“What are we protesting today?” asked Catie Lazarus ’98.
She was the emcee and opening performer at Friday night’s “Out of My Head: Performing Minds” comedy show. She started the night by reflecting on her experiences at Wesleyan and how she felt being back on campus. She mentioned the Argus article on Booth Haley ’05 and his egg debacle, saying that the audience should all read it because, as a comedian, she could not have thought of something that entertaining.
Friday’s performance was given in honor of Professor of Psychology Karl Scheibe, who is leaving Wesleyan at the end of this year. He has been a member of the Psychology department since 1963 and is lovingly called “Scheibey” by many of his students, including all four of the show’s performers.
“I have stories about all of them, of course,” Scheibe said. “I had no idea that Catie Lazarus was interested in comedy—or in theater, for that matter. She was quite an intense and serious student of psychology.”
Although the performance started approximately an hour late, most agreed it was well worth the wait. Colleagues, friends, and students of Scheibe past and present filled the Crowell auditorium.
Wendy Spero ’97, the second performer of the night, is a winner of the Stand- Up Bud Light Ladies of Laughter Contest, and has been featured on Comedy Central’s “Premium Blend,” VH1’s “All Access” and “Best Week Ever,” and NBC’s “Law and Order: Criminal Intent.” Her one-woman show “Microthrills” won “Best Solo Show” at the 2003 ECNY awards and TimeOut NY named her “The Best Female Comic of 2003.”
Spero told a story about her boyfriend’s three-person apartment building, which housed him, his sister and their crazy female landlord who sent the two of them memos about various things. Spero told a story about when her boyfriend locked himself out of his apartment and the landlord let him in. The next day he received a memo with a $3.25 lockout fee, and a copy went to all the residents in the building.
Spero then went on to read various parts of the landlord’s 18-page document that explained what she had been doing over the past year. She and her boyfriend sent away for it when they had received an abbreviated one-page laminated copy of the highlights of the annual document.
“This is best thing that has ever happened to me,” Spero said.
The document spoke of the landlord’s accomplishments, yeast infections, relationships from the past year, jobs, and things she was considering taking up, including needlepoint, fencing and importing potato chips from Ireland.
“Wendy Spero performed an ambitious survey of sexual behavior of Wesleyan students for her honors work,” Scheibe said. “She dressed and presented herself in a rather shy and retiring way, kind of mousey—to be honest. But when I saw her at her fifth reunion, she had transformed herself into an actress and was a knockout. I was amazed at the transformation.”
Leila Buck ’99 gave a more serious performance. She was the only Wesleyan theater graduate who performed Friday night. She now works as a creative artist for Creative Arts Team, an organization that that works to use drama and theater to teach literacy and other skills to children in New York public schools. She has done voice work for “Blue’s Clues” and is the founding member and Education Director of Nibras, a New York Arab-American theater collective. The company’s debut piece “Sajjil (Record)” won Best Ensemble Performance at the Fringe Festival 2002 and was featured in the First Annual New York Arab American Comedy Festival.
Buck spoke about her time at Wesleyan, her experiences with Professor Scheibe, and how she met her husband at Wesleyan during his senior year. She spoke of seders she had attended and read quotes from Scheibe’s book, especially focusing on the idea of each individual living in many different boxes. She told the audience of her family’s history of cross cultural marriages and how that has played into who she is and the way she lives her life. At the end of her segment she left a message to her child.
“You were born of many boxes and they are all yours,” Buck said.
“I thought Leila’s portion was really moving and touching,” said Jaime DeLanghe ’08. “She had the right mix of humor and sincere message.”
Adam Koppel ’02, the lone male performer, was the last on the stage. He now works as a copywriter at an ad agency, and has recently moved to San Francisco as a free-lancer for two agencies.
Koppel brought his laptop on stage, which started a hilarious routine.
“I am a comic of the future… or just pretentious,” Koppel said.
He spoke about his time at Wesleyan as a psychology major and how much he enjoyed writing his thesis. At one point, he went to Scheibe to tell him that he had decided to attend graduate school for psychology. Scheibe looked at him, paused, and told him that he didn’t think that it was a good idea for him.
“Adam did an honors thesis on the psychology of humor, and the thesis itself is quite funny, as well as erudite—unlike most documents that treat the psychology of humor,” Scheibe said. “We talked extensively about his future career plans, and yes, the option of his going on in psychology did come up. It is not so much that I quashed this idea as that I suggested that his true vocation, his calling, might very well lie in other directions.”
At the end, Adam read a long list of things he couldn’t do, including not pointing at dogs, wearing white, and summoning someone over in a sexy voice.
He can, however, trick people into purchasing products through his lessons with “Scheibey,” and he now uses that skill every day in the world of advertising.
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