It's back! For three weekends, Bad Reputation Productions is reviving 2010's Road House: The Play!, the first of Bad Reputation's movie-derived productions (to say nothing of a slew of similarly-focused shows that have cropped up throughout Portland's comedy and theater scenes in the interim).

The cast has already been announced, and—no surprise—it includes some of the city's best improvisers and sketch comedians, like Shelley McLendon, Jed Arkley, Paul Glazier, Ted Douglass, and Courtney Hameister. McLendon and Hameister also wrote the adaptation, and the delightful John Breen (of the Liberators, improv duo Bang + Burn, etc.) directs.

Oh yeah, the original Road House: The Play! starred BOTH Editor in Chief Wm. Steven Humphrey AND Calendar Editor Bobby Roberts, in the interest of full disclosure, and I guess, bragging? Steve will be returning to the cast this time around as well. Here's what my predecessor, Alison Hallett, wrote about Road House way back when it was a staged reading at the annual Fertile Ground theater fest:

I've never seen the movie (a situation I plan to remedy at Cort and Fatboy's next midnight movie), but the staged reading of Courtenay Hameister and Shelley McLendon's adaptation really exceeded my expectations. A handful of local comedians provided the cast, but it was Courtenay Hameister's delivery of the stage directions that made the show. (I particularly liked her blow-by-blows of the fight scenes, which were reminiscent of a very violent game of Twister "Punch to the face. Punch to the face. Roundhouse kick. Hair tug. Punch to the face.") The whole thing was clever and silly and fun, and the packed audience seemed to think so too—I'm looking forward to the full production in March (though I hope they consider keeping the stage directions, in some form—they really were the best part).

Road House: The Play! will run Fri-Sat from April 1-16 and the Siren Theater.