Irene Marquette

Martin Short Opening for “Let Freedom Hum”

2009 Just for Laughs

Endust 2013

Endust commercial series

http://www.endust.com/dustersons

Single Long (2012)
HBOgo series (episodes 1 & 3)
created and directed by Jack Lawrence Mayer and Sarra Jahedi

http://www.hbo.com/comedy/single-long/index.html
http://www.wbez.org/blogs/bez/2012-08/single-young-and-chicago-make-tv-show-101864

Searching for Venice (2013)
feature
directed by Jason Knade
http://searchingforvenice.com/

Jessie Rose Trip music video where you can be the director! See the complete video and read more about it here: http://nokiaconnects.com/2012/02/29/direct-your-own-music-video-with-the-nokia-asha-302/

Promo for Stuff Theater from Norton.

Enter for the chance to see our improv actors, opera singers, and artists bring your Facebook page to life in a LIVE, 24-hour, completely unrehearsed and unscripted performance, Nov. 30, 2011 from 9AM EST - 9AM EST. Enter for the chance to have your Facebook wall performed here: http://on.fb.me/tn679v
facebook.com/stufftheatre

Super Traders episode 2

Tasty Trade’s Super Traders episode 1 

Hornitos “Choose Your Night’s Adventure”

I turn into a puzzle!

Commercial for Hasboro’s Jigazo done by Radar

Who’s that skank hanging on Timmy Mayse at 0:51? It’s me!

Norton Anti-Virus CyberCrime Commercial

Goose Island spec ad from The Odd Machine

2011 Bronze Telly Winner!

I’m not even human being written/directed by Andrew Ayer

Crosswords by very clever media

An entry in this year’s Chicago 48 Hour Film Project.

Maybehip.com came to our first preview and filmed a video about 40 Whacks. There are clips of the show and some interviews with me and Aggie.

Panasonic Industrial for McDonald’s

Capt. Baxter (Matt Young) reveals his past to me during a jam session.

Scenes from Matt Young’s show Impotent

15 Minutes To Obscurity

developed by Kate Duffy, Katie Rich and Irene Marquette

written by Kate Duffy

directed by Irene Marquette

Mary Kay Letourneau Players
Kate Duffy and Katie Rich
2011 Chicago Sketchfest
2011 Second City deMaat Theater
2012 iO Theater
2012 15 Minutes to Obscurity, pilot: special screening July 16th 8pm at the Annoyance

Mary Kay teams them up with director Irene Marquette (40 Whacks), who manages to weave the duo’s love of icky news stories and complex characters into a show that swivels neatly back and forth between scenes involving the strange (an architect can’t understand how his rendering resembles the Twin Towers) and the familiar (a woman uninvites her best friend to her wedding).
- Jason Heidemann, Time Out Chicago

The pair playfully skews the audience’s expectations in a series of unpredictable scenes, and director Marquette weaves them together seamlessly.
- Dyan Flores, Gapers Block

Flavor Pill Editor’s pick

Chicago Sun Times interview

photo by Billy Bungeroth

Lights Out Alma
Cast: Lynnae Duley, Kimber Hall, Aggie Hewitt
2009 Annoyance Theater

Created collaboratively with the cast, Lights Out Alma takes place in te 1930s and 1960s and is about three friends driven to betrayal and murder and the consequences of their actions.

Originally developed as a one act for the Annoyance’s Triple Feature program, the show was extended into a full length play and given a six week run. Lights Out Alma was selected by The League of Chicago Theaters for a Theater Thursday event.

Poster by Griffen Eckstein

CURRENTLY RUNNING

Brunch Punkx
2012 Annoyance Theater
Kellen Alexander, Christina Boucher, Neal Dandade, Chelsea Devantez, Steve Hnilicka, Scott Nelson
Music by Lisa McQueen
Music direction by Tara Trudell

This cast had a very long run last year at the Annoyance in Skiing is Believing and wanted to work together again so they brought me on board and we created Brunch Punkx.

Lisa McQueen wrote incredible music to compliment the musical theater sensibilities of the cast. Best described as Rent plus Blues Brothers.

