Review: HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS at Temple Theater

Summer blockbuster season may be over at the movie theatres, but one of the biggest blockbusters opened this past Tuesday as part of the Prairie Meadows Comedy Series. They are kicking off the season with the tour of "Hold Onto Your Butts" for only its second stop. If the audience laughter was any indication, you won't want to miss this show.

"Hold Onto Your Butts." comes from the company Recent Cutbacks, which finds humorous ways to bring our favorite movies to the stage. If you're not familiar with which movie the show's name comes from, it has something to do with an Island of dinosaurs. How do they tell the story? To do that, I'm going to share the reason you will want to "Hold Onto Your Butts" and see this show.

The first reason to "Hold Onto Your Butts" is the show's direction by Kristin McCarthy Parker and the show's developers, Nick Abeel, Blair Busbee, and Kyle Schaefer. Together, they have taken on the Herculean task of turning an iconic movie into a stage show, deciding which moments audiences expect to see and finding unique, creative ways to bring them to life. One thing I appreciated was that the show brought every dinosaur to the stage in its own unique way.

Another reason to "Hold Onto Your Butts" is for something you don't get to see in many shows: a live Foley artist. Kelly Robinson, who provided the Foley for this show, does an amazing job not just delivering sound effects, but doing them in a way that builds suspense. If you are familiar with the movie, you know there is a large dinosaur with short arms that slowly approaches, and the way she built up the sounds during that moment paid off when the dinosaur appeared, with the audience roaring with laughter.

The final reason to "Hold Onto Your Butts" is the two actors who play every role in the first movie of the dinosaur franchise. Natalie Rich and Jay Dunn are the actors taking this show on tour.  Natalie has performed in the show in several locations, including Chicago, New York, and Edinburgh, and Jay joins the cast on this tour. Both do an excellent job of jumping from scene to scene and character to character, sometimes playing multiple characters with just a change of costume or prop. My favorite part of their performances was seeing how much they put into each dinosaur, bringing so much character to them.

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