The Community House’s popular “Community Revue” is back March 4 through March 12, with actors putting on a “lighthearted mockery” of the town in “Hinsdale: Unmasked.”
Put on every other year, the show is pegged as a Broadway style musical that parodies community current events.
The team of eight writers traditionally pull from whatever is happening in the surrounding area for the script. This year it will likely include banter about mask debates, school boards, parking restrictions and probably a lot more.
Susan O’Byrne, producer of “Hinsdale: Unmasked” said she could only disclose so much of the specifics.
Planning for the show began almost a year ago, O’Byrne said. But the script evolves as quickly as conversations in the town do.
“Last Revue, we were rewriting the dialogue in between performances because we were talking about the democratic nominees and the primaries were going on; we had to switch our bit on Pete Buttigieg to Joe Biden,” O’Byrne said. “We rewrite continuously depending on what the current events are. It’s not just Hinsdale topics, also things in the national media stream too. But if you cover a Hinsdale area beat, you know that the neighbors give us plenty of fodder for satire and parody.”
Longtime writer for the Community Revue, Teri Goudie, communication consultant and former ABC-7 journalist, likened the vibes to late night comedy shows.
“Like when you watch Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel, we are totally picking up on what people have been talking about that day. That’s the beauty of late night talk shows — it gives you a chance to really think about your day with a new perspective, smile about it, laugh about it, and calm down.”
Goudie, who has lived in Hinsdale for 30 years, joined the Community Revue years ago mostly to stretch her skills beyond her line of work.
“One of the other reasons I decided to join the Revue was, years ago I was watching one of the performances and I realized one of the jokes was about me,” Goudie said with a laugh. “I said oh my gosh, I have to be one of the writers, so I joined the cast.”
“But that’s the thing, the humor can be kind of edgy, but people realize that we are also talking about ourselves, which takes a little bit of courage, but it’s incredibly healthy,” she added.
Goudie has so far been in seven Revue shows, and helped write them all as well.
According to O’Byrne, the first Community Revue was started in the late 90s by a handful of people including the late Dick Johnson from Channel 5.
O’Byrne said back then, the cast was spoofing the teardowns in Hinsdale — a time during the late 90s and early 2000s when more than 100 older homes were being replaced by cookie-cutter new construction.
After the show became more and more popular, they began doing performances every other year as opposed to every year to accommodate the demand for high-quality comedy and planning.
“It’s an original show. We write this show from scratch and while we use existing music — usually it’s the tune of a show tune or a popular song — we change all the lyrics. It’s a lot of work to put together,” O’Byrne said.
This year, the cast of 22 actors includes a familiar face for those who frequent Kramer Foods in Grant Square.
Mike Kinnavy, general manager of the family-owned grocery store, is performing in this year’s Community Revue — his first time in the show, though he’s had several other acting and singing gigs over the years.
Kinnavy switched courses a few times in his career, from going to theater school to getting a degree in elementary education, and then working at Kramer as a “young stock guy” while doing improv in Chicago.
A few years ago when his daughter began doing community theater in Westmont, Kinnavy said he also wanted to dive back in.
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He got to know O’Byrne while doing a small part in a local production of “Fiddler on the Roof” and then again with a larger role in “Mamma Mia.”
O’Byrne said Kinnavy’s singing voice stuck with her, and she “needed him in this year’s Revue.”
“I know this is going to sound weird but for the people who see me at the store, I’m excited for them to see me in something other than that role,” Kinnavy said, adding that he’s got a couple solos in “Hinsdale: Unmasked.”
Kinnavy joked about his double life as “Mike, the manager of Kramer and Mike, the local actor and singer.”
“I was also very surprised at how professional they all are in the show. In my head I thought it was going to be a lot of goofing around because it’s comedy, but no — there is a lot of hard work put into it,” he added.
Goudie noted that the Community Revue is not just for people of Hinsdale and has relevance to the conversations happening anywhere in the country.
While she too couldn’t divulge many details about the script, Goudie did hint at a few themes audiences can expect when the show opens.
“We didn’t want it to be too focused on COVID, but we have lived such incredibly different lives the last two years and we wanted to pick up on all the different elements of that as we all start thinking about going back to a slightly more normal way of living and the timing of the show with Omicron diminishing was really optimal for us,” Goudie said.
One of those “return to normal” elements is how people who have been cooped up inside for so long are going to behave.
“As we all know, you don’t really know what’s going on inside your neighbors house. People have formed new habits in the way they live and so, a big theme in the show is what happens when your new habits are suddenly exposed and how are other people going to react to you,” she said.
The characters in the script are all caricatures of people in the communities, Goudie explained.
“Everyone in our audience sees themselves in one of these characters. And that’s what makes the show so funny — you have all these distinct personalities coming together in this small little village trying to live this good life,” she said. “There are so many different ways to try to alleviate the problems we have in our communities, and the best way to alleviate those problems as one, is to laugh. Laughter unites us and humor is our friend.”
Four evening performances of “Hinsdale: Unmasked” will be held on March 4, 5 and March 11, 12 at The Community House, 415 West Eighth Street, Hinsdale. Tickets are $125 per person and will help fundraise for The Community House’s programs. The cost also includes an open bar prior to the performance, hors d’oeuvres and mid-show refreshments. Visit thecommunityhouse.org/communityrevue22 for more details.