The songs are catchy and the lyrics sharp, and musical theater aficionados will enjoy playing “Guess the Pastiche” with the musical numbers that lovingly pay tribute to other musicals. The cast is fantastic, and each actor embraces their damaged yet lovable character with enthusiasm and likability.
- Gaper’s Block

poster by Griffen Eckstein
photo by Tina Smothers Photography

Jimmy of Nazareth
2011 Annoyance Theater
written by and starring: Jimmy Pennington 
cast: Michael Brunlieb, Rachel Farmer, Mark Logsdon, Jo Scott, Matt Ulrich

Jimmy of Nazareth follows Pennington from his humble beginnings as an unemployed college graduate living with his fiance in Nazareth, Pennsylvania on an epic journey of depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and emergency psych wards - a darkly funny tale of resurrection after the death of innocence.

Was originally approached to develop a one man show and ended up creating a one act play where his fiance, parents, brother, therapist and Howard Hughes make sense of what happened to Jimmy post-college.

Jimmy talks about the process on Mark Colomb’s Poor Choices Podcast.

Poster by Mike Marunowski

40 Whacks
Cast: Ellen Stoneking, Noah Gregoropoulos, Jennifer Estlin, Sherman Edwards, Chelsea Farmer, Mike Maltz, Cristin McAlister
Music: Lisa McQueen
Written: Aggie Hewitt
2010 Annoyance Theater

A musical based on the Borden murders and trial, I directed the show and developed it with writer Aggie Hewitt. Originally scheduled to run for 8 weeks, 40 Whacks opened as part of the 2010 Just for Laughs Festival and ran until the end of October that year.

Reader Recommended
New City Recommended
2010 Orgie Award Winner for “Production Joie de Vivre”

What amazes most about this production is its restraint. Marquette has adhered to a little more class and period consciousness than one usually sees in Annoyance productions. Higher production values in scenic design and costuming, coupled with hints of ragtime in McQueen’s musical score, give the audience a stronger sense of old-timey mass murder–all the better with which to sail into the production’s more off-the-wall, anachronistic moments.

- Paige Listerud
Chicago Theater Beat

Poster by Griffen Eckstein

upstairsgallery:

Friday- May 17th - 8pm - Free (Donations Accepted) BYOB

Two aspiring teen sketch enthusiasts are taking a crack at writing/producing/performing their own show of entirely original content! Local artistic enabler Irene Marquette directs.

This is the big DEBUT in front of everyone!

Come check it out! 

Really proud of these guys!

upstairsgallery:

Wednesday May 15th- 6pm, Free (Donations Accepted), BYOB

Two aspiring teen sketch enthusiasts are taking a crack at writing/producing/performing their own show of entirely original content! Local artistic enabler Irene Marquette directs. This show will be for their friends and promises a “loose” fun flavor!

Come check it out! 

LOCAL ARTISTIC ENABLER!!!! <3 <3 <3

This show is the senior project of two very smart and funny people from New Trier high school. I’m their mentor/community adviser and have been directing them and teaching them how to produce their own show. They’ve done a tremendous amount of work on this.

If you don’t come to this secret ‘dress rehearsal’ then stop by at 8pm on Friday for the ‘real’ show! Teachers and the senior project review board will be there to witness the madness.

Stellar photos of me after being a guest on Rye Bread Radio.

Listen to me make outrageous claims (Super Human is the Wu Tang of improv) here: http://ryebreadradio.com/ryebread-ep-209-multiverses-and-supreme-particles/

Special Mother’s Day contribution to our FREAKY FRIDAY blog! And this Sunday night we are honoring mothers in a very Super Human kind of way.

10:30pm iO theater $5 two for ones with code “YA MOMS”
In person or over the phone 773-880-0199

Listen! Call in! Join the chat room! Whatevs!

www.ryebreadradio.com
On-Air Call-In: 773.997.2751
Skype: RYEBREADRADIO
Chat Room: www.ryebreadradio.com/live

amandalynferri:

annamarie:

Literally cannot wait to be Mrs. Mulaney. Also my sincerest condolences to Leonardo DiCaprio, so sorry I’m off the market.

so pumped for these idiots and so sad for Leo

THE BEST BEST BEST!! Great people sticking it out FOR LYFFE makes me the happiest.

