Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre

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Time Out New York Lists Shannon O'Neill As One to Watch in Comedy

  • Comedy

    Shannon O'Neill

    By Matthew Love

    Photograph: Ari Scott

    After ten years performing sketch and improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Shannon O’Neill still doesn’t play quite like anyone else. She’s dark, aggressive and fearless; she’ll never let the crowd feel bored—or entirely comfortable. “Even performing with her as long as I have, I’m never sure what she’ll do,” says Chris Gethard, a longtime collaborator who currently works with O’Neill, 33, in UCBT improv supergroup the Stepfathers. “She can say something so twisted the audience collectively decides it is not in the mood to handle it; she is completely unapologetic.”

    Her new solo show, Prison Freaks, is the most exciting crystallization of her unique, occasionally difficult, point of view to date. The show is a cabaret of masked and mustachioed maximum-security prisoners in an institution-sanctioned talent show, performing stand-up or drawing caricatures, as a computerized warden tries to keep them from murdering the audience members. “I like going to a dark place but then being like, ‘Hey, these guys aren’t so bad,’ ” O’Neill explains. Amid the blood and anal-rape jokes, her inmates are strangely approachable; one of them, a cyclops in an orange jumpsuit, busts out an endearing, high-energy dance number to Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga. “On the surface, [the show] is menacing and weird, but really the characters are very happy and optimistic,” says director Will Hines. “That’s what comedians are: We try to laugh things off, look for the silver lining,” adds O’Neill. “So I put myself into these prisoners, but then I’m just doing what I always do as a comedian.”

    O’Neill performs with the Stepfathers Fri 12 at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre; Prison Freaks takes place Mar 29.