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News Releases

Brave New Workshop Announces Plans for 50th Anniversary Celebration

05 December 2007

Theater Family Attractions Events Downtown Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., December 5, 2007 – The Brave New Workshop Comedy Theatre, founded by Dudley Riggs in 1958, is gearing up for a year of celebration in honor of the comedy landmark’s 50th anniversary. A variety of special events and initiatives are planned throughout 2008 to mark the 50-year milestone.

The year-long birthday celebration kicks off on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 with the opening of a special 50th anniversary best-of show. Planned as a retrospective comedy revue, the show will include favorite sketches and songs from past shows, backstage stories from former and current cast members, and surprising historical tidbits. According to Brave New Workshop artistic director Caleb McEwen, "All these elements will combine to create a comedic "VHI Behind the Music"-style mockumentary. We plan to explore the role the Workshop has played in the community, too – how were we making fun of all the major events and changes of the last half-century? It should be a great trip down memory lane for Minnesota."

A special emphasis will be placed on honoring and thanking Dudley Riggs, the Brave New Workshop’s founder and figurehead from 1958 to 1997, throughout the anniversary year. Brave New Workshop audiences, alumni, and the larger community will be able to share tributes and thank-you messages, which will be compiled and presented to Riggs at the conclusion of the celebration. The final events of the 50th anniversary observation will coincide with opening night of next year’s holiday comedy revue in November of 2008. Other projects currently underway, and planned throughout the year, include:

• updating and improving the theatre’s alumni network,

• cataloging and organizing historical records and photographs, and

• documenting anecdotal and previously unrecorded Brave New Workshop history, possibly in the form of a documentary film honoring the theatre.

Brave New Workshop owner John Sweeney summed up the excitement felt by everyone involved with the anniversary: "Sustaining anything for 50 years is quite an accomplishment. Sustaining a theater for 50 years is more like a miracle. We are all thrilled to be celebrating Dudley and all the Brave New Workshop alumni, along with thanking the millions of Minnesotans who have helped keep this place going! To the future!"

Originally formed as the Instant Theatre Company in New York City, the Brave New Workshop was the creation of Dudley Riggs, a former Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus aerialist. The original Instant Theatre cast, drawn from the circus and vaudeville, used audience input to create their comic sketches with minimal props and scenery. After a national tour, the Instant Theatre Company found a permanent home in Minneapolis in 1958. In 1961, the Brave New Workshop name was added, and in 1965, the Workshop moved to its current location in a converted print shop at 2605 Hennepin Avenue. In 1997 Dudley Riggs passed his theatre along to a new generation of owners, John Sweeney, Jenni Lilledahl and Mark Bergren (who left his ownership post and the BNW in 1999 to pursue other interests). In a remarkable demonstration of theatrical endurance and continuity, the Workshop has continued to write, perform and produce all-original sketch comedy and improvisation revues on a year-round basis, and the theatre’s legendary improv and sketch comedy can still be enjoyed nearly every night of the week at the storefront theatre on Hennepin Avenue.

More details on how the public can participate in the Brave New Workshop’s 50th anniversary activities will be released throughout 2008. Brave New Workshop staff, performers, and alumni are available for interviews and comments about the theatre’s 50 year history. For additional information or to schedule appearances/interviews, please contact Erin Farmer at 612-332-6620.

About the Brave New Workshop: The Brave New Workshop has been writing, performing and producing sketch comedy and improvisation since 1958-- longer than any other theatre in the United States. Founded by former circus performer Dudley Riggs and currently owned by husband and wife John Sweeney and Jenni Lilledahl, the little storefront theatre on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis has become a legendary comedy institution, where audiences enjoy improv and sketch comedy nearly every night of the week. The company’s talented performers create satirical, irreverent, and intelligent original works. Alums of the Workshop stage include Louie Anderson, Pat Proft, Al Franken, Tom Davis, Mo Collins ("Mad TV"), Peter MacNichol ("Ally McBeal", "24"), Melissa Peterman ("Reba"), and Cedric Yarborough ("Reno 911", "The Boondocks"). The Brave New Workshop’s corporate services division trains and entertains companies like Microsoft, Yahoo!, Visa, and Target. Additionally, the Brave New Institute school of improvisation boasts the most comprehensive improv training curriculum in the country.

For more information contact: Erin Farmer, erin@bravenewworkshop.com/612-332-6620