1/25/12, The Wilmette Beacon, by April Dahlquist

Read this on WilmetteBeacon.com

With comedians shouting over her shoulder, Chrissy Kress was laughing so hard she couldn’t hold in the water stored in her cheeks.

A dribble of water leaking from her clenched lips turned into a geyser splashing onto the stage.

Kress, of Aurora, was a contestant on Don’t Spit the Water, a game show brought to The Wilmette Theatre on Thursday, Jan. 19.

While the game show title may be, “Don’t Spit the Water,” the comedic team was trying desperately, and hilariously, to get the contestants to do exactly that.

“We just love having it here,” said Chad Byers, Wilmette Theatre’s general manager about the game show. “We think it’s a great show. It’s hilarious, so much fun and the audience loves it.”

The hour-long game show was led by Sasha and The Noob, who kept the audience entertained with riddles, stand-up jokes and sing-a-longs between the rounds. Wearing neon, argyle pants, and red and gold sequin vests, the comedic-duo left no color out of their outfits, or their performance.

During the rounds three contestants, who volunteered out of the audience, filled their cheeks with water while different comedic characters bombarded them with jokes.

The contestants earned points for the amount of time they could hold the water in their mouths before the humor was too much and caused them to spit it out laughing.

“Anything interactive is fun,” contestant Marc Bermann said. “Some of the humor had a vaudeville flavor to it, so that was fun.”

Comedic character Mr. Glitter-fairy-disco-baby, wearing a green, shimmering dress and rainbow tube socks, used surprise and cheap humor to get contestants to laugh.

Alice “from human resources” talked to the contestants about their failings at work while character Couch Cootersmith tried to get contestants revved up for the big game.

“They were really funny,” Kress said. “It was the hardest when the HR girl came out with the bag of flour and said it was my drugs.”

While Kress didn’t last long before spitting the water, other contestants were more tight-lipped.

“There’s always some guys that are trying to be tough guys and don’t want to spit the water to impress their dates,” performer Bryan Bowden said. “It’s just part of the game, and we have to be more creative.”

Bermann was able to hold in his giggles when he was focused during the rounds, but when Sasha was chatting with him between rounds, Bermann made a mess of spit-up water on the stage.

“If he had gone eye-to-eye with that Sasha, he would have spit the water in 15 seconds,” said Janice Igra, who accompanied Bermann to the show.

The contestants also could wager their points against the other contestant, betting if he or she would spit the water or not.

While some jokes flopped, overall the comedic troupe was able to keep the audience laughing and the contestants spitting.

This was the fourth time Don’t Spit the Water has come to The Wilmette Theatre. Theater managers said they try to book the show twice a year.

“We try to bring in the best shows from the city to the Wilmette audience, North Shore audience, so this fills that need,” Byers said.

1/19/12, New City, by Zach Freeman, Brian Hieggelke, Sharon Hoyer and Dennis Polkow

Read this on NewCityStage.com

With our criteria shifted back to artistic accomplishment in theater, dance, comedy and opera this year, our task got infinitely tougher. Because while the number of performing venues grows at a steady rate, the increase in the number of noteworthy artists seems to grow exponentially. For everyone we name on the list below, we had to leave off five, an embarrassment of riches for Chicago. We made a conscious effort to introduce a meaningful number of new faces to the list this year; the necessary absences should not be construed as a loss of worthiness as a consequence. We often find trends when we do the research these lists require; this year we’re starting to see a more meaningful effort to redefine performance itself in the internet age, from the runaway success of StarKids, to the more calculated endeavors of Silk Road. So what defines a “player”? Consider it some complex stew of career achievement, recent “heat” and, in some cases, rising stardom.

…

#41 – Steve Gadlin, Actor

Steve Gadlin and his Blewt! cohorts create some of the funniest, most imaginative projects anywhere, from the “Impress These Apes” show that first brought them to our attention, to his more recent “Nairobi Project” wherein he commissioned an email spammer to create plays for him which he produced. But he’s on the verge of going big-time now: his “Don’t Spit the Water” game show pilot recently aired on television and, later this month on January 27, he’s really breaking out when he appears on ABC Television’s “Shark Tank” to pitch rich investors on his project “I Want to Draw A Cat for You.” Sounds Trump-worthy to us.

