The Amateur Comedy Club is a uniquely New York institution. The oldest continually producing theatrical organization in the United States, it was founded in 1884. Its current home in a renovated carriage house in Manhattan’s Murray Hill is on the National Register of Historic Places. Per its founding charter, membership in the club is capped at one hundred men (and only men) and is for life. Members must die or be asked to leave for some transgression of the rules in order for new ones to join. 

Members pride themselves on not accepting any money for their theatrical contributions–only the director is paid. I have had the great good fortune of getting to work for them twice, the first time being with this production, Jules Verne Eats a Rhinoceros by Don Nigro. While the titular French science fiction pioneer is indeed a character in the show, the play is really about the pioneering Victorian journalist, Nellie Bly, who became famous after getting herself committed to New York’s infamous insane asylum on present-day Roosevelt Island. Her expose of the appalling conditions for the female inmates there caused a sensation. She would later try (and succeed!) to make it around the world in less than 80 days, thus the title of the play. Interestingly, Bly lived in the same neighborhood as the club.

It was quite the challenge to squeeze Nigro’s sprawling play onto the tiny stage of ACC, but I think we pulled it off. Any excuse to use puppets! And choreographing the opening sequence to Offenbach’s can-can from Orpheus in the Underworld was a blast.