A Delayed Review of "Tammy: A Coming of Age Story About a Girl Who Is Part T-Rex"

I recently made a trip down to Chicago (not to be confused with the restaurant Old Chicago) for professional business reasons. Other than meandering around the downtown area and visiting that one Starbucks they have on Michigan Ave., I caught a little play which made the visit worth the amount of sweat I perspired during the visit (it was hotter than a sack of flaming diapers outside).

A friend of mine had been raving about the production he was in called, "Tammy: A Coming of Age Story About a Girl Who Is Part T-Rex." Since I was staying with him and there was a grocery store that sold wings next door -- I decided to check the show out. Have you ever seen "Sleepless in Seattle?" Well, "Tammy" is nothing like it; other than the fact that film was created in the 1990's. However, let's talk about those wings I ate first.

I bought them from a Jewel grocery store where one pound of honey BBQ wings is $5.99 (score). I grabbed a 12-pack of Miller Lite as well (wasn't carded) and headed over to The Cornservatory (the building looked like corn) where "Tammy" was going down (BYOB). The wings were pretty legit but very crunchy. Some of them generated a fairly loud noise with each bite. In fact, I could hear other audience members mumbling to their friends, "Is that guy eating wings?" The wings complimented my overall impressive demeanor of sitting alone, in the front, with beer. But seriously, the wings were worth the money. I may move my weekly dates with girls from that little cafe at Target to Jewel's deli. If you want to ask me questions about the wings, hit me up on Twitter (@StephenSchu). Now about that play....

"Tammy" by Corn Productions, is a story set in the '90s revolving around a middle school girl named Tammy Rex, who is part T-Rex. Outside of the fact Tammy looks like a dinosaur, eats raw meat, and has growling issues, she is like any kid growing up. She yearns to be popular, has a crush on a popular/athletic boy, and ultimately just wants to fit in.

You instantly fall in love with Tammy, played by Alex Young. She's super cute, super funny and undoubtedly makes you feel her struggle. Tammy's best friend, Hope (Alisa Rosenthal), provides loyal alliance to Tammy through her tween difficulties supported by hilarious jokes and seasoned acting skills.

The main source of Tammy's social troubles come from Jennica Lupis, the "Mean Girls" Ragina George of the play. I was extremely impressed by Jackelyn Normand's portrayal of Jennica. Her condescendingly hysterical and mean-witted conversations alongside her two-faced actions complimented by her pack of followers drew out my first LOL of the play. Jennica and her classmates complained about grandparent's inconsiderate timing of getting sick around holidays after "Jesus died for us so we could have a good Christmas," which instantly caused me to burst out laughing followed by choking on Jewel chicken.

I could write pages about the entire cast individually, because each character was phenomenal and genuinely made their persona add to an overall, deep hilarity, which poured off the stage and into my grocery bag full of wing bones -- likely the result of Anneliese Toft's brilliant directing. I have friends who are '90s junkies that would fall in love with "Tammy" based off the cleverly weaved in '90s references and music. The Rex family morning scenes, various romantic fantasies between Tammy and Cliff (Eric Akeson), and the awkwardness by Steve "Bacon Bite" Watson (Seth Wanta) all made me laugh from my first beer to my last wing.

Playwright Julia Weiss has created an intelligent, thoughtful, and heartwarming two hours of laughter. I personally enjoyed the subtle jokes of the production, which showcased Weiss's sought after talent to create thorough, satirical enjoyment.

Although the play only runs until April 7, I wanted to give my kudos to the cast and crew. Regardless, you have two more weekends to check it out. The show runs Wednesday-Saturday through April 7 at The Conservatory, 4210 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago, IL 60618. Tickets are roughly $7, and it's BYOB (truly amazing). If I could eat wings, drink beer and see "Tammy" every Wednesday until I die; I'd be living a very good life.

A Series of Play and Musical Ideas

So, my new thing is brain storming play and musical ideas. Some of you may have seen my ideas on Facebook or Twitter. Regardless, I'm getting really good at it. In fact, my numbers and research are consistently leading me to be certain I can make triple figures at a minimum on any of my masterpieces.

