If you missed the Dignity vs. Despair festival that we did at Dad’s Garage in spring of 2005, then you missed a beautiful little piece called The Kankle King show, which was inspired by old Burns and Allen and Milton Berle TV shows. It had a star (Monty King) and a sponsor (Kankle Cheese) and a lot of improv performers who brought a lot of fun to our little variety show.
Kankle King Cast: Randy Havens (Monty); Christie Vozniak, Stacey Bode & Anna-Kate Nalesnik (Kankle Kewpie Dancers); and Kristi Casey (Barbina) & Amber Nash (Midge). Photos by Christina Tober, design by Robert Sanders.
This time around, Robert wanted to create an homage to the reruns of live Christmas TV specials he watched as a kid in the 1970s. He was inspired by images of Andy Williams surrounded by his family, a bear that just wanted to eat cookies, Bing Crosby mixing things up with Sinatra, people walking through fake snow, silly punchlines, and lots of familiar Christmas tunes.
Thus was born The Wink Davidson Christmas Spectacular — which opens tomorrow night at Theatre Decatur and runs through December 22.
I didn’t mean to end up a part of the cast, and neither did Robert, but no one else was insane enough to give up time away from their family to do theater this time of year. And I figured we might as well be together for 4 shows a week than apart.
It could have been a nightmare. But, instead, it’s turned into a really unexpected pleasure. It’s a live TV show, so anything can happen. The people in the show are Wink’s real family members, so they may not be polished singers or dancers, but everything they do, they do with a lot of love.
And one of the greatest surprises has been to see how much the actors have brought to the table. We had to change the writing credit because everyone: Steve Banks, Brian Bannon, Kristi Casey, Erin Greenway, John McLean, Angela Porter, Jeremiah Prescott and Robert Sanders have contributed so much to the show. From Robert’s script have grown amazing sight gags, puppet lazzis, hilarious improvisations and creative prop recycling.
Kankle King was an odd little show that ended up getting kind of an odd following by the end of its run. Who knows if anyone will turn up to see us in Wink. But we’ll have a great time regardless.
After all, Robert wrote it as a Christmas gift for performers to be something fun, light and easy to enjoy. We hope you do, too.
1 Comment
November 30, 2007 at 9:47 pm
$10 tickets are available online with code “eve” or at the box office, if you tell them that “Sonny said tickets were $10.”
We got a nice mention in the Creative Loafing holiday guide, too, this week:
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A343606 holiday guide