…

Lately I’ve been puzzling over Blewt!, and how to define it. The first project to wear the logo was a video I created called Silly Faces, probably about 10 years ago. It featured 30 people, each making silly faces for 120 seconds, set to nauseatingly obnoxious music. All sixty minutes of it can be watched in order on YouTube. A byproduct of this silly project – check out what improvisors looked like 10 years ago.

Silly Faces is awful, and impossible to watch. It takes silliness and beats you across the face with it in tedious 2-minute chunks. The point, obviously, was not to be a watchable film. It was the first crack at a common Blewt! objective – to create the “found footage” of tomorrow. Thirty years from now, someone will stumble upon someone’s old Silly Faces DVD and scratch their head… and hopefully continue to share it with others. The same way that things like this and this breathe second lives out of context.

Silly Faces was followed by Silly Dances, Silly Horse Whispering, and the never-quite-finished Silly Lickin’ Pickles. These are all worth a peek, but I wouldn’t spend more than thirty seconds on them. Especially if there are other people around.

Now in between these “Silly Sessions,” Blewt! launched several stage shows, and a handful of online video things (like this, and this, and oh yeah, this). And as the collective grew, that became our primary focus – creating comedy for people to watch in a theater, or sitting at their computer, that would both delight and confuse them.

Recently, Blewt! has gone through another evolution. In addition to our strange videos and ridiculous stage shows, we now sell things. Like stick figure cat drawings, T-shirts with two film titles printed on them, and soon, custom theme songs. For a while, I struggled to figure out how this all fit together. In a way, we’re using e-commerce as a performance art – trying to accomplish the same ends, head-scratching delight, through an unexpected means.

When I was a kid, I remember coming home from Trick or Treating with a bag full of crazy candy. Every piece was different. The wrappers were colorful. There were candies I had never heard of. Nowadays, every house hands out the same thing – special Halloween-sized versions of the same 10 candies, in their bland orange and brown wrappers.

Blewt!’s mission is to bring back the excitement of unpredictability to your daily life – to pepper your existence with unexpected discoveries. We want to be that crazy bag of random Halloween treats, that you couldn’t wait to tear into.

I think it’s an important mission. I’m struggling with the right words to explain why. Everyone feels weird or strange at certain points in life. Even normal people. When you stumble upon something weird or strange and can connect with it, it diminishes loneliness. So by scattering Blewt!’s artifacts, the hope is that we’ll diminish loneliness in others, the same way similar discoveries have diminished it in us.

We’ll do it on a stage, we’ll do it on YouTube, we’ll do it on TV, we’ll do it by selling you something stupid on an e-commerce website. And it’s a sure bet we’ll continue to find strange and new ways to get your attention, in ways that hopefully continue to surprise.

1/12/12, TribLocal, by Teme Ring

Read this on TribLocal.com

Pssst. C’mere. Want some insider tips? Fill your mouth with water (coffee works if you’re reading this over breakfast) and hold it until the end of this interview. This training will give you an advantage over the competition when “Don’t Spit the Water” returns to the Wilmette Theatre on Thursday, January 19th.

Tip two: buy your cat drawings now! On January 27th, demand may grow faster than a kitten when Steve Gadlin, creator and host of “Don’t Spit the Water,” appears on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” where a panel of millionaires awards sizable investments to deserving entrepreneurs. Gadlin will pitch www.iwanttodrawacatforyou.com where he “draws the cat that your describe.” The business has already been a Groupon sensation. Unfortunately, there’s no “insider tip three” because Gadlin wouldn’t tell us who won the purrrse on his episode of “Shark Tank.”

But you don’t have to wait until the 27th to see one of Chicago’s most innovative comedy impresarios. Next Thursday, Gadlin brings Chicago’s craziest live game show back to Wilmette. Contestants fill their cheeks with water as comedians engage in outrageous shtick to make them laugh, spit the water and lose. Gadlin achieved a long-held dream this past September when the “Don’t Spit the Water” television pilot aired on WCIU.

