Coming Soon to the Moore!

You remember the TV show. Now you can experience the whole shebang onstage - minus Colin Mochrie, Wayne Brady and Drew Carey, among many others. Of course, the absence of Drew Carey would be more of a selling point, but I always thought that in order for the show to work, it needed the Mochrie. (Incidentally, I always thought his last name was spelled "Mockery," which I deemed the greatest comedy last name ever. But alas, it's not. Foolish, misspelling me.) OK, maybe Ryan Stiles will be there and that's fine, he's a funny guy, but the Mochrie would make it worth seeing. Here's something kind of alarming: this live Whose Line show could tour year-round for the next two decades and fewer people would see it than would view it on one dreary Wednesday night in February of 1999. Isn't that unbelievable? Yeah, they talk about all these great actors, for instance, Edmund Keane, and they always emphasize how comparatively few people ever saw him act - only like 60-70,000. He spent a lifetime on the stage and all we have are the glowing accounts of those very few who saw him. These days, some ordinary person can get 70,000 views a day on YouTube for crying about Britney Spears - I'm not gonna link; no way. And you don't even have to be human. The dramatic hamster has millions and millions of views. But all this is no guarantee that if he were alive today, Edmund Keane would be some sort of big star. It's just that the nature of fame changes every generation. And it differs from country to country. Lord Byron was famous for writing poetry. In Russia, chess champions are worshiped by the public. If Keane were alive now, you might find that his brand of Shakespeare verged on the hilariously melodramatic - and it might possibly fail a community theater audition. OK, so what does this have to do with tonight's show at the Moore? Nothing at all. I just launched off on a tangent and totally ran with it. Thanks for staying with me.