| Media Type: Newspaper Location: Pittsburgh, PA Pittburgh Post Gazette "From the bustling commerce of downtown, to the tree-lined parks of our neighborhoods, to the sprawling beauty of our suburbs, nobody covers life in the Pittsburgh region like the Post-Gazette." |
Extreme Variety Show Raises a Buzz and Money for ProArts by John Hayes, Post Gazette Staff WriterFrom the Pittburgh Post Gazette - May 2000 The Funny bone comedy club is supposed to be, well, funny. But when one stand-up stood up on open mike night, the 20-some comedians in the house sat down to take note.
Stand-up ... what? McGovern calls his curiously morbid shtick "stand-up horror" -- dark comedy and creepy, crawly bits with a bite that end in bizarre, life-threatening punch lines. Call it an uncommon component of an extreme variety show scheduled to raise awareness and funds for ProArts, a nonprofit business administration group that helps support nonprofit performance groups.
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"All the regular comedians were sitting there on the balcony,
and they were just dying," says Michael McGovern. "I
got up there and went immediately into character and started
doing stand-up horror. They'd never seen anything like it before."
McGovern, playwright and stand-up ... whatever, is one of 20-some
artists donating time and talent Wednesday to help ProArts help
artists in southwestern Pennsylvania. Last year's Live Art 2000
--- a multidisciplinary benefit extravaganza -- attracted a substantial
happy-hour crowd. This year, with more groups giving time to
the organization, the event is generating more of a buzz in the
arts community. 
Various artists will perform simultaneously
in different sections of the Metropol/Rosebud complexes. Here's
a look at the talent:
ProArts deals with strictly backstage stuff --things like filing
for 501c3 (nonprofit) status, writing business plans, cultivating
donors, selling tickets and building customer databases. Since
the mid-1990s, executive director Marilyn Coleman and ProArts
have sponsored workshops and symposiums, matched arts groups
with pro bono attorneys and business administrators and offered
guidance on writing grant proposals and forming boards of directors.
Hundreds of individuals, emerging arts groups and established
organizations take advantage of their services.
