At first glance, the characters in 7 Strangers, an improv show based on MTV's The Real World, seem like familiar caricatures. There's the Bitch, the Closet-Case Homophobe, the Jesus Freak and—the Conjoined Twins? The twins, a male/female pair, are joined at the hand; the surgery required to part the two would be ridiculously easy, but because of Christian Scientists in the family, they are forced to remain an attached set.
7 Strangers is being performed in a real house that, by bizarre coincidence, is mine. Bizarre not only because of the strange chain of events that led the show to be performed there—an impromptu dance party, a plan that fell through, an offer of cash and a free keg—but also because I grew up in a household where we regularly discussed conjoined twins over dinner. My father is a clinical geneticist, and has real conjoined twins as patients, so I know more about them than an average theatergoer/house renter. For example: Conjoined twins must be the same sex. And, because of the rate of cellular development in utero, extremities are not cleavage points—in other words, conjoined twins cannot be joined at the hand.
I was nervous that my dad might be critical of the twins, but he laughed and said that, except for the medical inaccuracies, they were a "perfect representation of what conjoined twins living in a house in a reality TV show would be like—bickering like babies who don't have a second to themselves." These impossible characters are the funniest in 7 Strangers, bickering, yes, but surprisingly sympathetic to each other's feelings. They are a constant, real presence in the house, stumbling over each other as they lumber from room to room, pausing to regain their footing. 
