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what critics are saying about Ten West...
(And
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L.A.
WEEKLY REVIEW OF "NIGHTS ERRANT" (Sacred Fools version)
GO! This two-man clown show, featuring Stephen Simon and
Jon Monastero, is a wacky Dadaist trip. Simon is tall, feckless and
unpredictable, while Monastero is short, brooding and mischievous. Under
the slick direction of Bryan Coffee, they combine vaudeville, commedia
dell’arte and clowning. In their first sketch, they embark on an
airplane flight, during which they encounter (as stick puppets) the
Space Station, a Halloween witch and the Little Prince before being shot
down by Snoopy in his Red Baron mode. Later, they take refuge from an
ominous storm (or maybe a war) in what might be a haunted house, or
their home, or possibly a dream. They have an unfortunate tea party (the
cream is rancid), and, growing weary, climb into their vertical bed. A
large, mysterious box seems to contain an elevator, a staircase and
various props, including bed clothes, a teddy bear and a storybook. They
never speak — at least in words — but the teddy bear and the book
do. After hiding in the box, Simon emerges in a black-beaded gown,
leading to a giggly flirtation and a mock romantic pas de deux. It’s
all very goofy, giddy, funny and executed with infectious charm.
BACKSTAGE
WEST REVIEW OF "NIGHTS ERRANT" (24th St. version)
CRITIC'S PICK! Upstage center is a large green box, labeled "The Amazing D'Oro and His Lovely Assistant." Neither D'Oro nor his assistant is ever seen or heard of again, but all sorts of other people and things emerge from the box, including the band Red Light District (including Shok, Alexander Burke, and vocalist Juliette Storace). The box will later disgorge a snake, a flashy diamond ring, multicolored balloons, and an unidentified gentleman in a party hat who appears briefly, then disappears forever. There also seems to be a shark in the box — or is it the Loch Ness Monster? — which we never see, though it launches an attack.
But these elements are only the scenery and props for the inspired lunatics of the comedy duo Ten West. Stephen Simon is tall and rangy, and Jon Monastero is not. Monastero is compact and dark-haired, and Simon is not. But otherwise they make up a perfectly matched team of clowns, anarchists, and pantomimists. They make sounds occasionally but never speak, though their props do. There's a sly talking teddy bear and a magical talking book that snarls at them in what sounds like a mixture of Spanish and Japanese.
It's impossible to summarize their act, because it has no plot. But ordinary events — such as eating lunch, going to bed, or sweeping the floor — give birth to absurd practical jokes, wild improvisation, comic deceptions, and farcical battles of will. They trick each other with malicious glee but never hold grudges, and somehow they remain highly endearing. Their high jinks occasionally spill into zany dance (choreographed by Andrew Amani), forays into the audience, pseudo magic tricks, and equally pseudo acrobatics, all performed with flair and terrific, Saroyanesque charm.
Director Bryan Coffee blends all the disparate elements — actors, musicians, props, and general madness — into a seamlessly engaging brew. They occasionally recycle old material, but it appears in ever-fresh combinations, so they're always worth a visit.
Click on the link to read a Ten West interview in
The Sound of Young America's Blog
TIME
OUT CHICAGO MAGAZINE
http://www.timeout.com/chicago/outandabout/?p=598
Chicago Sketchfest - Day 3
Posted in Out & About, Comedy by Steve Heisler on January 7th, 2007
...last night's Sketchfest had audiences asses-to-elbows in the Theatre Building's lobby - over 2000 people filed in throughout the night...
Now, on to Ten West. I think it's safe to say I was unequivocally mesmerized the entire length of the show. I don't even think I risked blinking. They were that good.
Scenes were totally silent and, at times, completely devoid of action; but never boring. It was easy to tell that the suit-and-bowler hat wearing actors were always fully invested in the scenes - their subtle gestures and fleeting glances said more than any words could. When these boys got physical, they did so with grace. One long-running scene had Ten West's members stuck together after a handshake; they clamored over and under each other, unable to shake themselves apart. They spun around, climbed on each other's backs and were flung between legs. Sure, I was happy (for the characters) when they finally came unstuck, but duly disappointed this wonderful scene was coming to a close. Oh yeah, and their show included a doll double suicide.
Also from TIME OUT CHICAGO...
http://www.timeout.com/chicago/outandabout/?p=667#more-667
Sketchfest best impressed, I attest
Posted in Out & About, Comedy by Steve Heisler on January 19th,
2007
A stunning contrast from the verbose ensembles packed into the
Sketchfest line-up, Ten West uttered nary a word their entire set.
