If you’re conservative, overweight, handicapped or squeamish at the site of two naked men playing the flute while their bits and pieces are tucked between their legs, do we have the queer comedy troupe for you. Terence Michael and John Cantwell, and Nora Burns, the hetero-female meat in this homo-male sandwich, don’t so much as offend (or your money back) as beat you black and blue with their funny stick. Sketches range from the Nellies’ very twisted takes on beauty pageants to the inner workings of gyms and parks as hotbeds of gay cruising; apparently, dogs are out and adopted, Third World children are in. Their wigs are tattered and their clothes are straight off of Aardvark’s racks, but Michael and Cantwell are never as funny as when they’re simply dancing, especially in “the most faggoty-ass sport in existence,” competitive aerobics. As one of the performers of the second gay comedy festival, Outlaugh 2006, benefiting the AIDS nonprofit Being Alive, the Nellies will be premiering new material as well as revisiting some old faves. Burns is dead-on in her impersonation of “horse face and cell-phone battery for a heart” Ann Coulter, while Michael and Cantwell reprise their should-be-famous interpretation of the Psycho shower scene in a pas de deux complete with Bernard Herrmann’s score and Norman Bates. Who knew simulating trickling water could elicit so many laughs? Also featured are the Gay Mafia, Suzanne Westenhoefer, Bruce Vilanch, Michele Balan, Page Hurwitz and headliner Margaret Cho. The Renberg Theater at the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, 1125 N. McCadden Pl., Hlywd.; Fri., Oct. 6, 7:30 p.m.; $30. (323) 860-7300. Also at The Cavern Club Theater at Casita Del Campo, 1920 Hyperion Ave., Silver Lake; Thurs.-Sat., Oct. 26-28, 9 p.m.; $15, $18 at the door. (323) 969-2530.

Oh, Nellies!
There’s nothing so dangerous as a gay sketch-comedy troupe

BY STEVE BASILONE

Touting themselves as “the original renegade homo punks of sketch comedy,” Terrence Michael, Nora Burns, and John Cantwell of the Nellie Olesons have been dishing out raucous bits since the Clinton administration. With sketches that range from a musical version of Psycho complete with two dancing Janet Leighs—in drag—to menstruating male aerobicizers, the Nellies have delivered nine lively shows that skewered all things pop. Frontiers caught up with two of the Nellie triumvirate, Jon Cantwell and Terrence Michael, as they rehearsed their newest show, Night of 100 Nellies.

FRONTIERS: Why the name Nellie Oleson?
TerrEnce Michael: It kind of happened by accident. We were brainstorming and someone said Nellie, and someone else said Nellie Oleson, and we all just started to laugh. It just seemed kind of appropriate, because you know Nellie Oleson from Little House on the Prairie was this brat that you just loved to hate, and that was pretty fitting of our comedy.
John Cantwell: You know, to this day I don’t think Nora Burns has ever seen an episode of Little House on the Prairie.

How did the group get started?
TM: Well, I met Nora in another sketch group, called Planet Q. We wrote our first sketch show and it was one of those things that I thought it would never take off. But oddly enough, out of all the things I had done in New York, that was the most successful thing. There were eight of us in the company and eventually it became very clear that four of us had one sensibility and the other four of us had a very different sensibility. They were all about everything having to be gay. And the other four of us thought that gay unto itself isn’t funny, so we spun off and started the Nellie Olesons.

Do you consider yourself a gay sketch group?
JC: We’re kind of gay by default. You know, we have a very gay name and Terrence and I are gay. Nora’s married with two children, but our comedy is definitely universal.
TM: I don’t think we really consider ourselves a gay sketch group, I think it’s more a nature of where we’ve performed and who we are, but I just find our stuff is not really gay at all, it’s just what we find funny. It’s very easy to lump that all together and pigeonhole someone into a gay thing, but it’s more than that. We will skewer gay culture and will do things that are very overtly gay, but most of our stuff really isn’t.

