springtime-themed artistic salon, "V is for Verdant." This was in March of 2018. I had never seen a show quite like it; bold drag, gorgeous burlesque, wistful poetry, song, story, and even custom bites, woven together in a themed, multi-disciplinary evening. After the show, I went up to EnSeanTé and said, "What do I have to do to be a part of this?" We've been working together on various KML shows, Fancypants projects, and random bursts of collaborative creativity since.

For those who don't know, what's your experience in comedy and improv?

I first started doing improv all the way back in high school, in 2006. We had a student-led short-form improv club that would compete with other schools in the district. During my time earning my BA in Drama at San Francisco State University, I didn't focus on comedy outside of occasional improv get-togethers, but after graduation, I'd moved to LA and was looking for a way into a community. I decided to take improv and comedy classes at Second City Hollywood, and after attending auditions, I was placed in their Conservatory program. There, I learned the Second City method of long-form improv that could be used to create sketch comedy, and my classmates and I formed my first sketch/improv hybrid troupe, "Margot's Pie." When I returned to the Bay Area in 2014, I began teaching and performing improv at Leela SF, and joined Killing My Lobster as a sketch comedy writer and actor. I became Artistic Director of Killing My Lobster in 2021, and I am currently a member of La Spazzatura, an opera improv troupe, and Drunk Theatre in San Francisco. I've been lucky enough to participate in a number of different comedy festivals, including the Denver Improv Festival, Bay Area Musical Improv Festival, Out of Bounds Comedy Festival in Austin, and the last 10 rounds of SF Sketchfest.

How does this show differ from other forms of improv you've done?

I've done duo improv before, but mostly in a simple "montage" style, meaning a series of disconnected or loosely connected vignettes originating from a single suggestion. I first began doing more focused, narrative improv when I started with Drunk Theatre in 2024; they largely do improvised plays, but usually with a cast of at least 5-6 performers. I'd done some musical improv, but never with live scoring. So this show, which was based on duo narrative live-scored longform improv, was new to me—AND it's in a "radio play" style, which means you can't rely on physicality to tell a story! This is tough for me, because I love being a weird little goblin onstage.

Can you offer us a behind-the-scenes tip on what improv tactics you're using for this show?

Listening, listening, listening. It sounds simple, but with narrative improv it can be easy to begin building a plot in your head. This can lead to unintentionally tuning out the other performer, and then crucial details are missed. Other tricks I use are: 1. Making a bold choice in vocal tone, which can be very helpful when playing multiple characters; 2. Finding a way to repeat a character's name multiple times, which helps with recall and making sure the narrative around the characters stays consistent and grounded; and 3. Building the plot slowly, one brick at a time.

What's your connection to radio and film?

I grew up on classic movies. Some of the first comedies my parents ever showed me were The Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton. Casablanca was my favorite movie for a long time. (Don't ask me what my favorite is now, I couldn't possibly pick one.) My parents were fans of old films and musicals, and thanks to the censorship guidelines from 1934, we could watch them together without worrying about inappropriate content. (But then they turned around and let me watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit, so...who knows what they were really thinking.) I also remember that the preferred entertainment on long car trips was radio storytelling; A Prairie Home Companion was a favorite, as was Jerry Seinfeld stand-up.

Do you have some favorite leading ladies of the silver screen you are drawing inspiration from?

Some of my favorites that I've pulled from so far have been Katharine Hepburn (when I want some Bringing Up Baby-level of screwball), Grace Kelly (when I'm feeling particularly sophisticated), and Ingrid Bergman (when I want to be devastatingly thoughtful). Anyone who knows me knows I love a good trans-atlantic accent.

What were your contributions to the concept/structure of the show?

As we approached the structure of the show, I thought about some of the narrative format we'd used with Drunk Theatre, as well as some formats used in The Harold and other well-established narrative improv forms. For our first rehearsal, I created a loose story structure, with beats that we may want to hit. We almost never adhere completely to the structure, but it became a place to start. I also brought in the "ask," aka, the type of suggestions we get from the audience each week, which change based on the theme of the show. Other than that, outside of the initial premises that EnSeanTé and Nathaniel Bice brought, the show has proved itself a highly collaborative, fluctuating, living beast; it changes every time, based on the theme, the moods of all performers involved, the music that Brendan provides, and whatever nonsense is happening in our brains, the room, and the world.

Anything else you'd like to tell us about SWITCH/BOARD?

This show is a unique opportunity for me, as a performer, to bring together multiple improv and performance techniques, and it's not quite like anything I've ever done before--or seen elsewhere, either. And you should see it.

Where else can people see you perform?

Follow me on Instagram, @nicole_odell_88 , for information on additional opera improv shows with La Spazzatura, or any appearances I'll be making on Bay Area stages this year!

We’ve mentioned before how lucky we are to have such a talented illustrator making our FANCYPANTS posters, but this month, Reese Bice has outdone himself– this painstakingly beautiful image could easily be the front cover for a novel about dark academia or some mystic order of Illuminati.

But no, it’s a drag show unlike any other… V is for VERITAS grabs you by the Latin root, and squeezes ‘til you spill the truth! We’re asking hard questions about history, literature and the arts, and the results are positively radiant. The event is Sunday May 17th, 7-10pm at the STUD, but we wanted to give you all a moment to sit with a simple truth: this is a gorgeous poster, and we intend to live up to it. 

Tickets and VIP tables to FANCYPANTS: V is for Veritas available here.

Thank you for reading our newsletter and supporting independent, queer arts in San Francisco! While you’re waiting for the next, did you know that you can see photos from previous shows and read about our performers on our website?

See you at the show!

-EnSeanté and the Fancypants cohort