Matt Besser Does Belmont

Tonight we went to a show at Bongo Java’s After Hours Theatre, across the street from Belmont University. Les had read that Matt Besser was going to be in town on his “Woo Pig Sooie” spoken word/comedy tour. If you’re like me, you might be saying, “Who’s Matt Besser, again?” He’s the curly-haired guy from The Upright Citizen’s Brigade, Les reminded me. “Oh, that guy!”

If you’re now saying, “What’s The Upright Citizen’s Brigade?” I guess I have to say that you should just stop reading this post now and go check out the DVD. UCB is scathingly honest, completely ridiculous sketch comedy that makes me laugh, gasp, and fidget in my seat, sometimes all in one scene.

We got to the venue about 40 minutes before the show. With time to kill, we went over to Tabouli’s for a quick bite to eat. I was surprised to find pretty good Middle Eastern food at a restaurant I had never heard of. Nashville’s best kept secret? I must explore that part of town more.

We rushed through dinner to get back in time for the show, only to find that the show had sold out. The woman who seemed to be in charge said that they might do a second show, so we put our names on the waiting list and decided to walk around the surrounding neighborhoods while we waited.

We found the Belmont area charming. We had never been in this area before and really enjoyed walking and looking at houses and yards and the people out and about.

Lucky for us, there was a second show and we got in (how awesome is it that Matt Besser stayed to do two shows back to back?!). When we got up to the After Hours Theatre area, we realized why the first show had sold out so quickly . . . the venue only seats about 35 people! Very intimate!

Matt covered a range of topics during his hour-long show: religion, politics, social pressures, etc. He read letters from his grandmother to his mom that were disturbing and shocking. I could relate to a lot of things he talked about, and I found his somewhat random jumping-from-one-topic-to-another style familiar and conversational. There were sad parts and laugh-out-loud parts and audience participation parts and parts where you just nodded your head or sat and thought. He did a great job.

The show ended with all of us doing the Arkansas Razorbacks cheer: Woo Pig Sooie! Fun!

Here’s a write-up of the show to read if you’re interested. It was a really neat experience, both because of Matt Besser’s performance and because of the tiny venue we saw it happen in.