What’s been your favorite moment from the last 10 years?
JC: Performing in front of a live audience is the best. And that’s why you do it, because making an audience laugh, really listening to them just crack up, is great satisfaction—it’s just incredible. You know, after 10 years you get to know different laughs, and now we’ve been around so long we can even recognize different people’s laughs in the audience. I love that. You know, even after 10 years we’re still cracking people up.
TM: We were performing at a festival in Toronto and as we were getting ready this guy in a wheelchair was wheeled in. And he was making sounds, like he couldn’t speak, and I thought, Oh my God, this guy’s going to vocalize during the show and it’s going to totally throw me. But we got through the show without any problem. But later Nora was at another show and he happened to be seated behind her. And the guy’s caretaker tapped Nora on the back and said, “He saw the show and really loved it, and he wants to say something.” And the guy had a spelling board on his lap and he spelled out, “You don’t do any jokes about crips.” Meaning crippled people. And Nora just started laughing and said, “Oh don’t worry honey, we will, we will”’ And he pointed to “Yes, Yes.” That to me is just so great.

What does the future hold for the Nellies?
TM: I would love to maybe do something for the BBC or Comedy Central—that would be the ideal. Something like a bizzaro mix of Jackass meets The Girls Next Door. I don’t know, something like that.
JC: I’d really like to get much more cinematic with everything— I’d really like to do something based on my cat. I want to get Terrence to play my cat and do a saxophone/clarinet tap duet between my cat and me to “Close to You” by the Cure. But as long as we’re making each other laugh, we can keep going—we keep creating new shows. 

The Nellie Olesons "Older! Uglier! Meaner!"
June 3-11 at Ace of Clubs
------------------------------------------------------------------------

With the closure of Fez in March, Spin Cycle inaugurates a new venue, Ace of Clubs, with a special Gay Pride series of events beginning June 3rd with the long-awaited return of THE NELLIE OLESONS. Ace of Clubs is located at 9 Great Jones Street (directly across the street from Fez at Lafayette Street) as was formerly known as Under Acme until recently when it underwent extensive renovations.

The acclaimed sketch comedy group THE NELLIE OLESONS (comprised of Nora Burns, Terrence Michael & John Cantwell) presents their first NYC show after a 4 year hiatus. During this time the Nellies got older, uglier and meaner, so they are back with an all - new show appropriately titled "Older! Uglier! Meaner!". The show, which debuted to sold-out houses in Los Angeles this spring, is a riotous romp of pomp, politics, pom-poms and peter-pussy. It's a trip into a twisted and surreal world with queeny dance routines, annoying orgasms and tributes to cult classics like Psycho and Mommie Dearest. The Nellie's satirical sketches skewer everyone from office workers and slutty newscasters to cunt-supreme Ann Coulter and coma-girl Terri Schiavo. And fans won’t want to miss Junkie Jones who makes a return visit with her own psychic show!

THE NELLIE OLESONS in "Older! Uglier! Meaner!" 

