OR HELP! WE'VE FALLEN OFF THE FISCAL CLIFF AND WE CAN'T GET UP by Nancy Bizjack
Jonathan Wooley
Gridiron cast members poke fun at the doomed Vision 2 tax proposal
Before Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, before Saturday Night Live, before Mark Russell and The Capitol Steps, before Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, there was the Tulsa Gridiron. This ever-evolving band of writers and performers has been turning the previous year’s happenings into a hilarious evening of skits and songs for 80 consecutive years — more or less. “The 1933 show is generally considered to be the first true Tulsa Gridiron,” says Head Writer Randy Krehbiel, “but it’s all a little hazy. I’ve seen references to similar shows put on by the Tulsa Press Club at least as far back as 1912… Some old-timers have said it was not held during World War II. And we skipped a year a decade or so ago.” That’s why they’re calling this year’s production “The First Annual 80th Annual Gridiron.” But the subtitle gives you a better idea of what’s in store this year: “Vision Trouble or Help! We’ve Fallen Off the Fiscal Cliff and We Can’t Get Up.” Krehbiel hesitates to reveal much more about this year’s topics. As a writer for the Tulsa World, he knows a juicy news story, ripe for parody, could fall into his lap at
any moment. “The script typically evolves almost daily, depending on what’s going on in the world,” he explains. But he will allow that state, local and national newsmakers will be skewered, along with the weather. “We have found it is very safe to make fun of the weather.” Not that anyone seems to mind being satirized in the show. The mayor and other local VIPs are often in the audience — and laughing the loudest. “The ones with thin skins just don’t show up,” Krehbiel observes. And some hefty-hided ones are actually eager to be roasted. “I’ve had a couple ask why we haven’t made fun of them yet,” laughs Director Rebecca Ungerman. The gregarious singer and entertainer, who says she has been with Tulsa Gridiron
since 2004 as a writer, a performer, the vocal director, and, for the past few years, “wearing the director’s straitjacket,” was more specific when outlining some of this year’s targets: “We’re going to town on the new trash service, horribly messed up celebrity 20-somethings from the Jersey Shore to Hollywood, folks in Colorado and Washington toking up, the British Royals getting knocked up…and Paula Deen is going to drop by!” Other topics that may prove irresistible are the 2012 election, the General Petraeus scandal, and Tulsa Library’s bed-bug problem. The Gridiron originally consisted of a male-only cast performing for an all-male audience — behind closed doors. “Basically, it was an excuse for men to get out of the house for five or six weeks of ‘rehearsals’ that involved doing things they weren’t allowed to do at home,” Krehbiel says. “Gridiron is still fun to put on, but rehearsals are less like poker night and more like, well, rehearsal. We have more women than men in the cast now, and performances are geared more toward the general public than politicians and political insiders. The cast is drawn from many walks of life, from entertainment professionals to people who do not perform in any other event. For the most part, Gridiron is written and performed by regular people poking fun at the high and mighty.” What could be more fun than that?
TULSA GRIDIRON Presented by the Tulsa Gridiron Educational and Charitable Trust January 25-26 at 8 p.m.
L I D D Y D O E N G E S T H E AT R E Tickets are $27 and $50. MyTicketOffice.com and 918-596-7111 IN TERMISSION Janua r y 2013
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