A gnome and a leprechaun walk into a bar. To find out what happens next, head to Joliet’s Bicentennial Park Theatre on March 18 or 19. There, community members, actors and musicians will perform “A Gnome & A Leprechaun Walk Into A Bar.”
Showtimes are at 8 p.m.
Patrons can purchase food and drinks in the lobby to enjoy watching a silly, sometimes macabre story unfold about human-invented characters duking it out at a tavern.
Language and content make the play suitable for 18 years and older, and only those ages 21 and older can purchase alcohol.
“It’s the chance for adults to have some fun,” said the play’s director, Lori Carmine of Joliet. She’s also the cultural affairs manager at Bicentennial Park, as well as a seasoned actor and director.
“Our performers have full-time jobs elsewhere. This is where they come to release, have fun and play, and the audience will realize that and have fun with them,” Carmine said.
The show opens with drunk gnomes at a bar wearing T-shirts and having a great time. The leprechauns are not amused. They think the gnomes are disgracing St. Patrick’s Day.
A battle ensues, intertwined with Irish leprechaun folk tales and Irish music. A woman runs around hitting people with a fish, and the audience gets involved in the second act.
“It’s silly,” Carmine said. “People should not expect to get any deep philosophical messages,” although she admitted at the end of the play there is a sense of getting along and working past problems.
The adult show with gnomes was created after 45 years of actors performing for children at a Festival of Gnomes during the winter holidays at Bicentennial Park.
Actors dress as gnomes and tell stories.
“As we were doing the kids’ show, we had these little stories in our brain and we thought it would be funny to put out an adult version,” Carmine said.
They wrote “The Drunk’n Gnome” for adults, which was shown in December 2021 at the theater.
“It’s a macabre comedy about a gnome with kids who are all 30 and still living at home,” Carmine said. They had so much fun that they created a leprechaun/gnome scenario for St. Paddy’s Day.
“The gnomes are kind and nice to all they meet. They’re just good people,” Carmine said.
That’s how they behave in the children’s show, but it’s not quite the case in the adult version as the audience will discover.
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In the show, six leprechauns don green top hats and then have different costumes such as one that looks like it’s from the Renaissance Faire and another that looks like something a steampunk rocker would wear.
Ten gnomes wear pointy hats and lots of green. One of them turns into a squirrel.
“The gnomes and leprechauns tell stories,” Carmine said. “When you’re wearing a hat, you’re acting as a leprechaun or a gnome. If you take your hat off, you’re acting as a person.”
Carmine has a background in improvisational skills, so as they rehearsed, the actors changed things up a bit. But now they’ve tightened it down to a script.
“In the second act, we’ll have a battle over who can make the better drinks and who has better bar music,” Carmine said. The audience gets to decide by being interviewed by Gnome-prah, a cross between a gnome and Oprah Winfrey.
Carmine said there’s some R-rated language and content, but it’s not as seedy as the holiday season gnome show for adults was.
“This one is a little tamer and has a lot more to do with drinking. It flows better with the leprechaun story,” Carmine said.
“The vision is to find a way for the gnomes and leprechauns to get along. We’re using a lot of music and changing our own words. We end up having some interspecies relationships.”
At one point, the audience is invited to sing along to a song about the man who supposedly invented beer.
“Hopefully the audience will be able to relax and get rid of all the stress in the past year,” Carmine said, adding rehearsing the show is doing that for the performers. The actors are working to stifle any laughter while performing. It’s their job to play realistic characters and make the audience laugh, she said.
‘A Gnome & A Leprechaun Walk Into A Bar’
When: 8 p.m., March 18 and 19
Where: Bicentennial Park Theatre, 201 W. Jefferson St., Joliet
Tickets: $5
Information: 815-724-3761, tickettailor.com and search Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park and Theatre
Sherl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.