February 16 - March 1, 2005

Thoroughly Modern Nellies

Celebrated Sketch-Comedy Group Greets the 21st Century
by Tom Kieliszewski

Forget Wonder Woman, Jamie Sommers and Charlie's Angels - Nellie Oleson was the heroine of '70's television. the plucky prairie maiden never lost heart when confronted with the mischief of the chirpy Ingalls clan. Every time closet commie Laura Ingalls and her vision-impaired sister, mary, hatched some do-gooder scheme, Nellie was there to foil them and maintain the cosmic balance. Now, just as American culture threatens to become as wholesome and treacly as Sunday dinner at the Ingalls' shack, the Nellie Olesons, just like their namesake, are heading to the rescue.
After a nearly 5 year hiatus, the notorious sketch-comedy group returns with "Older! Uglier! Meaner!," which features the streamlined gang of three - Nora Burns, John Cantwell and Terrence Michael - taking on a whole new herd of sacred cows with their politically incorrect comedy.
When they recently emerged from the bomb shelter that's served as their home for the past six years and entered into the post-9/11 world, they confronted the reality of George W. Bush, the Taliban, Iraq and Janet Jackson's breast. Even in this post-"Strangers With Candy" climate, they expect to raise a few eyebrows.
"Nora is doing a little Ann Coulter takeoff... it sent chills up our spines," Cantwell says, referring to the red states' favorite Aryan fembot pundit. "she looks like Ann Coulter, but she's much sexier," he says chuckling.
"A stick is sexier than Ann Coulter," Michael quips.
"We're also going to have Nora in a burqa," Cantwell reveals when I press for more on the upcoming show. The requested details come fast and furious, much like the pace of the Nellies' show. "Nora's the angst-ridden, burqa-wearing teen," Michael explains. "She's the Taliban girl!"
Despite their penchant for controversy, the Nellies say that they are full of homespun goodness. "The Nellie Olesons are the true Americana of sketch-comedy groups," Cantwell insists. "A lot of the TV shows like 'SNL' are pretty sophisticated - it's pop culture, industry specific - we're rural! We do beauty pageant girls and all sorts of family-type sketches. This is America!"
The Nellies are clearly eager to justify the title "Older! Uglier! Meaner! and they're going to have some help. John Waters' muse, Mink Stole, and Alison Arngrim, the real Nellie Olesons, will both join them in their current foray into tastelessness.
Michael proudly owns their politically incorrect reputation, declaring sagely, "Any comedy group worth their salt is going to offend someone."
"We've been accused of being anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic - everything," Cantwell interjects. We've always played to stereotypes because we happen to believe that stereotypes are fun, funny, and true..."
"To a certain extent!" Michael adds with a laugh.

A Blisteringly Funny NY Sketch Comedy Quartet Hits Provincetown
by Rick Dunn

PROVINCETOWN, MASS. - Skewering gay culture is always a risk, and very few gay and lesbian comics dare cross the line - they're usually too busy towing the PC one. The Nellie Olesons, a quartet of New York-based comic daredevils on a return visit to Provincetown, repeatedly leap over the boundary of good taste with pogo sticks. Nothing is off limits, including circuit parties, dead babies, self-help addicts, not even Marlee Matlin. In past visits, they've been accused of everything - from sexism to homophobia to anti-semitism - but they've never actually been convicted.
Much like their namesake, the pig-tailed nemesis of Laura Ingalls on Little House, they're brats - ultimately harmless, but endless in laughs. The fact the they get away with it takes their humor to a new level. They rely on the fact that their audiences are intelligent enough to not only get the joke, but to understand the references.
Currently performing at The Crown and Anchor, the Nellie Olesons offer their latest missive - Pulp Nellie, a go-for-the-gusto hour of sketch comedy that exhibits a newfound slickness for the Nellies, a definitive upswing in professionalism.
The group's line-up has changed over the years, but it has always been grounded by Nora Burns and Terrence Michael, who were clearly the show's stars in its earlier days. Burns is the goddess of camp. She injects every sketch with an invigorating comic vitality. Michael's recurring Joan Crawford - seen in this version as an office temp - is clearly the audience favorite. With the additions of John Cantwell and Marissa Copeland, this edition of the Nellies is the most cohesive yet.
Only a few sketches from previous visits remain: Burns, dressed in a baby doll nighty, introduces her Mrs. Porn, an adult film sex robot, to the real world of supermarket shopping. Cantwell steps into the role of tweaked party boy at the Black party.
Some of their new material is their most devilish yet. Michael leads a Marlee Matlin sing-a-long. Matlin is of course the Oscar-winning deaf actress from Children of a Lesser God who speaks in slurred monotone. later, Michael and Cantwell, dressed as popular female characters to the tune of Alanis Morissette's "You Outta Know."
I don't want to give away the punchlines, which are usually never telegraphed in advanced. The Nellies write their own material - it's fresh, it's sassy and it stands out.