Gadlin is also the creator of “Impress These Apes”, a comedian talent competition, “The Nairobi Project”, a play returning for its three-quel this spring penned as always by a Kenyan e-mail spammer, and most recently, for two new ventures, “I Want to Write a Song for You” and “Two Film T-Shirts.” (“The only shirt that lets you show your appreciation for two films, not just one!”)

When it comes to show business, some are better at the “show”, some better at the “business”. TribLocal spoke with Gadlin to learn what it takes to succeed at both.

Q: What was it like to film “Don’t Spit the Water” for television?

A: It was a blast. It had been so long in the making for so many people.

Q: Did it feel like a dream come true?

A: Not so much as we were taping because it was a really long and slow day, but definitely when it aired a couple of months later. It was very surreal to watch.

Q: Will it be back on the air?

A: I hope so. We’ve talked about doing more and I’ve put together some budgets to show what that would cost. Right now, it’s not on the top of anybody’s to-do list. But I’m giving it a little time before I get too pushy about it.

What always happens with me is I’ll let something sit, then something will trigger in me and I’ll get really persistent and try to make something happen. It’s definitely an experience I want to repeat, so hopefully in 2012 we’ll start talking about doing more.

Q: What sort of challenges should contestants expect when “Don’t Spit the Water” returns to Wilmette?

A: We’re bringing in new comics and people who were a part of the show a long time ago and prepping for the possibility that we might get to do a bunch more of these. So there will be some interesting comics to go up against.

Q: How can audience members improve the odds of becoming a contestant?

A: We walk around before the show and sign people up. Some people take coaxing to put their name on the list and those are people we generally won’t bring on stage, but we fast-track the people who seem really enthusiastic. We want people who want to be up there and who look like they’re having fun.

Q: What’s the craziest thing a comedian has done to defeat a contestant?

A: When Ken Barnard did the show, I would always tell the contestants, “you have a safe word and that’s spitting the water” because I was scared of what he would do to get them to spit the water. He’d climb all over people. I would get really nervous any time I’d call him up because I was afraid of a lawsuit.

Q: How did you think of “Two Film T-Shirts”?

A: I thought it was a really dumb idea and those are the ones I like to follow through on. I decided the timing was right to put it together, so I talked to [filmmaker] Steve Delahoyde and he agreed to help out with the commercial. Everything kind of clicked.

It was an interesting experience because I had to learn about drop shipment and how to work with t-shirt providers. It hasn’t been very successful at all, but that’s been kind of the fun of it, too.

Q: A lot of people have ideas and dreams, but don’t take them any further. What advice do you have for figuring out those next steps?

A: Years ago, I was frustrated that I had all these ideas and never did anything about it. Not just me, but the people around me. The improv community was all about thinking up stuff, but your shows were always show-up-ten-minutes-before-and-make-stuff-up-onstage as you go along.

So I started with this project called “Silly Faces” thinking, if I’m going to think of something dumb, I’m just going to have to follow through with it and learn what I’m doing. I’ve had a lot more things flop than work. But it’s been fun and eventually, you look back and you’ve done all these crazy things and that’s kind of cool.

I’d say just get yourself underwater on it. Make it so you have to do something. If it’s a good idea, things will click into place. And also, for me, it’s been really easy because I’ve worked with a lot of great people who have skills that I don’t have.

Q: So you have to figure out who your team could be.

A: Yes. And you make your network as you do your stuff and find like-minded people. That’s the first step in making any of these things work.

Q: Which movies are on your “Two Film T-Shirt”?

A: Mine is “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” and “The Big Lebowski.” If it were a three film t-shirt, I’d probably throw “Waiting For Guffman” on there, but no one’s invented that yet.

Q: Has anyone ordered an unexpected combination like, “The Little Mermaid” and “The Exorcist”?

A: Yeah, that’s been kind of the game of it, too, people coming up with weird combos. Here’s one: “Troll 2” and “Showgirls”.

