Out of Bounds Comedy Festival Recommendations

Out of Bounds is bigger than ever this year– more improv, more sketch comedy, more stand up, more stages, more classes, bigger venues, bigger parties.

It’s an exciting week and there’s a ton going on. So I try to make some recommendations based on what I’ve seen before, although the festival is so big there’s lots of awesome things that I’m entirely unfamiliar with. And there’s also a ton of excellent shows that are booked at the same time, so there’s some tough choices to make.

Shows

Wednesday 9/1
8pm SVT Apples Stage
Midnight Society
Dusk: Improvised Tween Erotica

Get the week started right with some home town heavy hitters. Plus, I’m in Dusk!

Thursday 9/2
7:30pm Hideout Upstairs
Your Terrific Neighbors (ATX)
710 Split (LA)
Covered and Smothered (LA)

Friday 9/3
A Toss up between:

8pm SVT Apples sketch comedy
Tuskegee Experiment(LA)
Pangea 3000 (NYC)

8pm Hideout Downstairs

Galapagos (PHO)
Improsia (SEA)
You might choose the Hideout, just so you can run upstairs at 9:30pm and watch an improv musical double header:
Girls Girls Girls (ATX)
Hit and Run (DEN)
But then again at SVT Apples you can stick around for the always excellent Pgraph and a group they highly reccomend from Toronto PROJECTproject

9:30pm SVT Apples
Parallelogram-
ophonograph (ATX)
PROJECTproject (TOR)

Saturday 9/4
You are just screwed. There are awesome shows everywhere. So I’m just going to plug my own show, Get Up, with our friends from Amsterdam.
10:30pm SVT Apples
Get Up (ATX)
Live Man Show (AMST)
Sunday 9/5 
They make it easy on you by paring down to one humongous venue, La Zona Rosa

7:30pm
Three Falling (ISR)
FrankenMatt [improv set] (LA)

9:30pm
Kevin McDonald’s ‘Hammy and the Kids’ (LA)

Monday 9/6
If you are still alive and want to see improv, you MUST see the Reckoning while they are in town and this is your last chance. 
SVT Apples Stage
8pm
The Reckoning (CHI)
Buddy Daddy (ATX)
Lottery w/ The Reckoning (VAR)
Workshops
There are lots of great teachers in town for OOB. And I don’t have any Merlin Works classes running simultaneously, so I can whole heartedly recommend them. I’ve heard great things about all the teachers coming this year, but I haven’t had personal experience with all of them. The ones I can personally recommend are: 
SATURDAY September 4
Improv for Humans, Not Robots
Jet Eveleth & Eric Hunicutt (The Reckoning)
Noon – 4pm
Hideout Upstairs

Dr. Cacky’s Improv Cleansing
Craig Cackowski (Dasariski)
Noon – 4pm
Hideout Classroom

Sunday, September 5th

Truth & Beauty
Jill Bernard (Drum Machine and SWITCH)
4pm – 6pm
Hideout Upstairs
And don’t forget the putt putt on Sunday, the parties every night, and all the unofficial socializing with awesome comedians from around the world. Plus there will be T-Shirts.

About Shana Merlin

Merlin Works is the brainchild of Shana Merlin: improviser, teacher, and performer. Since 1996, she’s been leading classes that stretch people’s imaginations, push them out of their comfort zones, and make them laugh out loud for hours at a time.
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