A Holiday Full of Cheer
EAST PEORIA — With the Christmas holiday underway, the audience at Illinois Central College received some good ol’ fashion holiday cheer.
On Nov. 30, ICC presented its Guest Artist series “Nut- Cracking Holiday Revue” performed by The Second City at the Performing Arts Center.
The show started off like the announcing for the team in the NBA with lights going around the stage. Then the actors advanced to the stage and put together short sketches that lasted less than a couple of minutes.
One of the short acts that had actors Adam Peacock and Asher Perlman sitting down on bench chairs and chanting, “Let’s go bears! Let’s go bears!” Then the announcer said that the Zoo will be closing in a couple of minutes.
Another short sketch that was performed was when Sarah Shook and Nicole C. Hastings were each on the opposite side of the stage, talking to one another on the cell phone discussing about a boyfriend issue. When all of a sudden a someone’s voice was on the other line that said “I care what’s going.”
Shook thought that it was Hastings, but when she asked who the person on the line was, the voice replied that he was an NSA agent.
“Their sketches were so funny,” said Mary Johnson, 56, of East Peoria. “I love how they come up with things that the audience suggested.”
Johnson is referring to how the cast came out and told a story that the audience suggested. The story was called “The Cast Who Wanted to Kill Santa with a Coca-Cola.” Peacock was the director of this bit who pointed to each other cast member to tell the story.
The bit went from chapter one to chapter 22 with the cat planning on giving the Coca-Cola to Santa so he could take over Christmas. But as their story unfolded, Mrs. Clause saw the cat and in the final chapter, Hastings unexpectedly said that Mrs. Clause had grabbed the cat by the head and crushed it. The audience went crazy.
Near the end one of their show, the cast put on another sketch that had all the cast performing. This had three afghan women, played by Hastings, Shook and Emily Walker, their leader played by Perlman and two American soldiers, played by Peacock and Pat Reidy. At one point one of the girls came up to talk Reidy but the leader wouldn’t allow it and kept yelling at her to go in the corner and that’s when Reidy said, “No one puts baby in the corner.”
That’s when the song “Time of My Life” from “Dirty Dancing” was playing and everyone danced to it.
“The show was fantastic,” said George Barnes, 48, of Peoria. “I love how they use impromptu in the show and also the cast was just simply amazing.” Before the show, The
Second City offered a free workshop for the students at Washington Community High School that were in the production of “Shrek” that played Dec. 5-7 at the Performing Arts Center. The Second City heard about the disaster in Washington from the twister that struck on Nov. 17 and wanted to lend a hand.