Q: When did you tape “Shark Tank”?

A: Two days after the “Don’t Spit the Water” pilot aired, I flew out to L.A. for a week. It was a whirlwind week because the pilot aired, we were working on “Apes” at the time, too, and then two days later, I’m out there.

Q: Wow. Do you ever take any down time or vacation?

A: Actually, that was my down time. I got out there and I didn’t have a wife and kids to worry about, so it was more vacation than work. I don’t know if I’ll ever have an experience like that again where somebody’s taking care of my food and housing and I don’t have to take care of anyone or put anyone to bed.

Q: I read that out of nine thousand applicants, only one hundred were chosen for the show. What is the secret to making it through?

A: I’m not sure. I’d sent them literally a two-sentence e-mail saying, “Hey, I draw these stick figure cats. Let me at ‘em.” I didn’t expect any response to it, but about a week later, they called me right before I was about to go on for an “Apes” show. They had me make a video and send it to them. I threw that together pretty quickly and then it was a month or two until I heard anything else. My assumption was, okay, this isn’t going to happen.

Then suddenly, these two producers were on the phone with me twice a week working through what the pitch was going to be. They kept telling me every step of the way, “Look, you could never hear from us again”. Then a week before the shoot, they sent me plane tickets. Then you get there and they tell you, “By the way, you might not even get to tape”. And then you tape and they tell you, “By the way, you might not ever get to air”. And then a couple of Fridays ago, they called me and said, “You have an air date and here it is”.

Q: What were your impressions of the “Shark” panel?

A: While you’re backstage you see them coming in. You’re waiting to do hair and make-up and they’re kind of walking around, so you try to avoid eye contact. But they were very friendly. I didn’t have much interaction with them other than the pitching. Then it gets combative, but that’s their job. They had me singing and dancing. It was crazy. I walked out of it thinking they were pretty cool and nice.

Q: What are the contestants doing right before they go on – are you talking with each other?

A: No, it’s very closed. You meet a few of them in the hotel, but they keep everybody separate and warn you not to talk about much. When you’re waiting to go on you’re in this tiny room that’s very dark and cold. You know other people are giving their pitches that day, but you can’t see them. Then as soon as you’re done, they hustle you out of there into this second hotel so that you’re not talking to people who haven’t gone yet. There’s really no interaction other than casual hellos between the contestants.

Q: What are you doing to prepare for after the show airs?

A: I’ve got extra server space ready to handle the traffic if it comes and I’m taking the week off from work after it airs. If it’s vacation, that’s great, but I’m taking it just in case I’ve got a thousand cats to draw. In all likelihood, it will fizzle pretty quickly and maybe I’ll see a handful of new orders. But I also have read stories of people who have two thousand orders of their product while their episode is airing. So I have to brace myself for that possibility. But I don’t want to seem too foolish about it and assume that’s going to happen.

Q: Any time management tips for juggling so many projects? Do you ever procrastinate?

A: Oh, yeah.

Q: How do you do so much?

A: I think there’s more time in a day than people realize and a lot of things that seem daunting, especially in terms of these projects I do, don’t take as long as they might seem. I’ve been practicing a lot of this stuff for a long time. So to turn around a web site to sell some ridiculous product isn’t like a month-long project. I can sit down and in six hours on a Saturday have something up and running. So it’s just kind of go with your strengths and stuff won’t take too long. And again, don’t do things by yourself.

Like for “Two Film T-Shirts”, I did a lot of the set-up and writing ahead of time and then when it came down to shooting and editing the commercial, that’s pretty much someone else doing all of that. The more projects I take on, the easier it gets to execute them. It’s pretty much a matter of practice.

Q: What can we expect next?

A: A whole bunch of crazy things. Once this thing airs at the end of January, there will be very little coming out from Blewt! [Gadlin’s production company] for a while as I deal with the aftermath or lack of it. Then we’ve got “The Nairobi Project” again and we’ve got “Apes” again. There are another couple of web sites coming out, too, with some goofy things. Or maybe there aren’t. There are little projects I’m trying that may or may not go anywhere.

