Christmas In July: Save $2 this month!

Summer time in Arizona is a real time of need! National Comedy Theatre wants you to help out your community and, in turn, save some cash and laugh it up! All this month we are celebrating Christmas in July! With your donation of non-perishable food items you get $2 off admission to ANY Friday or Saturday night Competitive Comedy Show! When you make a reservation online (click here to do just that) use promo code FOOD to take $2 off your tickets (just dont forget your donation).

Visit our friends at United Food Bank (click here to do just that) to see what items are most needed, including Peanut Butter, canned meats like Tuna and whole grain cereals.

Kevin McDonald of the Kids in the Hall visits National Comedy Theatre for 2 Day Improv into Sketch Workshop & an Evening of Comedy

Ok. Lets start with the facts and then I will ramble a bit about how personally excited I am to share this news...

Kevin McDonald of the Kids in the Hall will be visiting us at National Comedy Theatre as we host a 2 day Improv into Sketch Workshop and then An Evening of Stand Up and Improv Comedy with Kevin McDonald and the cast of National Comedy Theatre.

Kevin McDonald Improv into Sketch Workshop
$300 for two full days
Saturday August 31 & Sunday September 1, 10:00am- 5:00pm

Join Kevin McDonald of the Kids in the Hall for a two day, 12 hour workshop to improve your acting and writing skills. You will learn how to write comedy through performance, and use improv as a writing tool.

The workshop will warm up with improv games to help sharpen storytelling skills, and evolve until students are doing their own improvised scenes in small groups. Kevin will go from group to group, helping and guiding with the "writing" of each scene. Each group will then have the opportunity to present their sketch.

After getting notes, revising and presenting the scenes again, the workshop will end with the groups going away and actually finalizing their scenes. The now fully written scenes will be performed one last time for everyone.

This workshop will improve your acting and writing skills, and will teach you how both skills work in unison to create great scenes and hilarious comedy. And if you ask him, ther'es a good chance Kevin will answer any questions about the Kids in the Hall. You might have to ask him to shut up.

Space is limited. Call 602-374-5638 or email workshops@nctphoenix.com

Kevin McDonald is an accomplished stand-up comedian, actor, voice artist, writer, director and improviser. He is best known as a member of the legendary sketch comedy team The Kids in the Hall. He has appeared in films such as Epic Movie, Sky High and Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy and more. Television appearances include Arrested Development, Friends, Seinfeld, that 70’s Show and tons and tons more. His voice work includes Lilo & Stitch, Invader Zim and Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends and tons and tons and tons more….


An Evening of Stand Up & Improv Comedy
Sunday September 1, 7:00pm, $20 (likely R rated, no Brown Bag Foul)

Kevin McDonald of the Kids in the Hall is joining the cast of National Comedy Theatre for an Evening of Stand-Up and Improv Comedy.
Kevin McDonald is best known as a legend of sketch comedy but he is also a hilarious and accomplished performer of film, television, voice acting, stand-up and improv.

Get your tickets now for this exciting event online here.
(this is a special engagement, discounts, vouchers and red tickets do not apply)

So thats the facts.
Personally, I'm so excited about this event that its hard to keep my arms and hands from fluttering uncontrollably, as they did when I sat down to read an email that began, "Hi I'm Kevin McDonald from the Kids in the Hall (the one with curly hair and glasses)..." as I read on I got more and more excited and the fluttering made it extraordinarily difficult to type out a reply.

I grew up on the Kids in the Hall. I literally wore out my VHS of Brain Candy and I very often still confuse people by offering them double A batteries and land in Montana.
I am really excited to host Mr. McDonald. I hope you guys are excited too!

Here he is discussing a great Kids in the Hall sketch with Chris Hardwick for the Nerdist Channel:

Mom Squad: App Chat

Krissy Lenz visits with the Mom Squad and Lisa Haffner of Your Life A to Z discuss the ever changing landscape of social media and what Mom's need to know.

Though we only covered SnapChat and the impossibility of keeping your lovely little faces off of the interwebs forever, there is so much more to explore!

tumblr, reddit, buzzfeed, mashable... maybe we will get to revisit it again. By then there will probably be a big stack of new sites and apps to learn about!

Gadzooks- its YOU (The Audience!) March & April Edition

3/2/13

3/22

3/29

3/30

3/30

4/12

4/20

4/26

4/27

5/3

5/10

Mom Squad: Too Much Gaming?

This Wednesday was my first actual segment on Your Life A to Z's Mom Squad. The topic- video games and electronic entertainment... has it gone too far?

I know that Im probably still ahead of the bend in the road whereby children inevitably succumb to the digital under toe, but right now electronics do us no harm. Zoe and Rocket will sometimes play with their innotab, vsmile, or with my kindle or ipod- but I can't recall a time they ever spent more than 15 minutes gaming before moving on to the next activity. Right at this moment, as I sit at my desk working away, they are playing "Super Babies vs. Ninja Turtles" together.

