The Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company was active in Jackson Hole in 1988-1992. The improv comedy troupe was modeled on The Practical Theatre Company in Chicago. A Roadkill Opera tells the story of the hour before the lights go up on the first professional gig for the Roadkill crew.
The biggest one-night lighting gig of Stephan Alexander Parker’s audiovisual technician career: Eddie Murphy, with Riffmaster and the Rockme Foundation as his opening act. Photo courtesy of Paul Barrosse.
The PTC journey began at Northwestern University with several performers from the Mee-Ow Show, for which Parker had served as audiovisual technician. As the NU Library collection says:
“The Practical Theatre Company (PTC) was a Chicago-based theatre company founded by Northwestern University students and active throughout the 1980s. Its productions included new plays, satiric agitprop, rock and roll events, and a series of successful improvisational comedy revues. The PTC, whose motto was “Art is Good”, is notable for the fact that the entire cast of its 1982 improvisational comedy revue, “The Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee” (Brad Hall, Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Gary Kroeger and Paul Barrosse) was hired by Saturday Night Live.”
Signed photo of the cast of the 1980 Mee-Ow show, Ten Against The Empire
So it was only natural that when key personnel from A Roadkill Opera were in Los Angeles recently, they gathered to see the stand-up act of Emilia Barrosse, daughter of you-know-who and fellow PTC alum Victoria Zielinski.
Stephan Alexander Parker of A Roadkill Opera had The Comedy Store on his mind on an April 2015 visit to the comedy mecca on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. Would Vic & Paul be there? Why is the earth tilting like a Swiss camera angle? And what about…Naomi?Emilia Barrosse has a full slate of standup gigs in the Los Angeles area in April and May, 2015. The Roadkill Opera entourage caught her on April 17 at The Comedy Store.A Roadkill Opera‘s merchandising director DJ Choupin, video director Ben Ganz, and librettist Stephan Alexander Parker met at the Saddle Ranch in West Hollywood prior to heading to The Comedy Store in April 2015 to catch the standup of Emilia Barrosse. Choupin and Parker met in Wyoming, where Choupin managed the box office for the eight-week run of Roadkill Live!!!After a successful set in The Belly Room at The Comedy Store on April 17, 2015, Emilia Barrosse shared a laugh with DJ Choupin, merchandising director for A Roadkill Opera.
After her set (she did well–who says kids of sketch comedians can’t grow up to do stand-up?), Emilia Barrosse was kind enough to chat with DJ Choupin and Stephan Alexander Parker of A Roadkill Opera. Then she donned a fake mustache, dark shades, a lumberjack shirt and a wig, and took off with DJ on the back of her motorcycle, heading for the deep woods, traveling all night.
DJ Choupin is a motorcycle fan. Here she is catching a ride with Rich Gaudiosi. That’s Rich Gaudiosi. Not Emilia Barrosse.
Or not.
Later in April, Parker and A Roadkill Opera music director/conductor Jeffrey Dokken participated in a brown bag presentation featuring Brazilian author and artist Cassia Martins organized by Artomatic creator George Koch for the Center for the Creative Economy.
In April 2015 in Washington DC, Brazilian author Cassia Martins shares a moment with George Koch at her presentation on her book Born in Rio. Koch was the founder of Artomatic, the artistic hothouse that incubated, among other flowers, A Roadkill Opera. In the foreground on the table you can see stickers for Artomatic and If you see roadkill, think opera.Maestro Jeffrey Dokken, music director and conductor for the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia and A Roadkill Opera, swapped tales of South American cities he has conducted in with Cassia Martins, Brazilian author of Born in Rio, at the Center for the Creative Economy event in Washington DC in April 2015.A Roadkill Opera‘s librettist Stephan Alexander Parker posed with Brazilian author Cassia Martins at a Center for the Creative Economy event in Washington DC in April 2015 where Martins discussed her book Born in Rio.Brazilian author of Born in Rio, Cassia Martins, posed with her copies of A Roadkill Opera (on CD) and If you see roadkill, think opera (in paperback) with author/librettist Stephan Alexander Parker. He had come to see her speak at a Center for the Creative Economy event in Washington, DC, in April 2015.
