Paper Slip Theater’s Love Stories Return to Jacoby

About this event

ALTON – Did your heart skip a beat when you first saw your lady love? Was it his charm that caught your attention? Or was your first meeting more like a comedy of errors?

Members of award-winning Paper Slip Theater will act out audience stories as they marry romance and comedy in their improv show “When We First Met,” 8:00 p.m. Friday, Nov 4, at Jacoby Arts Center, 627 E. Broadway, Alton.

A cross between “The Dating Game” and “Whose Life Is It Anyway,” “When We First Met” is one-part high energy, two-parts improv games and a dash of love stories told by the audience. The cast for the evening’s show is Mimi Ikard-Swoboda, Jamie Pitt, Frank Zito, Dustin Massie, Darrell Barber and Ed Reggi. 

Under the direction of Reggi, the evening’s host, the troupe will take real life stories about dating and falling in love to a whole new comedy experience. Audience members provide all the stories as the evening unfolds into hilarity.

Paper Slip Theater is the region’s oldest professional improvisational theater company, making audiences laugh since 2000. Reggi, its founder and artistic director, is an Emmy award-winning actor, director, screenwriter and producer. He says the company enjoys performing in smaller and rural communities more than in big cities such as St. Louis.

“The audiences are so real and they come ready to laugh at everything, including themselves. Isn’t that the best part of laughter? When you can sit around a kitchen table or fireplace and laugh with your family members about real situations we all have found ourselves in?”

Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door or at http://www.jacobyartscenter.org/tickets. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; gallery doors open at 7:00 p.m. Visitors may view the exhibitions “Residual Impact” and “Documents of the Time,” contemporary artworks reflecting our interdependence with nature and humans’ imprint on society. A cash bar is available.

Prior to “When We First Met,” the audience will be treated to a short preview of a dance production entitled “Beyond the Divide” to be performed in full at the Old Post Office at 300 Alby Street on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 and 2 at 7:00 p.m. The solo, choreographed and danced by Erin Lane, offers a glimpse into the dancer’s awakening to social injustices, censorship, and challenges of communication in today’s society.

Plan to attend these other Jacoby events in November: the jazz sounds of Elsie Parker and the Poor People of Paris (Nov. 10); free open mic night, poetry and acoustic music (Nov. 14) and “Trilogy” and “Family Album, films with music and lyrics by Jean King and cinematography by Ann Morrissey Davidson (Nov. 25).

About the Jacoby Arts Center

The mission of the Jacoby Arts Center is to nurture and promote the practice and appreciation of the arts through education, exhibits, cultural programs and community outreach initiatives. Jacoby Arts Center is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The Jacoby Arts Center is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Jacoby Arts Center, 627 E. Broadway, Alton, IL 62002 / 618-462-5222 / jacobyartscenter@gmail.com