Instead, they told a touching story with raw, captivating physicality.
Any sort of talking would have killed the magic.
How The West Has Won
http://www.sketchcenter.com/20qish/20qish_tenwest.html
Sketchcenter Staff member Kevin Chesley sits down to sip soda and get schooled on sketch with Los Angeles superteam Ten West.
Chateau Marmont had been brought up somewhat as a joke, but everyone involved was wicked glad to call the bluff. We got a relieved smile from our waiter (who probably goes by something
French-er than that) when he came by our table for the fourth time and we were finally ready to order – having comes to terms with the fact that what we really wanted from the famous bar of this revered Hollywood landmark was an order of coffees, Cokes, and iced teas.
I had brought my cousin’s Flat Stanley to lounge there with Jon Monastero and Stephen Simon, the two better halves of Ten West – one of my favorite sketch duos. Also presiding was Bryan Coffee, Ten West’s director and not-too-secret secret weapon. The Chateau, steeped in celebrity history both glamorous and dark, was the perfect place to interview these three. Their work is admiringly classic in feel, fun yet sinister, always intimidatingly hilarious, and held in the highest of regard by anyone with a sharp wit and the luck to have seen them live. Even those with a dull wit tend to dig it, too.
The group’s pedigree is multi-dimensional and this is a major part of their appeal. Jon’s resume contains as much Shakespeare as it does sketch. Stephen’s work with Ringling Bros. is a colorful, physical add to an already-impressive focus on theatrical training. Their partnership with Bryan Coffee is, perhaps, the most successful actor/director relationship in underground sketch. When they met, taking classes together at IO, Coffee was a part of The Class Project, a brilliant trio whose work still informs much of the current scene. Coffee has worked with groups across the country like MEAT and TROOP!, but Ten West is his first work with a group that has two words in its name. His vision has honed the duo immensely. Their character shines brighter because of his work at editing them down to core-funny. You can tell he doesn’t go easy on them and the audience reaps the reward. Tight and snappy pacing, Clown work - with a capital ‘C’, and a focus on creating timeless well-performed theatre keep Ten West consistently ahead of the pack and always steeped in variety.
An average Ten West soundtrack is equal parts Perry Como, Trent
Reznor, Puccini, and Tom Waits. That range is mirrored in the comedy as well. Their material mines the goofy as cleverly as it does the painful. This is a show you can bring home to Mom but then take out for drinks with your edgiest of pessimistic friends. It’s smart, sure, but with room for slapstick. This universality is why their show plays gangbusters to children and dancers of the Velvet Hammer burlesque alike (a tested fact). Everybody gets it when a clown punches a kid. Backflips and knifefights over sandwiches know no critic.
And it should come as no surprise that a group this unique has an origin all its own – so don’t be surprised. Jon and Stephen met because they were a teacher / substitute team for what I can only imagine was the luckiest middle school class of all time. That experience prepared them well for a meeting with my visiting Flat Stanley – a school project where kids send a cut-out version of themselves around the world to take pictures with landmarks and, in this case, comedy teams. They posed with the thing while musing about the first sketch work they ever performed together - a Faculty Follies show at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica. It was a lip-synching bit.
“I must have written 27 lip-synching sketches,” remembers
Monestero. And whereas usually such an idea would make me cringe, from the West it just makes me wish I could watch them all in a row. Okay…maybe, like 18 of them. Either way, this particular lip-synch would lay the foundation for a long-lasting theme in Ten West’s Modus Comerandi - the relationship between comedy, movement, and music. Two watershed pieces in the Ten West repertoire use music as their focus:
The Coatrack Has Been Drinking leaves me slack-jawed every time. Using precise physical skill, Stephen communes with his wise longcoat about a lost lover and the result is a far more truthful relationship than many you’ll see between two live non-garment performers. It’s an amazing scene: poignant, soaked in pathos, and funny throughout. It plays like brand new to me every time.
And from the “new school” of Ten West’s sketches, Jon’s rendition of Johnny Cash’s Hurt – a dramatic soap opera of suicidal Barbie dolls – is a fresh gem. Monastero milks the melodrama here. It’s a blissfully wicked piece of work. When I saw it performed, a little girl left right in the middle. “Too disturbing” the snickering Nine Inch Nails fan in me wondered? But no, she came back minutes later. She just needed to pee.
