Holiday Season Begins with Improv Comedy Show Friday in Santa Monica

What are you dressing up as for Halloween? The Magic Meathands are going as Snausages and plan on Trick or Treating at dog parks around LA. We may not get much candy but we think we’ve discovered a great new exercise and weight loss program.

Malls across America tell us that once it’s November, it’s open season for relentless Christmas marketing. To prepare yourself, you’ll need to stock up on plenty of laughter. Conveniently we’re doing a show this Friday which will more likely than not result in you laughing. We’ll perform a mixture of short-form games and long-form scenarios all fully improvised based on your suggestions. You might even get to join us up on stage.

So come on out and join us at M.i.’s Westside Comedy Theater in Santa Monica at 8 PM this Friday, November 4. Tickets are $10 and are good for the two improv shows immediately following us, The Waterbrains and Mission: Improvable.

Featured Magic Meathands: Marshall McGehee, Corey Blake, Nikki Turner, and Carol McLaine!

For more info, check out the Facebook event.

Auditions this Wednesday

Would you like to have magical hands of meat? Now’s your chance!

The Magic Meathands will be holding auditions for new members this Wednesday night in Los Angeles! We are seeking comedic actors and improvisers, male and female, 18+ to join our ensemble. If interested, e-mail the director at bill@magicmeathands.com. You can also submit via Actors Access.

Members can perform in our numerous live shows each month, as well as participating in our web series, workshops and other opportunities. For more information on being a Meathand, visit our Membership page.

Community Outreach: Alexandria House

Every month, we do several private shows for non-traditional audiences as part of our Comedy Outreach Program. This week we’re returning to Alexandria House. We always have a great time performing in their living room.

Based in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood of Los Angeles, Alexandria House has been providing transitional housing for women and children in LA since 1996. When moving from homelessness and emergency shelters, it’s not often easy or even possible to jump right into permanent housing, especially when considering the realities of housing in LA. Alexandria House provides a safe and supportive environment. And part of their program includes having us come in and provide some overdue laughter.

We’ve made some great friends at Alexandria House, and look forward to many more shows. Their support and devotion to the community make them a perfect partner for our Comedy Outreach Program. Not everyone in our communities is able to easily get out and see a show. Many people in need of the medicine of laughter are shut in for reasons of health, finances, lack of transportation, and at times restrictions set by transitional residences. For this reason, the Magic Meathands will bring the funny to them, sometimes quite literally into their living room. If you are part of an organization that serves the homeless, at-risk youth, or members of our community living in a transitional residence or shelter and would like to have the Magic Meathands perform at your center, contact director Bill Johnson. He will work with your organization to plan a positive event that is both enjoyable and appropriate for the community you serve. Whether you are interested in incorporating certain themes, maximizing audience participation, or keeping it “squeaky clean,” we will do what it takes to make sure the show is right for your organization.

Donate to Alexandria House.

Tag Team Comedy Benefit Show with Comedian Matt Knudsen

Our newest monthly show is Tag Team Comedy every third Saturday of the month.

Why that’s this Saturday! What better time to tell you what we’ve got planned.

Every Tag Team Comedy show, we team up with a different comedy act at the Mary Pickford Studio in Los Angeles to create an eclectic and energized night of laughter. All proceeds from the show will go to benefit The Mary Pickford Institute. Here’s a teaser of what you might see at this Saturday’s fundraiser event:

We’re very excited to be joined by the very funny stand-up comedian Matt Knudsen. You might have seen him on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (as seen in the clip above) or at the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal. Or maybe you’ve seen him on HBO’s “Big Love,” ABC’s “Boston Legal,” Fox’s “Malcolm in the Middle,” or Cartoon Network’s “Out of Jimmy’s Head”. Last year, he released his first comedy album The Comedy Stylings of Matt Knudsen, which has been a top seller on iTunes and Amazon. As a member of The Waterbrains, he’s also a great improviser. So you might just find Matt joining us for the Magic Meathands portion of the show this Saturday night. Featured Meathands will be Carol McLaine, Nikki Turner, Shane Boroomand, Marshall McGehee, Mary Benedict, Jim Maloy, and Bill Johnson.

