Thanks for making our benefit for the Anti-Defamation League a sell-out! If you missed out on tickets but still want to support the ADL, please give.
There are still lots of opportunities to see the WorkJuice Players and friends this fall.
OnFriday, Oct 6, at the Bell House in Brooklyn, it’s the Variety Show celebrating Acker & Blacker’s second STAR WARS book! Featuring Jonathan Coulton, Jean Grae, Paul & Storm, Hal Lublin, Mark Gagliardi, and lots more NY pals. TICKETS
Ben Blacker and musical director Jordan Katz helped produce this benefit for Muzack, which helps gets instruments into the hands of kids who need them, on Saturday, Oct 7. The show features Paul F. Tompkins, Ted Leo, Aimee Mann, Natalie Morales, Thomas Lennon, Patton Oswalt, Angelo Moore (of Fishbone), John Wicks (of the Records), Clemmie Williams, Dan Wilson, Tony Thaxton, Zach Sherwin, Billy Bragg, and lots more. It’s an all day carnival. TICKETS & INFO HERE
Sunday, Oct 8, Hal Lublin and Mark Gagliardi and special guests bring their hit podcast “We Got This” live to New York Comic-Con. Acker, Hal, Mark, and lots of WorkJuice Players and pals will be at NYCC all weekend, so check their Twitters for appearances. TICKETS FOR “WE GOT THIS”
Saturday, Nov 12, at Largo, LA, is another Dead Pilots Society, the live show and podcast produced by Ben Blacker and frequently featuring WJ Players and Friends. The Nov 12 show stars Patton Oswalt and David Koechner in scripts by Rob Schrab (co-creator, The Sarah Silverman Program) and Adam McKay (Anchorman; The Big Short) & Chris Henchy (The Campaign).TICKETS HERE
We’ll be sure to keep you updated on as many of the WJ Players and pals’ goings-on as we can. In the meantime, thanks so much for your continued support and interest.
We’ve raided the old WorkJuice Vaults to bring a you a “new” podcast today. But more exciting is the information that comes with it! This Thursday, May the Fourth, you can watch our entire STAR WARS-THEMED BOOK RELEASE VARIETY SHOW-SLASH-BENEFIT FOR PUBLIC COUNSEL! It’s an amazing show that stars Workjuice Player Busy Philipps, our pals “Weird” Al Yankovic, Matt Gourley, Mark McConville,Janina Gavankar, Open Mike Eagle, Sara Watkins, Gaby Moreno, and MORE. It was an incredible night of music, comedy, and fun. Get the video, audio, and mp3s of the songs on Thursday at our website!
Today’s “lost” podcast is a studio recording we did back in 2006. It’s a version of the first and third episodes of Beyond Belief that we originally performed at M Bar in 2005.
As always, starring Paul F. TompkinsandPaget Brewster as those married mediums Frank and Sadie Doyle. Also starring Hal Lublin as the Spooky Narrator; Marc Evan Jackson as the President; Crissy Guerero as the President’s daughter; Mark Gagliardi as another president; Craig Cackowski as Agent Garvey; and Toby Huss as Buddy Holly. Written by Ben Acker & Ben Blacker Directed by Toby Wilkins Produced by Dave Gruber Allen Engineered by Tommy Chan with assistance from Jillinda Palmer Music produced and composed by Andy Paley. “Here’s To Us” by Andy Paley & Acker & Blacker
Some thoughts about this episode from co-writer/co-creator Ben Acker:
In the early days of the Thrilling Adventure Hour, back when it was The Thrilling Adventure and Supernatural Suspense Hour, it was a stage show and not a podcast. This episode of Beyond Belief was our very first one. It was the first one we wrote, the one we dropped on Paget’s doorstep, the one we sent Paul, that first time. It was the first one we staged, it only made sense that it be the first one we record, in our first attempt to record the show. Why did we make this recording? To what purpose, you might ask? It was for the same reason as we did the show - we did not know, but it seemed like fun. The opportunity arose due to generosity from friend of the show Tommy Chan, whose studio we used and who engineered the recording and from the generosity of founding WorkJuice player Dave (Gruber) Allen who produced the thing. As you can hear, Beyond Belief at its inception was a different animal. Frank and Sadie were con artists. They had an enemy in the form of a secret service man named Garvey, with whom they had a history. They also had history with famous ghosts. The idea of famous ghosts, while fun initially, wasn’t something we ended up with, in that it planted the Doyles in time, which didn’t turn out to feel right. We found better outlets in the show for celebrity impressions and America stuff. You can also hear in this recording the things that were there at the start of the Doyles, the things that lasted all the way through. Not just their love for each other and booze and their banter and their clink, but the chemistry that Paul and Paget had at the core of those characters. It got richer over the years, but it was there before we were writing it. We hope you enjoy listening to the early days of it.
Jenny Slate(Obvious Child; Bob’s Burgers) and composer Michael Giacchino(Rogue One; Inside Out) #JoinTheResistance on March 8 in a benefit for Public Counsel, providing pro bono law services to LA’s underserved communities.
