Doghouse at Fallout Theater

The April Dog­house show had me at Law & Order. It’s no lie, I’m a crime pro­ce­du­rals junkie. I’m binge watch­ing all 20 sea­sons of Law & Order on Hulu as I write this. I’ve been on Jack­ie Kashi­an’s Dork For­est dis­cussing Law & Order (the OG) at length. So, when I was invit­ed to watch the April edi­tion of Dog­house at Fall­out The­ater, lit­tle did I expect to hear the L&O intro. You know the one. ​“In the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.…” yada yada yada.

If you fol­low @Doghousecomedyatx on Insta­gram, their pro­file sim­ply states ​“We’re a dog­gone com­e­dy troupe!” What I wit­nessed (I swear to tell the truth and noth­ing but the truth) was a col­lab­o­ra­tive sketch, improv, and clown spec­ta­cle. On a shoe string bud­get, I watched a tri­al in the case of Clay­ton Chal­man v. Ran­dall Sey­mour presided over by judge Sigour­ney Oper­a­ta. Also present were attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Chal­man and Sey­mour. The jury was the audience.

For the musi­cal­ly inclined, the show opened with the bailiff per­form­ing a drag rou­tine set to Led Zep­pelin (which includ­ed doing the splits — ouch!). Lat­er in the show we were treat­ed to a real song and tap dance num­ber. We think the judge and at least one of the attor­ney char­ac­ters may have enjoyed a bit too much pre-tri­al drink because clear­ly they did­n’t real­ize they were pre­sid­ing over a very seri­ous court case with life-chang­ing reper­cus­sions for the los­er. Accord­ing to the pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney, Leviti­cus Corn­Wall Black­Wa­ter, Ran­dall Sey­mour has wronged every­one. But truth­ful­ly, Sey­mour is a vic­tim of the uni­verse. His crime? So glad you asked! While in line at the Austin Bergstrom air­port, Sey­mour men­tioned to Chal­man that he’d need to take off his shoes to cross the TSA check­point. His ​“reward” was Chal­man pum­mel­ing Sey­mour, launch­ing him into the X‑ray machine and fry­ing his brain with extreme lev­els of radioac­tiv­i­ty. But, we the jury, are led to believe that Sey­mour is not the vic­tim, he is the per­pe­tra­tor of crimes upon Chalman.

The mind bend­ing con­cept is played to hilar­i­ty until the final rul­ing is giv­en by the judge with the help of the jury (the audi­ence) and our tap-danc­ing foreper­son. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Sey­mour is found guilty and sen­tenced to the ulti­mate penal­ty. So is his attor­ney, the Eey­ore-esque Crud Dun­do. This is where Dog­house throws a fun sur­prise at us. With the sketch/​improv/​clowning expe­ri­ence thus far of watch­ing this tri­al while com­fort­ably seat­ed in the the­ater, we are then invit­ed to assist with the sen­tenc­ing in the the­ater’s court­yard. I’ve been com­ing to the Fall­out The­ater for more than ten years and I had no idea this space exist­ed! But there we were, hand­ed our cans of sil­ly string and water bal­loons for the sen­tenc­ing of Sey­mour and Crud Dun­do. It was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­act with the per­form­ers in a unique way.

As it turns out, the evening’s per­for­mance was a sequel to a pre­vi­ous Tri­al of Ran­dall Sey­mour ear­li­er this year. In fact, the char­ac­ter Ran­dall Sey­mour was a char­ac­ter from a sketch orig­i­nal­ly per­formed two years ago. I can’t promise that every Dog­house show will take you to the court­yard to spray sil­ly string on a con­vict­ed crim­i­nal. But, I can promise you that you’ll have a good time with the cre­ative con­cept shows that Dog­house works to deliv­er every month. With a mix of improv, sketch, standup and exper­i­men­tal com­e­dy, you’ll have a good time being enter­tained by the Dog­house per­form­ers. And that’s my final verdict.

The cast of the April Dog­house show (and the named mem­bers of Doghouse)

Ran­dall Sey­mour — Sam Q. Peirce

Clay­ton Chal­man — himself

Crud Dun­do, Defense Attor­ney — Hay­den Hartrick

Leviti­cus Corn­Wall Black­Wa­ter, Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney — Lucas Bradanini

Hon­or­able Sigour­ney Oper­a­ta, judge — Luke Gaskey

Bailiff — Max Foster

Foreper­son — Wal­lis Brown

The Rock Paper Scis­sor Twins (wit­ness­es) — Mark Beach and Zoe Dunk

Not present — Ben Cervantes