The Inside Skivvy...

Martha Stewart, Prison Vixen!
or, It's a Good Thing

Minneapolis, Minn, January 2, 2003.--- The Brave New Workshop (BNW) Theatre, founded by Dudley Riggs in 1958, is sewing up a 242nd Mainstage satire, Martha Stewart, Prison Vixen…or, It's a Good Thing, a hilarious send-up of our collective American self-image.

This show will be written and performed by the well-seasoned duo of veteran BNW director and actor Caleb McEwen, and the fabulous Matthew Craig, returning from Second City in Chicago for this production only!

McEwen and Craig started working at the Brave New Workshop together in 1998, as part of the Workshop's improvisational comedy team aboard Disney Cruise Lines. After six months at sea, performing 28 shows per week (!), the two naturally developed a strong onstage and offstage rapport. The pair also performed together in several BNW Mainstage shows before Craig was lured to Chicago's Second City, of SCTV infamy.

"I'm really thrilled to be back at the Brave New Workshop," explains Craig, "This theater takes so many risks, and everything is constantly changing. It's really exciting to be back in an environment where I get to write so much material. There's nowhere else that is so writing-intensive." (A note of local pride: the Brave New Workshop has written 242 productions in 45 years, while nationally-known Second City has written just 45 in as many years!).

McEwen and Craig are polar opposites when it comes to characterization and writing. McEwen likes to challenge the audience with situations that are funny but also thought-provoking and uncomfortable. Craig, on the other hand, likes to create outrageous characters that wantonly leap from absurdity to reality and back again.

The unusual mix seems to provoke them each to higher levels of creativity…and since Craig is currently living at McEwen's house, their goofy brainstorming goes on from sun-up to well after sundown. "They hang around the living room in their grungy sweats all day, typing like mad and yammering back and forth really loudly about their sketch ideas," says McEwen's wife Katy McEwen, who is also a talented writer and a longtime veteran of the Brave New Workshop Mainstage. "Now that they (McEwen and Craig) are finally writing a show together, they're going to fill it with four years' worth of pent-up nuttiness."

Hang on to your tea cozies!