Descriptions the writers of newspaper theater calendars have used to describe Spin the Bottle: a monthly cabaret, a performance emporium, a late-night slumgullion, a monthly omnibus, and “a schmear of schtuff.”
The worst thing I ever saw at Spin the Bottle: a standup comedian. His performance was epically bad. The audience gave up on sympathy laughter about halfway through—but he plowed through the silence that became so uncomfortable and tense that the audience began laughing again, at how funny the jokes weren’t. It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen onstage, and I’ll treasure the memory always.
The best thing I ever saw at Spin the Bottle: maybe the group paper-airplane-folding demonstration. Or maybe the performance of “Like a Prayer” that began with two women speaking the lines softly and built into an all-audience chorus and dance party. It’s hard to say.
The first recorded appearance of Spin the Bottle: September 12, 1997.
The kinds of things you are likely to see at Spin the Bottle: music, clowns, standup, beat boxing, burlesque, tap dancing, dodge ball, short theater, modern dance, short films, poetry, performance art, Japanese stick puppets, Shakespearean finger puppets, roller skating.
The things you will almost always see at Spin the Bottle: deadpan host Bruce Hall, something weird and performance-arty but comical by Paul Gude and Ben Laurance, a concluding reading of literary erotica—or, in the StB-preferred nomenclature, “smut.”
Performers who have done some incubation time at Spin the Bottle: the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Typing Explosion, Matt Briggs, John Moe, Sarah Rudinoff, the Habit, “Awesome,” Chrom-a-Matic, John Kauffman, Chris Jeffries.
Things you will see at Bumbershoot’s edition of Spin the Bottle: music by the Half Brothers (John Ackermann and David Nixon of “Awesome” and Rick Miller of general awesomeness), a segment of a comedy about two Brits who set off for underwater adventures when England sank, and a drag-king comedy-dance duet.