Suzy, one of my fellow Squadders, has trouble with her older kids playing too much and staying up all night.
Janet didn't allow her kids to have video games at all growing up.

What do you guys think?

It was a lot of fun to be at the studio again, in the fancy room with the kitchen and the adorable Italian chef. I'm looking forward to the next taping on the 25th. No idea what the topic will be but I'll be sure to let you know!

Here's the video of our introductory appearance.

NCT at Phoenix Comic Con

This year marked National Comedy Theatre's 3rd round of performances at Phoenix Comic Con. I think that any of the players can tell you it is one of the events we look forward to all year. Cosplay! Panels! Art! Celebrities charging outlandish fees to snap a pic! And Nerds Nerds Nerds, delicious Nerds!

Our first panel was Saturday at 12. Spoof N Cinema: Star Wars the Clone Wars- wherein we took 2 Episodes of The Clone Wars (Defenders of Peace and Rookies, for the initiated) and created new dialogue, a new story complete with score and sound effects live! We packed in a standing room only crowd and fire marshals were turning people away. and the show was killer.



The team spent the day wandering around the con taking in various sights

Dont Blink! The weeping angels are here!

The cast of Voyage Trekkers? Didnt they win Best Web Series and Best of Arizona at this year's Phoenix Comic Con? Why yes, they did!

this inflatable time machine is bigger on the inside!

and then headed out for hilarious improv comedy at our own home, NCT in Mesa.

Sunday we packed back into Comic Con for our second set of shows. Something slightly out of the ordinary happened though...
we got set up and, per the norm there was some kind of weird and unexpected problem. the screen was yellow. we had all the right equipment so, one up on last year. and we had picture, so one up on saturday... but the picture was distinctly yellow. my super power of finding a tech guy came in handy and it seemed the problem was in hand when i excused myself to visit the powder room right across the hall before the show started. no sooner had trow dropped than the sirens and loud speakers began to blare in quiet and polite tones "the phoenix convention center has been alerted to an emergency. please proceed calmly to the nearest exit." and when i opened the restroom door a sea of nerd humanity was flooding past me, cutting off my connection to our panel room where my purse, phone and EVERYTHING ELSE lay in wait.
luckily, in the eye of the oncoming storm i bumped into, literally bumped into, one of my players who told me they had all my stuff and were booking for the exit.

ill tell you one thing i know for a certainty, if you want some fun people watching... visit phoenix convention center on the last hour of the last day of phoenix comic con and stand just across the street as the WHOLE PLACE gets evacuated. its unsane.
my players and i were super disheartened as well because our panel should have been beginning RIGHT THEN. and we were very unsure if we would be able to do it at all. at least a month of preperation and a whole bunch of positive energy was on the line if this weird bomb threat/fire alarm pull/ nefarious prank was not sorted out quickly.

evacuation smesmackuation!

it seemed darkest before the dawn when they ushered us from our roosts just outside the convention center doors and told us to cross the street.

However, no sooner did our feet hit the other side of 3rd street than the "All Clear" call went out and an even more robust sea of nerd humanity raced across, in front of the light rail for gods sake, BACK into the convention center.

miraculously we started our panel of Spoof N Cinema: Star Trek the Animated Series just ten minutes late. The crowd was significantly less than saturday, perhaps in part due to those fleeing for their very lives when the sirens blared? I hope so. the show was great, none the less and we walked out of Phoenix Comic Con, unbombed, and heads held high.



really looking forward to next year and the insanity that is sure to unfold. Phoenix Comic Con, we love ye.

High School Improv League Tournament & Shows 2013!

This year's Tourney was super fun, and a gimungous marathon of 7 improv shows in one day!



All of the teams represented really well and had a great time mingling and getting to know each other. We had so many parents, friends and supporters come to Tournament that we had to bring out another row of chairs. furthermore, in perfect accordance with Murphy's Law, the AC breaker broke and we were all jam packed in there, more than 100 people, most of them sweaty teenagers, with no fan blowing in the AC.

We soldiered through it, though and with good spirits and lots of laughs. We even had two guest judges on loan to us from the Torch Theatre, which was awesome. Mack and Rachel brought a fresh perspecitve to the festivities.



It was very close competition and, in the end, the Perry High School Perriwinkles took home the Franken Trophy and Basha High School's Sudden Impact Comedy Club took home the title of 2013 National Comedy Theatre High School Improv League Champions!

On May 24 NCT hosted the Tourney Champs vs. Pros show, a really exciting event where the players from Basha's winning team took the stage along with NCT Professionals. The All Star Show followed with All Star players from 6 of our schools on the NCT stage for the 9:45 show.



All of us at NCT are super proud of Basha's Sudden Impact, Perry's Perrywinkles and all of the teams who participated in 2013 Tournament. We are really going to miss the seniors who are moving on to become awesome grown ups somewhere out there but we couldn't be more excited for next year. Who knows what the 2014 High School Improv League will have in store.