Steve Engel’s Bad Idea

Steve Engel’s Bad Idea is an experiment in combining food and performance. Some might call it dinner theater, but they aren’t the ones who have been to the show.  

The first show (Flicker) was a nine-course meal paired with a trio of comedic sketches, a thoughtful essay, and some shadow puppetry. It was a big success, or so my mother tells me. The power went out before I was able to perform the second night, so I tried again a few weeks later with Flicker: Repowered. This show was the same structure, but with a couple of new pieces and a revamped menu. The next show (Conviction) was an “improper tea” served alongside six sketches and an essay. The October show (Tender) crammed all sorts of goodness into a lunchbox and offered up eight sketches and an essay. In February, re:play will shamelessly give the people what they want by re-performing/re-plating some of what people liked best.

Each new Bad Idea will look to explore some other region of the possibilities in mixing food and performance. No two shows will be the same. I hope that they will all have an element of the unexpected and the surprising, as well as some components that feel familiar and comforting.