Some actors have already stepped forward and told me they were interested (i.e. Tim Allen). U2 has expressed strong interest in composing music for many of my plays/musicals. In addition, my contacts with Stephen Sondheim reported he is looking to turn a couple of my plays into musicals, likely children's musicals. Monster is going to sponsor all my productions.

Here are the plays and musicals I'm writing:

• I'm going to write a play about a high school basketball star who loses his parents in a fatal car accident as they were on their way to go see "Lorax." The plot twist will be that the parents never actually died. "Lorax" was just so bad that the parents faked their death and abandoned their only son. The son grows up to be the native kid, Mimi-Siku, from "Jungle 2 Jungle."

• I'm going to write a play about one of the characters from "Swamp People," who every night, after killing tons of gators, goes home and records a pretend radio talk show. Eventually, the show is picked up and developed by MTV and becomes a hit music video show. The character turns out to be Carson Daly.

• I'm going to write a children's musical about a blind waitress at Red Robin who aspires to be a gold medal skeet shooter at the Summer Olympics after discovering she is distantly related to the famous American sharpshooter and cowgirl, Annie Oakley. The blind girl dies of tuberculosis before accomplishing anything.

• I'm going to write a play about a basketball coach at a technical college in Montana who is forced to live out the rest of his life in a wheelchair after suffering a spinal cord injury from his iPad 3 while trying to get his team into the NCAA Tournament. He sues Apple, who settles the case outside of court. In exchange, the coach gets cheetah legs with Bluetooth capabilities and sets the American 100m Dash record in the 1998 Olympic Games but is later disqualified, because he illegally downloaded "Mean Girls" on his iPad. He has to return his cheetah legs and his gold medal. He now is an assistant Men's Basketball coach at UWGB. The cheetah legs are up for auction on ebay.

• I'm going to write a play about a 17-year-old girl who's really into barbers but her Catholic parents want her to marry a hair-stylist.

I can already taste the success and women.

Stephen Takes "The Tim and Eric Billion Dollar Movie Pledge"

The comedians, actors and ridiculous human-beings, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, are asking people to sign and take a pledge to go see their movie "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie" and promise to not pirate the film. Tons of celebrities have taken the oath such as Paul Rudd, Michael Ian Black and Elijah Wood. So, I figured, why shouldn't I do it? I mean, I'm pretty much as popular and as important as all those characters.

Other than promising to see the film in one way or another and tell your friends about it, Tim and Eric also include in the pledge that you are not to go see the movie "Lorax," because "Lorax looks bad." Absolutely hilarious. Read more about it in this Huffington Post article. The article includes the original video and the celebrity responses.

Below is the link to my video of the pledge. I suggest you do the same.

40 Dads and 40 Nights

I came up with a phenomenal business idea, and I've been developing the concept with my friend, Nick. We are going to start a public service called "40 Dads and 40 Nights," where customers get to try out new dads for the implied period of time and pick one when time period is done for a flat fee. They get a new dad every evening.

There is obviously an unreal amount of potential customers. Probably thousands just in Green Bay alone.

I understand many of you are probably wondering, "Where ya gonna get all these dads?" The answer is: We are smart. "Father" is a loose definition. Outside of the legitimate dads working for us, we will also use men who never had the chance to be fathers, but they will be QUALITY fathers. The dads will be required to have former experience, like being an uncle or a mall Santa. We will have more readily available fathers than we will know what to do with.

In a nut shell, "40 Dads and 40 Nights" will be like the movie "Trading Mom" on steroids.

Where will we advertise? Definitely Walmart. There are a lot of dad-less people at Walmart, but we will pretty much advertise anywhere in-need-of-father people congregate; like at Red Robin or maybe the cemetery.

We still haven't decided if we will store and house the dads. We might just let them wonder around the office. The dads definitely won't be paid, because they will be paid in potential sons or daughters.

In order to make sure customers don't wonder off with our dads, we will have to limit the locations they can go to on these nights out. Probably just Qdoba...No, no....Probably just Staples. We will have the Staples employees watch them for us, and in return the employees can kiss the dads.

We're going green though, so, the dads will not be fed. Customers will be required to bring sandwiches each night or they will be fined. That's already a 56% profit growth right there.

So, pretty much, this business idea is already in motion. I've already have created a PowerPoint to present to the bank for a loan, and Nick bought a briefcase for when he meets with potential investors. If you are interested in investing in this father-less gold mine, tweet me @StephenSchu. There is no way this business model will not make me insanely rich, even richer than the people who made all those "Homeward Bound" movies.