Detour April 1997
by Dennis Hensley

"I had my first wet dream about Bob Newhart," confesses one member of the New York-based sketch comedy group the Nellie Olesons.
"Mine was Brooke Shields," recalls another. "Brooke and then Mariel Hemingway."
The fact that this snippet of dinner conversation just occurred between the Nellie Olesons' two female members should give you an idea of the kind of comedy this fearless foursome traffics in. Pornography, homophobia, sexual-offender notification laws, gay-circuit parties, the post-fame plight of animated heroines Pocahontas and Princess Jasmine; no topic - not even Disney - is off-limits if there are laughs to be had. Got a hot button you want tickled? Call the Nellies.
"We're kind of no-holds-barred," says actor/writer Terrence Michael, who co-founded the group over three years ago with actress/writer Nora Burns. "We'll take pot-shots at anything, even ourselves."

The Nellie Olesons, which in its current incarnation includes Burns and Michael as well as newcomers John Cantwell and Marissa Copeland, "have a gay sensibility but not all of our sketches are about that."
Ironically, the sketch that's gotten the Nellie Olesons in the most trouble has nothing to do with gaydom. As "Menorah: The Jewish Madonna," Burns bring home the big cheap laughs as a Madonna knock-off who performs at bar mitzvahs as "everyone's favorite Goy-Toy."
"We had like protesters demanding it be pulled," recalls Michael with mock trepidation, "and a threatened lesbian boycott." "A couple of women come up after the show," Burns adds, "and I thought they were going to say, 'Thanks,' and they were like, 'That was disturbing and offensive, we demand that you take that out.' I was so caught off guard and, of course, the rest of the cast were all in back fixing their wigs. No one knew I was outside being mauled by vicious lesbians."

Though the Nellies, who have packed 'em in everywhere from Provincetown to Palm Springs, would love to see their particular brand of mayhem reach a wider audience via television, it's performing live that the find most satisfying.
"Sometime you hear people laughing so hard they're stomping." says Copeland.
And you don't see that kind of laughter a lot," adds Michael. "That's what I think is great."
"It's probably one of three shows I've done where I've actually loved every minute of it," figures Cantwell.
"I'm sort of looking forward to getting out of L.A.," admits Burns, "because it's all about what producer was there, what agent was there. It's just so much more fun to perform for a big room of screaming queens than a bunch of industry people."
And what would an unsuspecting screaming queen or a screaming queen's open-minded friend get if they were to check out the Nellie Olesons' next show, Full Frontal Nellie?
"A hard-on," deadpans Cantwell.
"They're just going to laugh," says Copeland.
"Uproariously," adds Michael.
"They're going to get offended," concludes Burns before letting a mischievous smile cross over her face. "I wish."

Thoroughly Modern
The Nellie Olesons are in it for the laughs.
by Tom Murrin

Smart, sassy and sure to get laughs, the Nellie Olesons, New York's favorite sketch comedy group, is back from a scorching tour of the West Coast, where they premiered Pulp Nellie, their latest trashy foray into the depths of bad taste and seditious satire.
Sitting down with three of the four members of this suddenly sizzling troupe, the room fairly crackles with energy. Present are Cambridge, Mass. native Nora Burns, Marissa Copeland, who's originally from San Antonio, Tx., and John Cantwell, from Tallulah, LA ("Of course you are, dear"). Cofounder Terrence Michael is in L.A., by phone, he confirms the quartet's obvious camaraderie: "We have a fun roller-coaster ride."
For those loyal fans who've seen some of their earlier kitsch-titled gems, such as A Fistful of Nellies and Nellie A-Go-Go, Pulp Nellie is a mixture of new material and old favorites. As Cantwell says, "It's a very manic, sleazy show." Copeland chimes in: "Its really politically incorrect.
Cofounder and writer Burns says, "I love sketch comedy because you get to comment on so many things.  We have a new one about a child molester." Michael, who does most of the writing, adds, "We really take chances." Burns agrees: "Our hearts are in the right place. I don't think it's done mean-spiritedly." The group's favorite review of their show describes it as "awfully squirm-inducing."
The Nellies have been around for four years, but this current grouping, together since September, is starting to make it big. Michael thinks cable TV is in their future: "We probably wouldn't be able to do 80 percent of our sketches on mainstream TV; we're more suited for very liberal cable - nothing owned by Ted Turner. I'd like to see us do some kind of hybrid TV show. Not sketch comedy per se sort of Twin Peaks meets Charlie's Angels."