The Chicago Home Theater Festival is in full swing! Here’s an audio snapshot of Saturday night in Hyde Park. I’m performing again on Wednesday in Logan Square and Saturday in South Shore. Check out the CHTF website for more info on this awesome event. http://chicagohtf.org

Featuring, in order of voice appearance:

Irene Marquette (performer & writer)
Laura Schaeffer (host & artist)
Basty & Jasp-y Schaeffer (smart kids)
Judith Heineman (storyteller)
Coya Paz (writer & performer)
Basty Shaeffer (still smart)
David Durstewitz (Hyde Parker!)
Lucas (very swet little kid)
Noah Ginex Puppet Company
Ida (badass 4 year-old)
Irene Marquette (performing!)
Lucas (the best)

Music by:

Amy Geist and Chris Yearwood (singer/songwriter)
Billy Joel
Irene Marquette (Billy Joel karaoke expert)

Total Bozo Magazine has me as a guest contributor about my Ghostface Druid experience!

I love this picture of Rapunzel by Arthur Rackham. The hook on the building and the way she’s holding the base of her neck shows the part of the story that isn’t written - the painful every dayness of her life. She isn’t sitting next to the window singing and brushing her luscious locks, she’s the transportation that lets her captor come and go. Her face turned toward the shadows of the birds on the wall and the plants growing out of the bricks hint at how desperate her situation is.

At least her tears cure blindness.

More Arthur Rackham

My great grandmother and namesake, Irene Vassar Wood.

1940ish age 33ish.

nevver:

Towers of Babylon

My third grade spaz attack on the Awkward Phase!

theawkwardphase:

In 1990 I was in third grade at a Catholic school that was right down the street from our house. There was a sea change brewing inside me that officially decided that instead of growing up to be a nun I wanted to be an actress. One night I wrote the word ‘actress’ on a slip of paper and put…

Schiaparelli gloves
1936

Chanel referred to her as ‘that Italian artist who makes clothes’.

What an inspiration!

Ok. I had a pretty bad ass night. I dressed as a mystical Druid priestess with four crazy fun ladies (Kelsie, Carley, Nicole, Elisa) to raise Ghostface Killah from the dead during his show.

And here is what I learned:

It’s important to maintain a healthy curiosity about the natural world. I watched Killah Priest contemplate the banana he was eating and then ponder aloud  where the banana stores its seeds.

KNOW YOUR LIMITS. If you succeed in sneaking backstage to take pictures don’t push it. Choose between drinking all of Ghostface’s Courvoisier OR finger blasting your girlfriend when you think no one is looking. Don’t do both or you will get yelled at, thrown out and banned. And a room of people will watch you disentangle. 

It is important to be balanced. You can travel with a chocolatier but you also need a tour manager who makes sure there’s a big kale salad waiting for you after your show because even famous rappers need their vitamins.

And sometimes, when the stairs are rickety and treacherous, you might need to reach out for a helping hand to get you down.

When our part was done I stood in the wings watching C*R*E*A*M enjoying the Wu Tang Clan as the goddess intended. Covered in fake blood and surrounded by real smoke.

Forearms and face paint.

I THINK I’M GONNA BE SICK!!

We’ll be at Quenchers May 13 and 20.
Joey Dundale provides sweet tunes for us to groove by.

FREEEEEEE

upstairsgallery:

Thursday- April, 4, 11, 18, 25 - 10:30pm, Free (Donations Accepted) BYOB

Upstairs Gallery House Teams! They’re our top favs! This is a chance for us to get together and just enjoy each others company. Join us for sets from two gallery house teams and one guest team every Thursday night at 10:30pm. It’s always awesome, so stop be and see the show SO good only we see it!

4/25 - Fanny, I think I’m gonna be SICK, Dead$$$

(Facebook Event)

Dasha Shishkin

Improvised Star Trek made a karaoke music video with Jen Usellis from Klingon Christmas Carol who sings a Klingon version of “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer.