Over the Lege: A Political Comedy Show

Every once in a while, worlds col­lide and we become smit­ten with a show concept.

Pol­i­tics is not some­thing we usu­al­ly cov­er or talk about, but let’s face it, we live in Austin, and we think a LOT of things about our Texas Leg­is­la­ture are com­e­dy wor­thy. Full dis­clo­sure: I per­son­al­ly look for­ward to the Best/​Worst list of politi­cians that Texas Month­ly issues. So, when pre­sent­ed a chance to pro­mote a com­e­dy show with a sole focus on the Texas Leg­is­la­ture and fea­tur­ing a role by our colum­nist Rochelle McConni­co, I was on board!

Hap­pen­ing this week­end at the Long Cen­ter, Over the Lege Part 6: A New Low is the brain­child of Stephanie Chiarel­lo, now in its sixth sea­son (hence the Part 6, see what she did there?). Chiarel­lo has seri­ous polit­i­cal cre­den­tials, hav­ing spent eight ses­sions as either a leg­isla­tive staffer or as a pro­fes­sion­al watch­ing the leg­is­la­ture. She’s cur­rent­ly serv­ing as Chief of Staff to State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bob­by Guer­ra. The self-pro­fessed rab­ble-rouser (we’re quite fond of rab­ble-rousers or those who even know the phrase), cre­at­ed and intro­duced the world to Over the Lege in 2016 at The Insti­tu­tion The­ater (now closed) and has pre­sent­ed addi­tion­al sea­sons at Long The­ater’s Rollins The­ater and even pub­lic access TV.

Chiarel­lo real­ized how much com­e­dy can be mined from our Texas polit­i­cal machine. As she mus­es, ​“As the Leg­is­la­ture gets more absurd, the par­o­dy of it gets hard­er. We could just read tran­scripts from the offi­cial leg­isla­tive jour­nals and the audi­ence would think that we had writ­ten it as fic­tion.” Luck­i­ly, Chiarel­lo is also trained with degrees in the­atre and dance (and biol­o­gy, as one does) and knows how to put on a Pro­duc­tion with a cap­i­tal P (or is capi­tol more appro­pri­ate in this case — that’s one for the fel­low politicos). 

What can you expect? Over the Lege is a sketch com­e­dy show that iden­ti­fies as a lit­tle Sat­ur­day Night Live, a lit­tle Col­bert Report, and a lit­tle Hee Haw. The show opens with a musi­cal num­ber to get you in the mood, fol­lowed by a mono­logue from the God­dess of Lib­er­ty (you know her — she stands on top of the Texas Capi­tol — with hor­rif­i­cal­ly exag­ger­at­ed fea­tures), fol­lowed by top­i­cal and quick-wit­ted sketch­es about recent hap­pen­ings in the Texas Leg­is­la­ture like ERCOT, vot­ing rights, and teacher strug­gles. The sec­ond act is a Col­bert Report style inter­view with a dif­fer­ent leg­isla­tive celebri­ty each night — Sen­a­tor Sarah Eck­hardt on Fri­day, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gina Hino­josa on Sat­ur­day and Erin Zwein­er on Sun­day. The show ends with a lit­tle improv and final musi­cal num­ber beg­ging the audi­ence to ​“Get Over Their Lege”.

Don’t miss this if you love both com­e­dy and the absur­di­ty of Texas politics.

Fol­low Over the Lege at

• Web­site — over​thelege​.com
• Twit­ter — @overthelege
• Insta­gram — @overthelege
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​o​v​e​r​t​h​elege

Over the Lege can be seen and heard:

• Long Cen­ter — Sep­tem­ber 16 – 18, 2022 Get Tick­ets
• Pod­cast — Lis­ten now!