Theater Reviews
No Holds Barred, No Prisoners Taken
"Pulp Nellie"
The Club at LaMama
by Anita Gates

Is the world ready for Marlee Matlin impersonations, JonBenet Ramsey punch lines and scatological gay-sex jokes, not to mention Calvin Klein fragrance-ad models who identify themselves as "alluring, mysterious and out of your league"?
The comedy troupe known as the Nellie Olesons obviously think so, because about two dozen short sketches including those characters and events make up is newest show, "Pulp Nellie," staged by Peg Healey. It's fast, smart, good-natured, ribald to say the least and inarguable hilarious, even when it's right on the edge of questionable taste.
The show begins when two men's eyes meet, leading them to walk away from their wives (who are nattering on about breakfast nooks and office politics) and perform the dance-at-the-gym pas de deux from "West Side Story," complete with Maria and Tony's dialogue. More than halfway through, two men in drag as the animated film heroines of "Pocahontas" and "Aladdin" sing a duet, lamenting Disney's mistreatment of them, to the tune of Alanis Morissette's "You Outta Know." The Nellie Olesons (named for that obnoxious, overdressed blond child on the TV show "Little House on the Prairie") also tackle intense subjects like a lesbian consciousness-raising retreats, an internal exercise gadget that Suzanne somers would have trouble demonstrating on infomercials, music therapy for sex offenders, the cable talk-show host Robin Byrd and double-entendres about phallic supermarket produce.
The company members, all of whom are more than ready but much too good for prime time, are Nora Burns, John Cantwell, Marissa Copeland and Terrence Michael. Ms. Burns and Mr. Michael are the writers and clearly would make fabulous dinner guests.
"Pulp Nellie" continues at the Club at LaMama, 74a e. 4th St., East Village, through June 21.

Toronto's Eye Weekly. 
April 24, 1997
Little Bath House On The Prairie

PREVIEW:
The Nellie Olesons
We're Funny That Way festival.
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre,
12 Alexander St.
To April 26. $16, 975-8555.

BY SHANE MacDOUGALL
Going on an outing takes on a whole new meaning this week, as Buddies In Bad Times hosts the first ever We're Funny That Way, an international gay and lesbian comedy festival. (Gay and lesbian --isn't that redundant?)
Performances by some of the continent's top queer comedians fill the four-day event, including homegrown comedians Diane Flacks, Elvira Kurt (a personal favorite) and Jonathan Wilson (whose one-man show My Own Private Oshawa has been picked up by Follows Latimer and runs for a week at the New Yorker Theatre starting April 29).

Nestled among the fest's solo performers, however, are The Nellie Olesons, a group from New York City that bills itself as a gay sketch troupe. Named after Laura Ingalls' arch-rival in Little House On The Prairie, the Nellie Olesons tackle subject matter that would have Michael Landon rolling in his grave.

Be it child molesters, or a Jewish lesbian Madonna (everyone's favorite goy toy), the Nellie Olesons have a penchant for dark humor and make no apologies. Even their shorter bits are funny -- one 30-second piece has Wilson Phillips singing with the character from Edvard Munch's The Scream.

"We're very on the edge so we've been called everything from offensive to anti-woman, anti-Semitic -- you name it," laughs Nellie member Nora Burns, speaking from New York. "We encounter more hostility from righteous, politically correct lesbians than we ever do from straight people."

Being labelled a gay sketch group is something the Olesons don't use as a crutch. Burns says she believes that sticking exclusively to gay material can get boring very quickly. In fact, she and co-founder Terrence Michael were originally players in the gay sketch ensemble called Planet Q but left because every sketch had to have a gay context. "We just thought what's funny is funny," she says.

"Our sensibility comes from a gay perspective. But well over half the stuff in our show has nothing to do with being gay. We wound up on this gay circuit, but it doesn't really mean much."