So hopefully, in 2012 we get to revisit “Don’t Spit” and getting it on TV. Or again, we might not. We might not have any success there, either. I think 2012 will be about trying to close the deal on a lot of this stuff and doing some cool things. But we’ll see. I’m as curious as you are.

“Don’t Spit The Water” returns to Wilmette at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 19th at the Wilmette Theatre,1122 Central Ave. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door. For more information or for tickets, call 847-251-7424 or go to http://www.wilmettetheatre.com/events/.

1/12/12, The Daily Northwestern, by Chelsea Corbin

Read this on DailyNorthwestern.com

Evanston resident Steve Gadlin didn’t pack away his high school hobby when he graduated from Niles North High School in 1994.

The 35-year-old revived his passion for drawing stick-figure cat cartoons over a year ago when he launched www.IWantToDrawACatForYou.com as a pet project. More than 1,400 cats later, Gadlin is slated to appear Jan. 27 on ABC’s Shark Tank,  a show during which investors evaluate businesses pitched by entrepreneurs.

“I thought, ‘OK, well this will be a funny story and nothing will come of it,’” Gadlin said, referring to his July application to appear on Shark Tank. “Then I heard from the show’s casting department.”

In early September, ABC flew Gadlin to the reality TV show set in Los Angeles to film his pitch. He said he approached the “sharks” with financial figures, but they asked more about his comedic dance and rap featured in a video on his website.

“I just wanted to have a good time and confuse these ‘sharks,’”  Gadlin said.

The judges on Shark Tank referred to a promotional video Gadlin made with colleague Erica Griffiths, co-owner of NVRVR production company in Boulder, Col.

“He told me his silly, crazy idea, and I was like ‘let’s make a video!’” Griffiths said. “It turned out really well.”

Gadlin also connected with Groupon, “pretending to be a very legitimate business,” he said. The next day, a sales representative expressed interest in Gadlin’s work.

He sold his typically-$10 cartoons for $3 on Groupon and charged $5 per drawing in two subsequent deals. One of the special offers generated 1,000 orders in three days, Gadlin said.

Morgan Morgan, a Portland, Oreg., resident, purchased two drawings, discovering the website after a friend ‘liked’ Gadlin’s Facebook page.

“It’s a very clever idea,” Morgan said. “My friends and I started buying them and sending them to each other.”

Though drawing cat cartoons constitutes several hours of Gadlin’s weeknights, he also is a web development manager for Weigel Broadcasting Co. in Chicago, hoping his projects will eventually become his main job.

Gadlin said he draws cats because they require basic illustration skills.

“I’m allergic to cats, and I really don’t like cats at all,” he said.

Most of Gadlin’s orders come from the Chicago area, but he said he also receives commissions from across the U.S., Australia, Japan and Europe.

The future of Gadlin’s cat cartoons depends on the reaction to his Shark Tank appearance, he said.

Steve Gadlin will pitch his cat drawing business on ABC’s “Shark Tank”

1/6/12, Evanston Patch, by Jessica Rudis

Read this on Evanston.Patch.com

1/5/12, The Onion AV Club, by Alyssa Vitale

Read this on AVClub.com

While genius ideas like Pajama Jeans and Snuggies have found luck in the investing world, plenty of ordinary people with dreams of capitalism still go unnoticed. But thanks to ABC show Shark Tank, the tides are turning. On the show, individuals with money-making ideas present their business plans and compete for funding from potential investors. Local comedian Steve Gadlin, of the Chicago comedy collective Blewt, will make his pitch on the show Jan. 27 at 7 p.m.

For Gadlin, the company on the table will be his website I Want To Draw A Cat For You. Customers send along $9.95 and a description of the cat drawing they want, and Gadlin dutifully draws the cat picture, mails it to the customer, and posts a photo on his website. Today, he has posted more than 1,400 cat drawings on his site. Though this may sound biased, the drawings are truly beautiful and original works of art.

Since Gadlin hasn’t let the cat out of the bag (cough), we won’t know whether he found an investor on the show until the episode airs.