Lyp-Schtick troupe ditches improv for first full-length play

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By JEFF KORBELIK / GZO

For 6½ years Lyp-Schtick has entertained audiences in and around Lincoln with its improvisation comedy.

Now it’s time to change it up a bit.

The comedy troupe will produce its first-ever full-length play in its new performance venue.

Lyp-Schtick will present David Koren’s “Quazimodo!” at The Loft at The Mill. The six-performance run begins at 8 p.m. Thursday.

“We are trying to diversify what we do, so it’s not just improvisation,” said Lyp-Schtick co-founder Beth Muehling.

Still, the troupe knows improv is its bread-and-butter. That’s why it will follow the one-hour play and intermission with a 45-minute improvisation show.

“There’s something to interacting with the audience and making them laugh,” Lyp-Schtick co-founder Shelly Griess said. “It’s an unbelievable feeling.”

 “Quazimodo!” is David Koren’s tragedy with jokes, loosely adapted from Victor Hugo’s “Notre Dame de Paris” (“The Hunchback of Notre Dame”). The play was first performed in October 1993 in New York City, and was subsequently published by the Dramatic Publishing Company.

The play’s emotion is extreme, Muehling said.

“So it’s not just funny in parts, it’s hilarious,” she said. “And it’s not just sad in parts, it makes you cry. The story of Quazimodo will take you on an emotional rollercoaster, and you many never want to get off.”

Directed by Muehling, the play stars Shawn Carlson as the disfigured hunchback and Shelly Griess as the beautiful Esmerelda. The cast also includes Matthew Landis, Kristin Tripe, Kristine Kapustka and Alan Drees.

“Everybody in the audience will be able to relate somehow to someone on the stage,” Griess said. “This is really quite different from what Lyp-Schtick usually does.”

The play will be Lyp-Schtick’s debut performance in The Loft at The Mill in the Haymarket.

The troupe recently joined an arts consortium that uses the black box theater as a performance space. Lyp-Schtick fills the void left by TADA Productions, which left The Loft after opening its own theater in the Haymarket.

“It is awesome to have a home,” Muehling said. “The whole time Lyp-Schtick has been in existence, we’ve rehearsed in our homes, moving aside tables and chairs. This gives us a foundation, a base. It’s really nice to have that.”

Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.