It’s a common mistake, however, to consider Ten West to be all physical. Whereas a majority of their work is – by choice – sans their own voices, when the two choose to dialogue the writing is sharp, original, and thick with meaty character. Jimmy &
Jeb, two loyal fishing compatriots with a flair for philosophical discourse, is perhaps their best pair of “talkers” to date. Snakebites, oppressive heat, and Homeric Similes abound in a typical Jimmy & Jeb sketch. The original has made a very successful round of the Festivals, but a series of scenes in which the two travel throughout time has been running repeat performances at The Sacred Fools Theatre in Los Angeles over the last few months. Be good and they may tour the newer installments near you real soon.
The road, lately, has been a jolly gauntlet for Ten West. They’ve hit the Fests in Seattle, Portland, San Fran, LA, and Toronto; but their performance at last year’s Sketchfest NYC is still one of the best I’ve ever seen. Especially to someone who has been watching them a while, 2005 was a galvanizing year for the duo. And so far Ten West is looking to tour ‘06 just as hard, with a return slot at this year’s Sketchfest NYC and appearances this very month at Benefest in Seattle and
Sketchingham! in Bellingham, WA. (a first-ever event that will feature the West alongside The Cody Rivers Show…a pairing that this writer thinks is sexy sexy gold).
But sketch alone may not be able to hold Ten West forever. As they formulate new material, the idea of long-form work is peeking out of their prop trunk more and more, a shift that many great groups are considering as of late. Coffee’s work with The Class Project laid plenty of the groundwork for today’s bevy of seamless blackout-free sketch shows (yeah, transitional work has been around forever, but TCP made it punk and live and fiendishly smart). Whatever form he and the West come up with in their next incarnation, it will certainly be a major part of the future of comedy, from the grass roots right on up. As we all took final sips at the Chateau, we realized that the place was far too dimly lit for a decent Flat Stanley picture – especially with my sub-par digital camera. To add insult to inadequacy, a
tarted-up concierge lady rushed over at the first sign of a camera to tell us that pictures aren’t even allowed on the premises. We pretended to be outraged and immediately left in a fervent huff…after paying and tipping generously.
Kevin Chesley uses dashes too much and is a founding member of TROOP! - where all members are “founding” ones. He apologizes that the above article is not very funny, though he does not apologize very hard. For funny, go to www.tenwest.net and find out when you can see them live.
Some vaudeville, some clowning, no balloon animals
Rick Polito, Marin Independent Journal
Stephen Simon doesn't wear his clown nose on his sleeve. He is a clown. He'll admit that. He just doesn't drop it into casual conversation more than he needs to. "I don't know if I'd come out as a clown," Simon says. "I just think of myself as an actor." But when the Novato native climbs onto the stage at the 142 Throckmorton Theatre for the San Francisco Sketch Comedy Festival - San Francisco's annual festival of mostly ensemble comedy - and his triumphant Marin homecoming, he'll be unleashing his inner clown, sort of. "It's always a precarious label," he sighs. Labels, it seems, have never been easy for Simon and Jon
Monastero, the brains and buffoonery behind Ten West. Their Web site says "Sketch Comedy" but they both say it's not "traditional sketch comedy." Simon went to Clown College but he doesn't know many balloon animals. They're almost neo-vaudeville but really more neo-neo-vaudeville. "We are comedic performers," Monastero offers. "How's that?" It'll have to do. There is some clowning, some silent pantomime interaction. But there's also dialogue. A lot of physicality. Monastero will actually use the word "pathos." San Francisco Sketch Fest organizer Jesse Thorn isn't sure what to call it either, describing Ten West as a combination of sketch and clowning "that improves both of those things." Thorn saw Ten West at the Seattle
SketchFest. "It's much better than it sounds." "We watched their 45-minute show once and then we stayed and watched it again and hour later," Thorn says. "And I hate clowns." Whatever it is they do, Ten West would seem an unlikely combination made more unlikely by the circumstance of their pairing. Monastero was teaching middle-school history in Los Angeles and Simon was the substitute, both men playing to the same captive and occasionally surly eighth-grade audience but, by the defining feature of the substitute/teacher relationship, never meeting. And then they did They started talking. They had similar performing drives, Simon with his acting and clown college background and Monastero at the L.A. Improv Olympics. When Simon got a long-term assignment at the same school, they began working on material. Then they got their big break at the Faculty Follies show. Not a lot of talent gets discovered in the Faculty Follies, but Simon and Monastero discovered they could work together. "Eventually it all morphed into Ten West,"
Monastero. Since then, they've taken label-defying act to shows like the Seattle
