"This is the stuff that needs to be broadcast for the whole planet to enjoy. The only people who wouldn’t like it are people who live backwards lives and put shoes on their hands"

I am an addict.  I’ve spent a shocking amount of time and money on my addiction, refusing to wean myself off of it.  I am hooked on the euphoric drug that is Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (T.M.L.M.T.B.G.B.).  You know how with most media, you can internalize everything that there is to be internalized in one sitting, with no real need to take part in it again?  The New York Neo-Futurists have made sure that that will never be the case if you are to ever go see T.M.L.M.T.B.G.B.  A friend invites you, you love it, come back for more, get hooked, recruit your own friends, and the circle never breaks, but only broadens.

The format of the show sounds almost like an old show from the ‘60s:  there are 30 plays the 6 members wrote, they have exactly an hour to perform them, and the audience gets to choose the order.  If the clock runs out before they’re done, they stop, but if they finish them all, they cheer and announce how many minutes of your time they saved.  After that, they check if there are any empty seats.  If they sell out, they buy everyone in the audience pizza, making sure that you recruit your friends, creating some sort of enormous army of independent theater enthusiasts.  Once they’re done fulfilling or disappointing your hunger for pizza, they roll a die.  Whatever number appears is the number of plays they take out and write new plays for.  They roll once in their Friday show, and once in their Saturday show, ensuring that the show will stay nice and varied, keeping you addicted.

The show’s plays are just a couple minutes long.  They cover just about every emotion on the spectrum.  It gets sad, political, hilarious, gross, annoying, and everywhere else in between in just a manner of minutes.  Some of my personal favorite plays are the ones where the performers pull strange stunts, like wearing high heels for the remainder of the show, or putting a remote control “ring” around their “area” (you know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout) and handing the remote to a random audience member.  You will definitely not like all of the plays, but you’ll love enough to come back.

Alongside the order of the plays and the topics they cover, just about everything else is exciting and spontaneous.  The price is $11 plus the value rolled on a die, when you walk in you get a nametag that says anything from “Hubba Bubba” to “Plastic Man,” the performers have some extremely quick improvised banter between plays, they interact with and bring onstage individual audience members, and even the cast of six people changes every few weeks.  The constant variety keeps the show nice and fresh.  It’s almost as if the only continuity is that the show’s kept the same name and stayed at the same theater.

I can’t not recommend Too Much Light to anyone ever, no matter the circumstance.  Even if you don’t agree with their political opinions, you can at least watch them be ridiculous about it.  This is the stuff that needs to be broadcast for the whole planet to enjoy.  The only people who wouldn’t like it are people who live backwards lives and put shoes on their hands and drink coffee before going to sleep or something.

CURTAIN