But it can mean much. High-profile gay stand-ups such as Ellen DeGeneres are paving the way for prime-time acceptance of homosexual performers, and next week the Nellie Olesons head to Los Angeles to tape a segment for HBO, part of the cable network's plans to launch a gay comedy series.
The Nellie Olesons will spend the summer in Provincetown and touring the U.S., including the Deep South. "The people down there are very friendly, but it's a strange place to play," observes Burns. "They definitely don't get Jewish humor, but anything with drag they love."

Well, why don't we ever see that in a Texas tourism commercial?

                                                                                

OLESONS OPTING FOR INTELLIGENCE
by Daryl Jung

THE NELLIE OLESONS, appearing in PULP NELLIE, at Tallulah's Cabaret, April 26 at 7:30 pm.

New York-based gay sketch destroyers the Nellie Olesons -- named after Laura Ingalls' nemesis from Little House On The Prairie -- are closer in spirit to Quentin Tarantino than to Milton Berle in drag.

Hence the title of their current show, Pulp Nellie, with which the cutting-edge quartet of Terrence Michael, Nora Burns, John Cantwell and Marissa Copeland makes its Canadian debut.

"We've been compared to Kids in the Hall," says Michael for his fellow Nellies on the phone from L.A.

"Because we have such an off-the-wall sensibility. Some of what we do is shocking, and some of it has offended people. But the cardinal sin, for us, is to be boring. That would never do."

There's little chance of that. Nellies gigs are rapid-fire affairs, full of frenetic costume changes and major leaps in characterization, sexual and otherwise.

"Once we start it's like a roller-coaster ride," says Michael. "It's like a Saturday Night Live live. We all play men, women and everything in between. There're lots of wigs. There's no kicking back."

So it's no surprise that their collective sexuality tends to get lost in the heat of more theatrical passions.

"I like stuff that's really out there," Michael explains. "In that sense, it's more important that what we do is funny as opposed to being gay. It fuels what we do but is by no means mandatory.

"We do sexual stuff, but it's a by-product. Our target audience isn't gay. It's people who are intelligent and hip. We do so many things, we almost resent being called a gay troupe.

"Our integrity lies in our ability to be intelligent, and not just heady." 

Prairie Fairies
Nora Burns hams it up in the Nellie Olesons' hilarious new show
by Erik Jackson

"Taboo, for us, is anything that's not funny," says Nora Burns, the self-described "bisexual fag hag" and cofounder of the risque comedy troupe the Nellie Olesons. "So many people are turned off by sketch comedy because they think they're going to see the same tired thing rehashed - especially when you're dealing with gay material. Like stuff about Ellen coming out." She rolls her eyes. "I mean, who cares?"
Five years ago, Burns and writer-actor Terrence Michael defected from the East Village comedy collective Planet Q, because they wanted to explore a broader queer sensibility. "We hated the group," says Burns, "because everything had to be gay. I mean, it was gay, gay, gay. Everything doesn't have to be jokes about Donna Shalala and Janet Reno. If it's funny, it's funny."

So Burns and Michael created their own troupe, recruiting two like-minded performers: John Cantwell (currently starring in the Off-Broadway nudie hit, Making Porn) and Marissa Copeland (recognizable as the miffed laundromat date in the ubiquitous 777-FILM commercial). When someone suggested they adopt the monicker the Nellie Olesons (the name of Laura Ingall's bratty nemesis on TV's Little House on the Prairie), Burns like it immediately, though she didn't know its origin (she didn't own a television until recently). "I just thought the words sounded funny," she says. "And then I found out who she actually was and thought how perfectly her image fit. Like us, she's obnoxious - and fags love her."

After four consecutive summers in Provincetown, the Olesons set out on a tour of the South and the West Coast, during which they work-shopped Pulp Nellie, their newest sketch revue and first New York run in two years. "We didn't want to do a show here until it could be done right," says Burns. "We produced the last show ourselves, and we're pathetic business people. On the road, we played these places where they were, like, 'Joe's the bartender, but he'll also be running your sound and lights. You can sleep on the floor over there.' I feel like we've gotten enough material from that, and it's time to move on."