Stephen's Up-N-Comin' Schedule

As I'm sure the four people who read our blog are aware, Mason periodically briefs us all with his up coming, outrageously rousing schedule of events and trips. Although Mason could be completely lying and really just sitting at home looking at Free Cabin Porn, I'm painfully and jealously aware he's telling the truth. My life in Green Bay is fairly uneventful, and his casual gloating about taking weekend trips to Beijing and parachuting exhibitions in Paris make my life look like some shit he accidentally stepped in while big game hunting in Alaska. With that being said, I thought I would share with everyone my excessively mundane schedule...

1. Go buy deodorant
The purchase of a reasonably priced, solid smelling stick of deodorant has become quite the endeavor for me. The correct purchase on this can be tricky and immensely affect many weeks to follow, because if one purchases an odd odored stick, one is forced to live with this until they run out (you can legally only buy one stick of deodorant at a time within a four week period, no turning back). I've tried hundreds of different brands (i.e. Old Spice, Right Guard, Ragu, Uncle Ben's, Payless, Pam), and have found "Old Spice: Game Day" to be the best. This scent is has great smell defense while not being so over powering I smell like I was eating it (which I have done).

2. Cavity filling
The dentist never really bothers me. Something about an early morning teeth scrapping really gets my blood flowing. I mean, I'm not digging at my teeth with forks when I'm home, but I'm pretty tolerable about wearing a bib and having strangers shine bright lights on my face while hovering around my mouth. This clip from the show "Metalocalypse," however, makes some legitimate points about trips to the dentist.

3. Go out to the exact same bars every weekend and continue to ask for "Shoop" to be played
As much as I like Green Bay, the setting offers little variety in terms of entertainment. There are the basics, niche events and occasional "wow" nights out...but really...every weekend offers limited options. Other than my brief trip to Milwaukee, I've been loosely running the same weekend routine for the last seven months. I like the bars my friends and I go to, I enjoy the people we meet up with, but eventually you feel slightly pathetic by rarely mixing it up. If you don't want to go out and drink, your options become fairly restricted. There isn't going to be an art gallery opening, an exciting band playing in town or much richer, hip culture very often. This leaves one with little room for options, and I find myself in the same places I went to while working towards my undergrad. The only thing different is how I'm awkwardly getting older and asking for "Shoop" by Salt-N-Pepa to be played more often.

4. Finish watching Season 4 of "Breaking Bad," alone.
Since I have to wait until around October to see the next season of "Dexter," I began watching the television series "Breaking Bad" periodically. Although not as addictive as "Dexter," I've been very impressed with the show, specifically the writing. The writing contributors not only must to require an essential creative, story building edge but also a deep knowledge of chemistry, drugs, the illegal drug market/distribution, law enforcement, finance and many other subject areas. Apparently they are making one more final season, I'm looking forward to it. However, unlike "Dexter," I'm not embarrassingly scheduling my day around watching more episodes...but I am always alone for viewing sesssions (no girls allowed).

5. Buddy Guy Concert
Okay, this counts as a real event. Other than looking to make more money before having a big concert in a much larger city the following night, why the likes of Buddy Guy would want to perform in Green Bay, Wis. is beyond me. Regardless, I was lucky enough to be offered a pair of tickets for his concert at Oneida Casino. This concert will very likely be the most exciting thing I do in town for quite some time. Buddy Guy's influence on some musical legends is epic.

6. St. Norbert College Track and Field Alumni Meet - April 21
Like Dale says on the show "King of the Hill," "Still, I must say, track and field doesn't really seem like a full sport. It's more like leftover scraps from other sports," track truly is hard to motivate yourself to want to do. Regardless, I competed in college for four years and have yet to rid myself on my extreme interest in it. Lucky for me, the SNC program is having an open meet for St. Norbert College Track/CC alumni this spring. I've been semi-training for the day in hope of not completely embarrassing myself, which is inevitable. The hope is for four of us to put together a decently competitive 4x400m relay team...I'm more interested in what costumes we will wear (probably wolves, maybe skunk people).

The Week Ahead

Happy Monday Morning!

