From The Chicago Reader, February, 1998.
You'll find no scattershot
sketch-and-blackout formula in Commedia
Dell' High School, no Harolds merely stringing together the same old
shticks. What distinguishes Step Right Up's improv show from others
(with the possible exception of the Free Associates) is the existence
of a plot. Starting with a high school setting, two stock characters,
and a few details from the audience, the seven ensemble members forge
a narrative complete with foreshadowing and reversals--all the
accoutrements of the classic 19th-century novel (or at least a John
Hughes movie). Hyperbolic slapstick is refreshingly absent. On the
night I attended, Bumper Carroll and Mary-Terese Cozzola took the lead
roles in a fable of adolescent angst centered around a nerd's learning,
then unlearning how to be cool 'n' cruel. Even the supporting characters
had enough depth and complexity to make one want to return and see what
their stories were.
--Mary Shen Barnidge (Copyright, 1998)