ENSEMBLE SHOWS
~ by Wet The Hippo ~
“The most unassuming yet mesmerizing group of people you’ve seen in Los Angeles. I left feeling more confused, inspired, fulfilled, curious and stunned than any live performance I’ve seen in a while.” - We Make Movies
Over the years, John Gilkey has continued to direct and create a variety of shows, featuring the ensemble members of Wet The Hippo, an experimental clown company formed by Gilkey in 2012. Wet The Hippo is an award-winning community of artists who value and encourage a shared search for the ridiculous and sublime, the sacred and profane. Out of WTH come many different shows, all along the lines of this search: to dive deeply into the unknown, the uncomfortable and the undeveloped. Shows are experimental in form and content, and utilize music, movement, comedy and poetry.
CRUEL BABES
Somewhere at the intersection of the sacred and the profane, of poetry and dire scatology, of clown and Dada, of community and exile, of fourth walls and no walls at all, lies Cruel Babes. We welcome you to our family play room for laughs, tears, and live-directed anti-theatrical chaos that is at its very least…absolutely not like anything else.
Featuring: Max Baumgarten, John Bradford, Ian Bratschie, Brian Byrne, Sophia Cleary, Amrita Dhaliwal, Meera Kumbhani, Araceli Lemos, Eli Leonard, Joe Mitchell, Karin Nord, Karim Shuquem, and Zach Steel.
Live-directed by John Gilkey.
Monthly | 4th Fridays | Elysian Theater | 930p DOORs, 10p SHOW
WET THE HIPPO
“This show should simply not be missed ...transcendent...absolutely hilarious ...beautiful ...the whole thing feels like a jazz symphony made up on the spot by Duke, Miles, Coltrane and Fitzgerald. Yes, the members of Wet The Hippo are that good. ”
The Murge
“Spontaneous Theater of the absurd... lascivious, blasphemous and potentially dangerous... This could be LA’s craziest improv show”
WOM
Both a satire and sincere attempt at feminist performance art.
WOM is simply put the word woman without man. A Wet The Hippo production in collaboration with visual artist Allison Honeycutt and directed by John Gilkey. A one hour long comedic, musical and movement manifesto within the WOMARIUM, a playground of shedded skin tapestries, dough, babies, mason jars, musical instruments that we actually know how to play, a mountain top from which to yell "I HAVE NO APOLOGIES," and a phone booth from which to say "I am so deeply sorry."
VIVIAN BECKLEY PERFORMING ARTS PLAYERS
“Absurdity upon absurdity upon absurdity. Plus Music.”
THE SIMPLE SIMPLES
“The Simple Simples is nuts, and I love it... the characters’ mix of sincerity and stupidity transcends comedy to reveal some very basic, brutal truths about human nature. This is the kind of comedy we don’t get enough of.”
TRANGLE
A new dance piece from Max Baumgarten, Pearl Marill, Tyler Watson, and Eli Weinberg.
It's dark out. Four strangers meet in a black box theater space to tell the world and each other what they really want. Absurdly sublime interactions, high stakes physicality, and brutal truths go face to face as the performers uncover the bizarrely poignant oddities that ultimately unite them.
THE INVENTION OF LANGUAGE
We find the structure of language, our experience and reason for it, in both the high aspiration of thought, and the familiar, minute to minute experience of language as a condition of subjectivity. It gives permission to find meaning in nonsense, and that nonsense is often the place where sense begins, and opens the door to an unhinged expression.