Rachel takes the stage at Common Room

After a summer hiatus, Common Room is back! If you’re in Chicago, cancel everything else and come along to the next one. If you’re lucky, you’ll even get pulled on stage for the traditional ‘interview with an audience member’ segment, as Randi’s friend Rachel discovered last week.

We also introduced her to the perpetual comedy motion machine which is Improv Shakespeare at the iO.  Night of the Living Bed – the fourth production I’ve seen – was as rip-roaringly brilliant as ever and contained a commendable sequence of single-payer healthcare system puns. (Which is more than can be said of the first Republican primary debate… although if you listened closely, you could just about hear Donald Trump praising Scotland’s NHS, which was somewhat surreal.)

Lauri, Randi and me

Sadly, after his final show on Thursday, Jon Stewart is no longer around to make all that nonsense feel better. A logical alternative is to turn to drink, which we greatly enjoyed with Lauri on Friday night. And on Saturday, AJ (of the ‘British, newly arrived in Chicago’ variety) joined us for Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine. Having decided to buy tickets after seeing a few scenes at Common Room, it grew increasingly familiar until I finally searched my own brain blog and confirmed that, yes, I actually first saw this play at the Tricycle back in 2006 on a school trip. With great consideration I had avoided spoiling the plot for my future self, a courtesy I will now repeat in case this happens once again, but for the record it’s certainly a very funny and enjoyable play.

Finally, two more authentic experiences I can now check off:

• Being turned away from urgent care because of the ‘wrong’ insurance (not for me – and yes, everyone’s OK)
• Having a debit card cloned and used for fraudulent purchases at McDonald’s (and yes, I got all the money back and everything’s OK)

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