The show starts at 8 PM, Saturday, October 15. Tickets are $7.

The Mary Pickford Studio is located at 8885 Venice Blvd., Suite 102, Los Angeles, CA 90034. Optional RSVP on Facebook.

The Mary Pickford Institute (MPI) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization based in Los Angeles and dedicated to cultivating awareness of film pioneer Mary Pickford’s life, preserving her work, furthering her philanthropic legacy and honoring her creativity. MPI actively serves the community through their public research library, legacy programs and community projects. Their educational outreach projects are designed to empower students, build a sense of accomplishment and self-esteem, and ignite an excitement for learning.

Welcome, or What the Heck Is All This?!

Thank you for joining us in this new corner of the growing Magic Meathands online empire!

If you received an email from us recently via WordPress.com, you probably signed up to our mailing list at one of our shows over the last few years. Or maybe you signed up on our website. We’re transitioning our fan club community newsletter to this blog format, so from now on you’ll hear about shows, online videos, our community outreach program, auditions, and other exciting announcements from this blog. By subscribing to our blog, you’ll get an email letting you know about new postings here. It’s the perfect low-maintenance way for you to enjoy our Meathandy goodness!

All you have to do is confirm your sign-up, which is easy. Here’s how:

In the email you received, there will be a link in there asking you to confirm that you still love us. Assuming you do (why wouldn’t you?!), you’ll want to click on that link, which will take you to a secure page that will allow you to customize how often you get an email from us. We’ll be posting here about once or twice a week, so be sure to pick the frequency that is most convenient for you. You can set it to:

• Instant: The moment we post a blog, you’ll get an email about it. Perfect for our biggest fans!
• Daily: At around 5 PM local time, you should receive an email with all of the day’s blogging activity. If we don’t post anything that day, you won’t get anything. What a perfect nightcap!
• Weekly: At the end of the week, you’ll get a single email containing everything we’ve posted earlier in that week. This is the Weekend Warrior setting! (Or you love us, but you don’t love-love us, and that’s OK too.)

If you’re reading this and didn’t get an email, you can still subscribe to our blog! Just type your email address into the box at the top right corner where it says “Follow Blog via Email”. Or if you’re a fancy computer person, you can subscribe to our RSS feed.

You can always unsubscribe at any time, no questions asked. In fact, every email will include a link to manage your subscription, if you find the frequency you chose isn’t working out. As ever, we will never sell or give away your email address for any other purposes but for us to keep in touch with you.

In fact, we love hearing from you! Under each blog post, you can leave a comment about what you think. You’ll also notice our Facebook and Twitter feeds on either side of this post, and there’s also our YouTube channel, where we’ve got original sketch comedy videos and footage from our live shows. If you’re on any one of those social media sites, friend, follow and/or subscribe, and be sure to leave a comment.

The internet is a lot of fun, but truth be told, there’s an even better way to stay connected: Live and in person! Sure it’s old fashioned, but we think it’s still the best way to do improv. We’ve got two exciting shows for you this weekend!

• Friday at 8 PM, we’re performing at the Westside Comedy Theater, which has just been renovated with a bar and improved seating! Tickets are $10, and your ticket is good for the rest of the night (The Waterbrains at 9 PM and Mission: IMROVable at 10 PM).
• Saturday at 8 PM, it’s our popular Family Friendly show with Jump Start Comedy Improv, an improv group from the Beach Cities area of LA county! The show is at our new home base of the Mary Pickford Studio. Tickets are $7 for the entire night!

For our full show schedule, click on the tab at the top for our Upcoming Shows page, and right next to that is our Show Ratings guide. We can’t wait to see you again!