My Three Stooges Fanfiction at ColdTowne Theater

Lar­ry. Curly. Moe. You know them togeth­er as the Three Stooges. But what else do these three share? They all live close togeth­er inside one woman’s psy­che. Very close togeth­er.

Wal­lis Brown has been craft­ing a series of fanfics for some time now, with each mak­ing debuts at Dog­house and Explo­rapho­ria. Now at the Cold­Towne The­ater you can see the cul­mi­na­tion of her work. ​“My Three Stooges Fan­fic­tion” broils romance between Moe and Lar­ry (the two who aren’t broth­ers, thank god). Eye pokes and wise­cracks turn to caress­es and words of affec­tion behind closed doors. Yes it’s that kind of fan fic­tion. But even the most prud­ish of Stooge fans will find enjoy­ment in a col­lec­tion of sto­ries as bound­less as these.

I can’t do these chap­ters jus­tice by recap­ping them here, nor do I want to spoil too much any­how. What I will say, is that nev­er in a mil­lion years could you guess what icon­ic char­ac­ters and actu­al celebri­ties make a cameo in these vignettes. It’s an invi­ta­tion into Brown’s brain and the guest list will sur­prise you. ​“It’s exact­ly what it sounds like,” quoths Brown her­self on the event tick­et page; I’m here to tell you that it’s not. Much more hap­pens beyond the scope of our two infat­u­at­ed wise guys. At the heart of it all, though, is a gen­uine love let­ter to the Three Stooges. No mat­ter how taut the ten­sion, or how out­landish the crossovers and set­tings get, it’s all metic­u­lous­ly Stooge‑y. This is thanks in no small part to Brown’s atten­tion to detail. For instance, when a nude Lar­ry ends up cov­ered in oil, it’s iron­i­cal­ly sala­cious but gen­uine slap­stick. It’s equal­ly fun­ny when a stooge acts out of char­ac­ter, as seen in the third chap­ter where a pen­sive Moe sits alone at his writ­ing desk, yearn­ing for a Lar­ry to slap around. Anachro­nis­tic details, Moe’s over­grown bowl cut and his weed-smok­ing habit are just the type of ran­dom asides that Brown deliv­ers sharply to an unsus­pect­ing audi­ence, and they clash hilar­i­ous­ly against every­thing we know the stooges to be. Cou­ple this with their catch­phras­es and Brown’s vocal impres­sions and you have a show that’s equal parts trib­ute and send-up. It per­fect­ly rides the line between arch and wholesome.

Between chap­ters, Brown takes a chance to edu­cate the audi­ence on the real his­to­ry of the trio, from their ear­ly vaude­ville days to their ever-chang­ing line­up (who knew it took sev­en guys to keep the Three Stooges going?). Attend this show and you’ll learn a thing or two. You might even learn some­thing about yourself.