Guts at Fallout Theater

In the wake of Exploraphoria’s depar­ture, a new exper­i­men­tal com­e­dy show­case car­ries the torch. Like its Tues­day night pre­de­ces­sor, GUTS is a vari­ety hour that allows comics to let loose with inven­tion. Char­ac­ters abound and the fourth wall is non-exis­tent. There’s even a mid-show seg­ment where you, a lucky audi­ence mem­ber, can win a prize. 

Chism Cor­neli­son leads an ensem­ble of co-hosts that includes Jamie Meeks, Tan­ner Bench, Jef­frey Ander­son, Dani Gon­za­lez, and on key­board, one-man-house-band Xan­der Noland. At the show I attend­ed, ​“Back to School” was the theme. Atten­dance was tak­en and late­com­ers were rep­ri­mand­ed. With the press of a but­ton DJ ​“Assis­tant Vice Prin­ci­pal” Xan­der frac­tured the song ​“School’s Out” into a call-and-response for the audi­ence (“Schooool’s” back ​“for” fall). Cor­neli­son, in Eric Cart­man print tube socks and Eric Cart­man graph­ic tee, direct­ed a junior high A/V Club in the form of one CJ Rob­les, who livestreamed the chaos of GUTS on Tik­Tok. Lunch lady Tam­my (Bench) cooked up grilled cheese sand­wich­es on stage, the pay­off being that they were all dropped on the floor with a pre­med­i­tat­ed stunt fall. A fun­ny way to end the show? Absolute­ly, but at the expense of myself leav­ing hungry.

The showrunner’s antics are the vibe of GUTS; more than just host­ing, Cor­neli­son and co. ban­ter with per­form­ers and share the stage with them. It’s a loose show in this way, which is inten­tion­al and part of the fun. Kyle Iri­on came on as a char­ac­ter sim­ply named Goober, only to aban­don this bit and ​“work­shop” a new one on the spot with his improv part­ner Nick Ramirez. Kay­la Lane Free­man, in keep­ing with the theme of the night, gave us, the stu­dent body, a les­son in sex ed. What we learned: leave enough room for Jesus in between you and your 8^th grade dance date lest you ​“feed the seed” and become a rav­en­ous, hor­mon­al, actu­al mon­ster who runs amok growl­ing and twerk­ing. Hum­ble mid­west­ern­er Dan from Michi­gan (Grace Pine­gar) made their ​“Kill Tony” debut with jokes that were decid­ed­ly inof­fen­sive and social­ly con­scious- every­thing that flies in the face of what a mid­dle school boy or Kill Tony pan­el finds funny.

If you feel an Explo­rapho­ria-shaped hole in your­self, GUTS will fill it.