High-speed history
By Joey Berlin
Originally published 02:59 p.m., July 7, 2008
Updated 02:59 p.m., July 7, 2008
Kyle Land has one final gift to leave Emporia before he heads out of town: an irreverent, rapid-fire history lesson.
Land, an Emporia State University graduate and the theater department’s technical director, is directing his last production before he heads to Chicago to pursue a career in professional theater. “The Complete History of America (abridged),” billed as “600 years in 6,000 seconds,” is U.S. history in breakneck sketch-comedy form — all performed by just three actors. The show has the feel, Land said, of “Saturday Night Live” or “Mad TV.”
“Basically, they just go through American history in chronological order, and have fun, do send-ups, satires,” Land said. “And really, people shouldn’t come expecting a patriotic send-up of America, because this is anything but patriotic.
“I think at the core, at the center of the show, it is patriotic ... because it’s a celebration of our freedoms. We have the freedom in this country to speak out, to poke fun, to reflect our faults as well as our gifts.”
Running Wednesday through Saturday at Karl C. Bruder Theatre in King Hall, the show stars Paul Howard, Wamego junior; Gabe Moyer, Olathe junior; and Tricia Stogsdill, Pleasanton senior.
“He’s a lot different than the other directors we’ve had at the university,” Howard said. “This is my first time getting to work under him as a director, and it’s just been a lot of fun. He gives you a lot of freedom, lets you play around.”
The show was written and originally performed by Adam Long, Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor, who make up the three-man comedy troupe known as the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Other work by the RSC includes “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)” and “The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged).”
Land said the writers are equal-opportunity offenders. In “History of America,” for example, every U.S. president of the last 30 years is mimicked except for Jimmy Carter.
“They poke fun at everything,” he said. “There’s no real bent on the show. I mean, granted, there’s gonna be a little bit of a bent because all of us are liberals. ... (T)here is a section that we added, and they give you a freedom in the script to talk about updating the references, and we’ve done that.”
The actors aren’t worried about anyone taking the show’s humor the wrong way.
“I hope they do, because I make a joke about it later,” Stogsdill said. “I mean, if nobody gets offended, you’re not really doing cutting-edge comedy.”
Land’s departure to Chicago will mark the end of 11 years in Emporia, which includes seven as an ESU student and the last 10 as a part of Summer Theatre. He said he has a friend in Chicago for whom he’ll do construction work while he attempts to get his foot in the door in the city’s theater world, with aspirations of becoming a professional director.
“I think that’s why I picked Chicago,” he said. “Because I thought that I have friends there, I know the city rather well ... and there’s a whole lot of theater going on. A whole lot of theater, and sometimes there’s just not enough people to do it.”
The Overland Park native said there are certain things he’ll miss about Emporia, such as the people and the students he’s come to know. Things he won’t miss include “the lack of a decent freakin’ restaurant in this town.”
“See, I grew up in a big city — well, Kansas City, if you can call it a big city,” he said. “... And I’m going to be so happy to get back to an urban environment once again.”