Sketchfest, the Velvet Hammer Burlesque and the L.A. Fest of Sketch. They spent this past weekend at the Chicago
Sketchfest. But the Jan. 24 show at 142 Throckmorton is the first time Simon has played to Marin. He grew up here. He just hasn't been on stage much since his San Marin High School days. Simon's excited about it. And he's excited he's not being billed as a clown. Simon calls his mother "super supportive" but adds, "I think she may stay away from the C word (clown) and say, 'My son is an actor.'" Clown, it seems, is a loaded label. "When you say clowning they think of birthday clowns or scary clowns or balloon animals," he says. Simon is not that kind of clown. He's some other kind of clown. And he doesn't wear his clown nose on his sleeve. If You Guffaw The San Francisco Sketch Comedy Festival opens in San Francisco on Thursday night, running through Jan. 29 at five venues. Tickets range from $15 to $20. For the full schedule, check www.sfsketchfest.com or 675-9707. Ten West shows are: - Jan. 24, 8 p.m., 142 Throckmorton Theatre, with Mark Pitta & Friends and Kasper Hauser ($15). - Jan. 25, 8 p.m., Eureka Theater in San Francisco, with the Cody Rivers Show & Kaspar Hauser.
excerpts from "Buddying Up "
What makes a successful partnership of actor-writers?
BackStage West
October 20, 2006
By Sarah Kuhn
Jon Monastero first encountered Stephen Simon during a stint teaching eighth-grade U.S. history at a Santa Monica public school. Monastero needed a sub for his class and requested "Mr. Simon," who was famous throughout the school for keeping anarchic classrooms under control. "I came back and my classroom was intact," Monastero recalls. "So I would always request him as my sub, but I never met him. Finally, one day, maybe a year after having him sub for me, we crossed paths in the main hallway, and I said, 'Excuse me, are you Mr. Simon? Hi, I'm Mr.
Monastero.'" The two eventually bonded with the help of the school's "faculty follies" show.
***
There are certainly a few key ingredients needed to make a performing partnership work. To start with, a similar point of view seems to help. Monastero and Simon make up the Los Angeles-based comedy duo Ten West (performing Oct. 18-Nov. 16 at Sacred Fools Theater,
www.tenwest.net). The pair is inspired by vaudeville, commedia, music, and clowning. One thing that makes their partnership jell is a shared sense of what's funny and what's not. "I think sharing that core comedic sensibility [is important]," Monastero says. "We kind of stay away from the scatological, and there's not a lot of cursing or poopie jokes. Let's say it was me and someone who just loves unzipping his pants and flashing his schlong around; it might be difficult to create some stuff together." Quips Simon: "Note to self: Don't bring up sketch where I drop pants."
Still, it doesn't matter where you and your partner stand on flatulence jokes or onstage nudity if you don't have that elusive, deeper connection, that inexplicable chemistry that comes across on stage or screen. "As an actor, you work with so many different people, and sometimes you click and sometimes you don't," Monastero says. "I just did a production at a 99-Seat theatre, and there was a person that I did the majority of my scenes with, and we just didn't get along. But then there are people like Stephen, and the natural chemistry's just there."
***
Working with a partner can also enhance your writing process. Monastero and Simon have found that working together helps their pieces evolve into something better. Monastero recalls one piece he wrote, about two guys fishing, that was set to the song "Moon River." After improvising with Simon and Ten West's director, Bryan Coffee, the piece turned into something entirely different. Now it involves a sandwich, a knife, and, yes, "Moon River," and is a crowd-pleasing staple of Ten West's stage show. "You can come in with this really chunky thing and then, working with [Simon and Coffee], collaborating, it ends up being a nice, sleek, bare-boned piece that you can put up in front of people," Monastero says.
The bond between partners tends to be a complicated, occasionally delicate thing. Working so closely with someone is an intimate experience, different from most of the relationships you might have in your professional life. Many duos describe it as akin to marriage... To preserve your professional relationship, special attention may need to be paid to your personal one. Simon and
Monastero, for example, don't hang out much outside of Ten West. It's not something they planned, Monastero says, it just sort of happened organically. "There's a part of me that thinks, if we weren't in Ten West, we probably would go to the movies and go fishing or scuba diving or hiking or whatever," he says. "But I think it's important for us to be apart as well, because when you're creating, it's really an intense thing, and it can be exhausting…. I have a tremendous respect for Stephen as a person and as an artist, of course. But there's a separation there that is a healthy one for us, creatively." Adds Simon, "Because we have the separate experiences, when we come to work together, I think it's that much richer. Whereas if we were always doing the same thing together, I think we would tend to recycle."
