Dear people who are sufficiently interested in His Majesty's, the Baby’s, art, work, activities, and general well-being to read an update on same,
Thank you! You make us exist.
Not only would our corporate existence qua His Majesty, the Baby, be pointless without you, an audience—the very empirical basis on which it can be asserted that we exist would be mere speculative bunkum without an affirmation of the evidence thereof by an observing party, i.e. you.
But because you care, we exist, and because we exist, we can act and we can change. You are about to read the first edition of an almanac of our changes and our actions. We will keep you posted monthly, so that you can see how much HMtB is able to get done in the time it takes the moon to wax and wane completely, and, likely, for your body to produce an egg and, subsequently, to shed its uterine wall. We’ll also make sure you’re informed in advance about our upcoming performances and other things to look out for.
This being the first such newsletter, a little catch-up is in order. Since we launched His Majesty, the Baby, as a New York-based experimental comedy group back in April 2014, we’ve participated in the 2014 New York Fringe Festival, written, produced and performed no fewer than five full-length shows at the People’s Improv Theater, won the Upright Citizens Brigade’s Backyard Brawl competition against another sketch group, lost the Upright Citizens Brigade’s Backyard Brawl competition against another sketch group, hosted a series of poetry readings with acclaimed and up-and-coming writers, collaborated with artists and comedians like Daniel Ahrens, Jessica Park, Brandon Scott Wolf, Sister Helen, and Gina Tuttle, and even welcomed a new member, the quick-witted and quack-watted Jeremy Senie!
A still from production for an upcoming HMtB short film in which Shon plays the good guy and John plays the bag eye. Photo by Jenny Downes.
Most recently, HMtB has been working on video sketches. Four videos are up on our website: “What Will Happen,” a science experiment with some surprising results and some wonderful guest actors; “Shit These People Say To Gay People,” a post-marriage equality demonstration of how far we still have to go; "Same Person," which Netflix categorizes as a Cerebral Fight Club Parody; and Shon’s bravura solo project, “Virtual Interactive Playdate,” which introduces an entirely new platform for human interaction! We'll be releasing more videos in the coming months. You'll be able to find them here or on our Facebook page.
Meanwhile, we’ve been taking a hiatus from live performance. We’ll be back in fine form on November 7th, though, when we return to the PIT to perform your favorite HMtB sketches and probably a few you haven’t seen unless you are Shon’s parents or somebody like that. Stay tuned for news of additional performances in the fall.
Let me conclude this letter with a few words about what our members are doing outside of HMtB:
Shon just got back from a month-long in-temple residency at the Zen Center of New York City. He’s been writing comedy pieces freelance and three of them have been published in,the Barnes & Nobles Review. You can find them here: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/review/author/sariehlerer.
Andrew has also been generating whiz-bang content online, now that he works at Slate as the magazine's assistant interactives editor. There he's developed graphical interactives such as this map that charts every ship in the Atlantic slave trade.
John is currently in Los Angeles, playing the young Austin Dickinson in Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, an independent biopic of Emily Dickinson directed by Sundance-featured director Madeleine Olnek.
Jeremy has been continuing his improv work outside of HMtB. He also claims to be learning the Ukrainian language. На все добре, джеремі!
Max is having an extremely exciting month! He just got married to everyone’s favorite fiancée of his: Victoria Jackson-Hanen. His sister, Victoria, has accepted her defeat and welcomes the new Victoria Ritvo. As if that wasn’t enough, he has a quartet of poems featured as the Poet's Sampler in The Boston Review and a new poem in The Los Angeles Review of Books.
Finally, I myself, Nathan, have been on hiatus from performing with His Majesty, the Baby for several months, because my band, Sister Helen, has been touring outside of NYC throughout 2015. We’re working on a new EP with big-band arrangements. I’ll be back for the upcoming HMtB shows, though, and I hope to see you there!
That’s about all the typing any person would really want to do at all. I hope you liked my typing about His Majesty, the Baby. I hope it was the right type. I hope that was the right “dad joke.” I hope it had the “dad joke bod” that you all like a lot. I’ll see you next month, son. I’ve very proud of you and I love you so much.
Your affectionate but masculine father,
His Majesty, the Baby