April 9, 2003
Foolish entertainment
UU Congregation stages annual April Fools concert
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Saturday morning, attendees at the Fourth Annual April Fools concert most likely woke up with sore jaws and aching ribs. For two hours the previous night, members of the Unitarian Universalist congregation enjoyed a sophisticated and intelligent spoof of television courtesy of their fellow congregants and the church's vocal ensemble.
The evening provided a raucous and rollicking good time that kept the audience of 120 howling with laughter. Puns piled up as popular shows were twisted - American Idol became American Idle, the Flying Nun as the Frying Nun, starring Sister Julia Child, and Who Wants to be a Hundredaire? One quartet featured environmentalists, polluters and the DEQ teaming up to sing "A Sedimental Journey" while a sketch called The Pianos skewered The Sopranos with a barrage of musical puns.
Having established a rep as a great evening, each year music director Kevin Tarsa and his vocal ensemble dig deep to score again. This April Fools celebration began as a way to combat end-of-winter doldrums but has turned into an institution, the place to be every year for Unitarian Universalist members.
Tarsa knows the bar keeps being raised and he spends the year preparing.
"I collect jokes all year long, there's a bunch I wrote and a bunch I get from other places; it's just the whole range," said Tarsa, who has been with the church for 12 years and its full-time music director for four. "Same with the music, some I composed myself and some I found or others in the congregation wrote."
Karen McCarthy narrated an ongoing series of commercial breaks, using a infomercial-styled seriousness to present outrageous products ranging from Orthodox brand corrective beliefs ("Contains tiny time-released dogmas to work on doubts") to Dammitall ("I take one when I wake up in the morning and I feel better immediately.") Spoofing public television fund-raisers, she intoned, "For a pledge of $8,000 we will send you a barely-used pencil; for $10,000 or more, we'll send one with an eraser."
Rev. Emmy Lou Belcher of the Unitarian Universalist congregation believes the humorous look at life provides a needed outlet for everyone involved. She noted that the jokes or skits are not meant to hurt anyone specifically, but to provide a good time for all.
"I think that humor is one of the ways that we experience grace and it is also one of the ways that we connect to each other, release tension and get to know each other better," Belcher said. "All of those important things that congregations or communities do."
The concert this year included many skits performed or created by the congregation's teens, who participated this year more than ever before.
"What I like is that the concert really appeals to the generations, brings all the kids in," said Shelley Burnes, who participated in a skit called 'Acme Forgetting Service.' "That really gives the kids in the audience a sense of community, too."
Tarsa maintains an overall view of the concert but schedules rehearsals in pieces, keeping the performers in the dark about the rest of the program. He works for about a month with them before the concert, piecing together skits and matching people with ideas and music.
"Some people say, 'I'd like to participate but I don't have anything particular in mind,'" Tarsa noted. "So I try to match a piece with a performer; other people have an idea and bring it to me and we bounce ideas off people, especially the vocal ensemble."
"Part of it all is the camaraderie, engendered in that kind of creativity and laughing together," he noted.
Tarsa had planned to stage this year's event at the Milliken Auditorium but scheduling conflicts with spring break intervened. So a broader public debut of the April Fools Concert is planned for next year, a step the Tarsa and performers are eagerly awaiting.
"We are ready for a community debut, this program is something we feel we could offer to the community," he said. "People are ready for a chance to go and laugh for the evening."