Another Wonderful East Nashville Facebook Page Musical
East Nashville Facebook Page: The Musical is an annual musical revue based on actual posts to the eponymous Facebook page which has entered its fourth year. Each year it is different, with “90% new material” from new posts. There are musical sketches, improvised musical numbers, and filmed skits. A large projector screen plays the video skits and occasionally shows the actual Facebook posts as perfectly timed punchlines. The improv comedy group Cherry Bomb is led by highly talented Emma Supica and its music is directed by the excellent Alex Dolezal. Cherry Bomb perform improv musicals multiple times a month at various venues around town (here’s a glimpse of their upcoming shows). Their comfort on stage as individual performers and as a group working together allows the audience to settle in confidently to be entertained. The entire group has wonderful chemistry together in just the way that an ideal improv group should.
I haven’t kept a spreadsheet on the skits this musical has done over the past few years, but this production felt like it had even more new material than last year. While a musical about wealthy-neighborhood Facebook drama sounds too specific for non-locals, that’s not the case. There was only one skit I didn’t get because I didn’t have the backstory required (some sort of renovation gone bad), but the rest of it were instances of common online neighborhood absurdities we can all relate to.
I attended opening night, August 6th, at Eastside Bowl in Madison. The venue impressed me and I plan to return. The space has a bowling alley, a billiards room, food and drink, and a lounge with live music (instrumental funk the night I attended). Their performance space, the Main Room, has surprisingly comfortable seating, and is versatile enough that the stage includes a curtain, allowing for theatre transitions. The night was sold out and the audience laughed loud and long at all the jokes. Since the Main Room has its own bar, most people in the audience enjoyed at least one drink during the show. What better setup for comedy?
The roughly two hour show (with a 15 minute intermission) had around 20 sketches of various formats. A new addition to the show this year was the appearance of guest artists, with a different one each night. I got to see Lyndsay Rush. She is a published poet who is popular on Instagram as Mary Oliver’s Drunk Cousin, and she read a comic poem about aging as a Millennial.
A little about the show’s material: A video skit “East Nashville’s Next Top Mascot” has a fashionable tomato on the catwalk bragging to the camera, “I’m not even ripe yet.” Another skit has people struggling to sleep because of a loud train that keeps waking them up (a complaint I’ve heard many times from family living in the area), while the live band plays hilariously hectic music with distorted snatches of Thomas the Tank Engine. One of my favorite sketches has a woman struggling to phrase a complaint post. Hoping for help, she tries each AI chatbot, personified by cast members wearing branded T-shirts. She gives up on each one (Grok was particularly hilariously horrible), until she finally ends up with a fictional chatbot, Omegan (pronounced “Oh, Megan”). This AI acts like a stereotypical Gen-Z and provokes the worst possible post (an actual post), which slowly appears, paragraph by paragraph, on the projector.
I can’t fail to mention the next feature in the saga of “Sex Chair 4 Sex.” This sketch originated as a photo on the page of an armchair in a ditch with the words “sex chair 4 sex” spray-painted on it. Each year this joke has returned in new forms. Last year the chair was murdered and the entire skit evolved into a chair parody of “Cell Block Tango.” How can you possibly top that? Their solution is clever. They tell us we get to see a behind-the-scenes view of the writers room. Their discussion of the next sex chair skit leads to conflict between two men in Preds jerseys, who end up doing a Heated Rivalry parody dance, “Seated Rivalry.” Then we’re given the treat of Emma Supica doing her original rendition of the sex chair’s song, which gets me bellylaughing each time I get to see it. The music, her choreography, her sultry tone, and those wonderfully ridiculous lyrics. It’s pure comic genius, and I’m not being hyperbolic.
East Nashville Facebook Page: The Musical is a Kindling Arts Festival success story. The festival is a boon to local performers. Putting on any production requires more than just the artistic performance itself. You need the skills of an impresario: finding a venue, photo shoots, advertising, selling tickets, etc. Kindling provides all of these important logistical needs for artists without fees, instead sharing in the profits of the ticket sales afterwards. This wonderful set up makes their assistance a literal investment in the local arts.
East Nashville Facebook Page: The Musical first appeared as part of the 2023 Kindling Arts Festival at the Darkhorse Theater, and each year it returned it has faced increased ticket demand, moving to Riverside Revival, and now Eastside Bowl, with tickets selling out before tech week. What could have been a one-off performance now has an enthusiastic following, strong enough that the show is now its own standalone production. The show’s recurrence each summer gives a cheerful seasonal mood to the show, especially given its new scheduling around the Tomato Art Fest. When I attended the show I saw people in Tomato-themed clothing.
The Tomato Art Fest is a cheerfully arbitrary vegetable-themed festival in East Nashville. Centered on Five Points, it has the typical festival fare of vendors and food trucks, as well as, a parade, a 5k, a silent disco, bloody mary parties, and a multitude of contests, including the Eastie Beastie contest (which I mention this specifically because my golden retriever in-law won second place)
I hope East Nashville Facebook Page: The Musical returns for its 5th year in 2027. Until then, you should check out Cherry Bomb at one of their many performances around town.
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A Nashville native and MTSU graduate, Grace Krenz is a reader, a writer, and an arts enthusiast. She lives in Nashville with her husband and two children.