***
Something about having a writing-performing partnership seems to produce that kind of deep, undeniable bond. For all the duos interviewed for this piece, a partnership isn't something they ever predicted or sought. But once it's established, there's nothing like it.
For
Funny, They Rate a Ten West
Sacramento Bee
July 20, 2007
By Jim Carnes
Original
Article
It's not such a leap from teaching to clowning, from the classroom to the stage, as it might appear.
"Teaching lends itself to performance, just by its nature. You're already in front of an audience," Jon Monastero said in a recent telephone interview from Los Angeles. "I taught United States history for seven years, five classes a day. I looked at it as five shows a day," he said.
Monastero is half of the sketch comedy duo Ten West, along with fellow comic and clown Stephen Simon. They will perform four shows, two tonight and two Saturday, at the Geery Theater.
Monastero also got encouragement from his employer.
"The school that I taught at for five of my seven years had a 'Faculty Follies' show each year. I wrote and performed in that."
That's also how he met Simon and eventually formed Ten West.
"The other half of Ten West happened to be the best 'sub' (substitute teacher) on the block. He supplemented his income as an actor by teaching, and I always asked for him to sub. Then, I asked him to be in a sketch with me, and we found a natural chemistry."
As time went on, Monastero said, "I was drawn more to performance and away from academia.
"Steve and I started writing together and formed Ten West, and I took a huge risk and left the lucrative world of teaching for that of an actor."
(Monastero, who has been named in "Who's Who Among America's Best Teachers" three times and was 2004 Teacher of the Year at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, remains connected to education.
"I blended my love of history, particularly the Civil War era, and created a Union persona and a Confederate persona that I take out to schools as a one-person history presentation," he said. Spring is when California's eighth-graders study the Civil War, "so I bring out my musket and off I go," he said.)
Originally Ten West consisted of four performers. They wrote and performed one show together, then one member -- the only female in the group -- left for other pursuits.
"Then the three guys did a show," Monastero said, "and then the third guy decided he couldn't make it as an actor, so that left the two of us."
Simon and Monastero now have a director, Bryan Coffee, who "serves as an editor," Monastero said. "He's the vital outside pair of eyes we need."
A Ten West performance is a unique blend of clowning, vaudeville and commedia dell'arte (a form of Italian comedy developed in the 16th century consisting of sketches improvised from standardized situations and stock characters).
"Commedia dell'arte may not be so popular in America, but it really is part of Western comedy," he said. "There are elements of stand-up, clowning and pantomime. For us, it really informs what we do."
"Because we do silent material (the duo's last two shows have had no spoken dialogue) and a lot of it is clowning, there is plenty of room for improvisation," Monastero said. "We have markers that we intend to hit, but there's plenty of room within those markers. There's some leeway for discovery within our shows, because if Steve is supposed to fall down, what happens around that doesn't really matter as long as it's funny -- and he falls down."
A Ten West performance is "really physical," he said. "We spend a lot of time getting it right. We have signals to let each other know if something's askew in a physical bit."
Performance demands a high level of concentration.
"Our show is exhausting. The level of fitness has to be high."
With that level of exertion in mind, Monastero said that in addition to their everyday wardrobe, "We'll both bring four T-shirts and four dress shirts and four pairs of socks."
Review
of Sacred Fools Theater Company's double feature: I Wrote This! and Ten West, Jan. 19-Feb. 4, 2006
"In Ten West , the production's second half...make it worth staying the extra 45 minutes. The wordless routine, complete with bowlers and briefcases, takes its cue from Charlie Chaplin and other silent-movie icons... it will keep you laughing on the ride home. Both performers are remarkably expressive, conveying several nice comic moments with little more than glances or shoulder shrugs." January 26, 2006 By Jeff
Favre, Backstage West Theater Reviews
"This vaudevillian piece is performed in silence and reminds one of great silent performers like Charlie Chaplin and Red Skelton. The duo are fluidly acrobatic in their movements and slapstick performances. Full of heart and lots of clowning around these guys make having so much fun look easy. 'Ten West' brings back good old-fashioned comedy to a contemporary audience."