Hope the weekend went well for everyone. I spent it in Green Bay with Caitlin and her folks. Nothing like home cooking! While in GB I got to taste some of Gavin's (Caitlin's brother) home brews - which were delicious.

Looking forward - I have a short week in the office, because Cait and I are heading out to Colorado Thursday night. Just so that we can look back on the trip, I'm going to taking a lot of documentation of the trip with a flipcamera and uploading it to here while providing a little commentary and context.

This is my first trip out West for skiing and I'm really looking forward to it. It's going to be a high flying weekend so hopefully the weather is agreeable. We plan on going to Copper Mountain, Vail, and Beaver Creek. I'll need to learn some slang before heading out there, so I've listed a few terms that I thought would be pertinent:

 Posing -

Trying to get noticed. I won't be doing this. I'll be trying to stay under the radar. Maybe on the next trip out there I will let my freak flag fly...

Posse -

The group of people you usually ski or ride with. While I'm excited about the skiing, the people we are going with is the real reason I'm pumped. Really looking forward to seeing everyone.

        1. Rag Doll -

Someone who tumbles downhill while limp and presumably unconscious. Hopefully we won't hear this word out there.

2. Snotsicle -

Frozen nasal discharge, usually the result of cold-induced rhinorrhea.

3. Ski Bum -

Someone who has discovered the best alternative to working.

4. Off-Piste -

Ungroomed portion of the ski area. I'll be focusing on this type of terrain.

5. Huck -

To ski off a cliff or roll, catching big air. This is my cousin Nick's specialty.

6. Bowl -

Steep, wide run, usually higher on both sides. I think there will be some of these at Vail...

7. Apres Ski -

The night-life of a ski area, preferred by some to slope-side activities. Need I say more?3

Sorry for the formatting - I copy/pasted the definitions from another website...

You're All Boring Me On Twitter and Facebook

I've been complaining about this for quite a while, because way too many people have been upsetting me on Facebook and Twitter. The level of boredom and annoyance has reached a point where I've been contemplating deactivating my Facebook as an act to avoid everyone's news about their daily workouts, cruddy inspirational quotes and complaints about their life as they look for some sort of virtual closure or support. However, I simply have not been able to rid myself of Facebook. If I would deactivate my account, I would lose significant contact, news and what-have-you of friends, former teammates and others. More than networking purposes, I utilize Facebook as a form of entertainment. However, many stand in the way of these intentions.

The same can be said for Twitter. You never realize how unclever and uninteresting people are until they begin tweeting. It's like accidentally hopping on Locomotive Nincompoop on its way to Fartville, USA powered by someone's deficient inner monologue. When I send a tweet out, I attempt to make the update at least remotely interesting or worth a person's glancing time. I strive to be the next @michaelianblack, but I fall plenty short. Regardless, you're still welcome to follow me, @StephenSchu, but I can't promise I'll accept your request.

In that light, I started making weekly roster cuts to both accounts. Since I pathetically couldn't let myself go from the Facebook and Twitter world, I realized the next best thing was to sift through the numbers...

Jan. 30, 2012 - @StehenSchu: "Slowly but surely unfollowing many people due to their lack of efficient/entertaining tweets or outrageously excessive boring tweets."

AMAZING call by me. Props, bro! Thanks, bro! I felt a bit guilty at first, but once you drop your first 20 peeps and go 12 hours without hearing someone's misspelled complaint about "The Bachelor" and what they are eating, you'll continue to unfollow more.

After two weeks, the results are as follows:

-Reduced annoying tweets by 65%
-Reduced uploaded baby pictures from unplanned pregnancies by 89%
-Appreciated 45% more status updates and tweets
-Miles per gallon up 2.08%
-Reduced unthoughtful tweets by 34%
-Reduced hearing about girls sad, poop relationships by 95%
-Increased "Likeable" comments and posts by 51%
-Intelligence up 14%
-20% less constipation

So, if you are like me, I suggest you start limiting the number of friends you have on Facebook and those you follow. Due to many different group affiliations, I still have trouble cutting a few here and there. Why? Because people get hilariously offended. However, if you're being a tweet slut...you deserve what you have coming. No one is asking you to be consistently hilarious or insightful but think over what you're going to proclaim a few times before you throw it up on Facebook or Twitter. People write in journals for reasons.