But they haven't moved far from their gay roots. Pulp Nellie's queer quotient is impressive: The show was originally shaped by Lypsinka alter ego John Epperson, and the present director is Peg Healey, on of the Five Lesbian Brothers (and former Oleson). And Pulp's 25 blackout sketches skewer pop culture from a decidedly pink perspective.  "I'm the premier Robin Byrd impersonator," says Burns. "Robin's going to give me a macrame bikini top for the show. I could never find one and she as an old one that doesn't fit anymore. Ahem."

While some funny folk don't want to be associated with - or defined by - sketch comedy, Burns is thrilled with the format. "You get to comment on so many things," she says, "from porno to misogyny to political correctness, which is our nemesis." But not everyone (surprise) is receptive to the group's pushing of homo hot buttons. "We're constantly getting boycotted by PC lesbians," she says. "It's so frustrating, because they know we're coming from the same place they are. We're not Howard Stern or Andrew Dice Clay. We're exactly the same as your are." She pauses. "And if you can't laugh at yourself..."

While the other Olesons would like to see their act end up up on the tube, Burns is skeptical. "We're so vile and obscene; I just can't see that happening," she says. "And I can't imagine us changing."
So what is the Nellie Olesons' recipe for success? "Shorter is better," says Burns. "And funnier is best." after considering the group's gay boys, Burns add slyly, "Of course, for them bigger is better. Definitely." 

Pulp Nellie
The Nellie Olesons (a name lifted from this company's Gen-X heroine of Little House on the Prairie) are a quick-witted, bitingly funny sketch-comedy quartet whose hilarious hits far outweigh some inconsequential misses. Though close to the Groundlings in style, the Nellie Oleson's subject matter steers far from that established group's satire of middle-class Americana in favor of humor that both excoriates and celebrates queer life. In some 25 blackout scenes, there is plenty of material to offend everyone, but these young performers also have such an underlying, endearing sweetness that their wit feels more inspired by a sense of fun than ill will. A few brilliant sketches make this one of the best evenings of comedy I have enjoyed in years. In Terrence Michael's "Joan Temp," the writer-performer becomes his own version of Faye Dunaway portraying Joan Crawford taking a temporary office job - and speaking only lines from Mommie Dearest. In a cruelly funny, decidedly politically incorrect dig at a lesbian collective/gendercentric, consciousness-raising conference, Nora Burns creates a farcical display of deaf-signing, as Marissa Copeland lectures the assembled women on the gathering's myriad rules. John Cantwell, who continually plays an excellent foil to the other performers in many scenes, does a splendid solo throughout the evening as a beauty contestant in a rural, ramshackle pageant. Cantwell is also responsible for the light, charming musical interludes between the scenes.

Highways, 1651 18th St. Santa Monica; Thurs. - Sun., 8:30 p.m.; thru Jan. 19"

                 
May 5, 1995
Comedy Tonight
by Donna Coe

Bringing down the 'House'
Fans of "Little House on the Prairie" have a fondness for the Nellie Oleson character. Fans of the Nellie Olesons, a gay and lesbian sketch comedy group, have a fondness for pop-culture references.
In this, their second production, "Nellie-A-Go-Go!," three men and three women take on the music scene (Salt-N-Pepa doing a cooking show), cable access (an incredible Robin Byrd send up), infomercials (be like Tina Turner!) and game shows (a funny and pointed lesson on exploiting oppression).
Their comedy is universal. There are a few allusions to homosexuality, but I'll give it to you straight: This group is just plain funny.

Friday - Sunday at The Ridiculous Theatre 

September 6, 1993

Planet Q - the queer improv/sketch comedy group, which opened last spring with Homo Alone: Lost in Colorado, to rave reviews, has split and become two distinct things. The split wasn't pretty, y'all. The fiery aftermath is a re-grouped Planet as well as a new group, The Nellie Olesons. The N. Olesons, led by Nora Burns, stood their ground all the way to a packed, screaming house at the lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, "You are Joan. You, are not Joan." was repeated all over town, right out of one bit which involves a game show in which the contestants win cash and prizes when they imitate the late, the dead, the redundant, Joan Crawford. Ladies and Gentlemen... Joan Rules!