LASplash.com has posted their review - http://tinyurl.com/abj5e By Roberta Lage
"TEN WEST shows that so-called 'old' vaudeville is so fresh, it's new again!"
Jan. 2006 Review from Rich Borowy's EMail newsletter "Accessibly Live Off-Line"
Look who's featured in Seattle's "The Stranger"!
"Ten West, a duo out of Los Angeles, proved that sketch comedy can be old-fashioned, wholesome and thoroughly likable. Their vaudeville-style act capitalized on the extreme physical differences between teeny-tiny Jon Monastero and colossally tall Stephen Simon, opening with a series of wordless slapstick routines. But they went beyond circus antics with a hilarious bit about a boss and a secretary with a well-refined love/hate relationship. Simon offered the festival's most tender moment with a bittersweet pantomime of a drunk fellow lamenting a lost girlfriend."
~ Grant Butler - Editor Of The A&E
The Oregonian
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
"The show is different. It's not your average "Saturday Night Live"/"Mad TV" type sketch show. Two things separate them from those types of sketch comedy groups. They're actually clever...and funny.
The show is a combination of sketches, clowning and "dumbshow." It's moody, quirky and more importantly...human. And it has something for the entire family, fake ventriloquism, Tom Waits music, lip-synching to the Perry Como and Betty Hutton version of "Bushel and a Peck," pathos, fishing, the first
"vatos" on the moon and more."
Robb Padgett, writer & producer
"what a charming funny embraceable show...time we reintroduce the vaudevillian elements of the origin of show biz...with a fresh funny clever crafty twist...you two are hypnotizing to watch...a perfect odd couple...love the pacing and the line up."
~ Sally Schaub, Sally Schaub Management
"Hi Jon!
...i went to your show last night and it was just brilliant! i enjoyed all the sketches, they were just highly entertaining and uber charming. i sat next to the kid in the audience who kept trying to upstage you with his sweet commentary. The show was just incredible! i have to say that the mixture of humor in the sketches was so well balanced and just consistent, that i didn't stop laughing. i loved the skit with the two hicks,your cute leering of women, the Nebraska report, the two vatos in space, Stephen's beautiful skit with the coat and hat,... you know, i was just about to name all the skits in your show. So, again, needless to say i loved it...so cheers, tally ho, rah rah rah! and everything else that would cheer you on!"
~ Yuko Shiroma
"...my family and I really enjoyed your...performance last night. You guys are truly unique, inventive and talented folks and the work you do has a wonderful integrity and vitality to it. One of my brothers was saying that for all the lame-ass sketches you see on
SNL, along comes something like this and you're just like "wow!". The show is refreshing, punchy and entertaining and I feel like you two as a tandem will go on to do some great things."
~ Adam Roth
"I feel very strongly that you guys are going to go pretty far...
I just hope it's on my channel!"
~ Lydia Antonini, Nick @ Nite/TV Land "...I was blown away by your performance
this year. I had tears with the coat hanger scene. You two are an incredible
duo. I am in awe of your style and chemistry. I had to write to you
both and thank you once again for coming to our festival and bringing
such a high quality product. Your standing ovation was well deserved."
~ Brian Posen - Executive Producer, Chicago
Sketch Comedy Festival, 2005
"I
saw a lot of shows that opened my eyes to different styles and strategies
that we should be trying˜it's amazing... I saw Ten West from L.A.,
and they get so much mileage out of just their faces and old Harold
LLoyd-style falling down... And there are things that aren't in the script˜visuals,
simple, clever sets. And stage pictures that we don't even think
about... Changed
my life."
~ Will Hines - Gameface (New York)
“Quaint & sweet, borrowing a little from Bill Irwin, Jerry
Lewis & their owned twinned personalities… these guys are headed
somewhere very interesting.”
~ Michael Phillips - Chicago Tribune theater critic, January 10,
2005
“These guys created quite a buzz here!”
~ Brian Posen - Executive Producer, Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival,
January 8, 2004
"Ten West is... totally different from anything at the festival.
They're very vaudeville-inspired, they're very clown-esque, but again,
they're still doing sketch comedy. They come out, they're very silent,
they do some slapstick-y kind of stuff but it always has a point and
an idea, so that's very cool.”
~ Excerpt from interview with Alex Zalben - Co-Producer Sketchfest
NYC 2005 in Gelf Magazine, “Gotham Gets Its Sketchfest”,
www.gelfmagazine.com
, June 3, 2005
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