FREAK DANCE: THE FORBIDDEN DIRTY BOOGALOO
“When pop comes to lock, when you’re breakin’ on the make, sometimes you got to take a chance and dance.”
Freak Dance: The Forbidden Dirty Boogaloo, is a new musical theater extravaganza, I wrote and I am in.
Freak Dance is a straight up, in your face, activated story of how dancers from different worlds come together to save Fantaseez Dance Center, the soul of the streets where dancing is the dream of every street kid, combating the city building inspector, the rival studio, and the Forbidden Dirty Boogaloo.

Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
5919 Franklin Avenue; Hollywood, CA; 90028
Fridays at 8
$10
Freak Dance reservations

www.ucbtheater.com

ONLY FOUR MORE WEEKS! June 6 is final show!

*The show is every Friday but I will miss a couple.
These are the shows I am in for sure:
May 16 & 30; June 6

LA WEEKLY THEATER PICK
FREAK DANCE: THE FORBIDDEN DIRTY BOOGALOO
Much of the propulsion in Matt Besser’s dance confection comes from the great breakdance interludes by the Bad Newz Bearz crew (Joel Lara, Jose D. Martinez, Ernie Rodriguez, Isaac Lara and Jesus Corla). The rest derives from Besser’s comic-book satire of self-righteous programs claiming to use the arts to get kids off drugs. Our hero, Funky Bunch (Michael Cassady), sports a DARE T-shirt and tries to rally a clan of inner-city youth led by an aging homey (Hal Rudnick) who suffers the effects of a brain injury from dancing on the ceiling, as well as the complete evisceration of his penis from too much friction with the ground. There’s even a rich girl (Megan Lynam) — “I’m not so rich that I can’t learn to be poor.” They hunker down in an abandoned office and rehearse their dance moves. Enter the Building Inspector (Besser), in the colonial attire of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, slapping them with a $2K fine. How to endure? A dance contest, of course, pitting their slick moves against the sleazy lap-dance gyrations of their opponents, the Dazzles, led by Drew Droege and featuring Allan McLeod, in a mentally impaired turn that looks like Christopher Walken with a high-pitched manic laugh. Dance-bulge codpieces are like visual centerpieces adorning the actors, under Lindsay Hendrickson’s perfect direction. Brian Fountain and Jake Anthony wrote the music. Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave., Hlywd.; Fri., 8 p.m.; thru April 25. (323) 908-8702.

LA MAGAZINE: REVIEW
Our appetite for the inspirational dance movie genre is insatiable, just as humanity never tires of the washed-up coach who takes over a ragtag sports team, leads it to victory (or edifying defeat), and thus gains redemption. Matt Besser, one of the original four of Upright Citizens Brigade, writes and directs Freak Dance: The Forbidden Dirty Boogaloo, a send up of the You Got Serveds and Step Ups that have fed our dreams. As Besser describes his show: “Overly sincere musical numbers describing the hard life of a ghetto street dancer.”
Yes, musical theater and dance movies are often very stupid, and Besser does a sly job of skewering both, and Besser’s turn as the Inspector Javert villain is genius. Drew Droege, one of L.A.’s funniest up-and-comers, plays an evil, silver-suited advocate of lap dances. The Bad News Bears dance troupe also brings the real pops and locks to the stage.
And, hey, dig those dance bulges. (Every Friday night at 8 at UCB Theatre, through May.)
—Michael

COMEDY DEATH RAY
May 20

SEATTLE
May 23 & 24
I am in the Sasquatch Festival on Saturday and maybe on Sunday too at the Comedy Tent.