Mr. Rogers' Sweatshop
Straight out of high school, I co-founded Mr. Rogers’ Sweatshop. My first comedy troupe, and my introduction to improv comedy.
Lou Houchin had been performing with a troupe called The Portuguese Rodeo Clown Company and wanted to start his own thing, so he began teaching free improv classes at Wired Cybercafe, a new-fangled “internet cafe” in Rochester, Michigan, as I’d followed PRCC, I started showing up for classes. Soon there was a circle of regular students and we all set out to perform.
Over a span of about two years together, we played countless shows in venues like the Wired Frog in Eastpointe, The Coffee Post and Wired Cybercafe in Rochester, Papa Romano’s and Chicago Coffeehouse in Clinton Township, Milk in Windsor, Gordy’s Pizza in Troy, Gotham City Cafe, Xhedos and Club Bart in Ferndale, and other places I’m forgetting. We’d perform anywhere, and at our peak we played four nights per week.
We rented the Capitol theatre in Windsor, Canada, and sold about 100 tickets to the only scripted show we ever attempted, called “Will Work For Ever.” The script was two pages long.
In 1998, the band Monster Magnet was doing a record release show outside of JonJon’s strip club in Warren. A record promoter set up a secret publicity stunt, in which we pretended to be angry Christian protestors. The club and the band weren’t told about it, and we ended up appearing in Orbit Magazine as well as Guitar World’s February 1999 issue with a photo of the lead singer of Monster Magnet burning a guitar in front of our protest.
We performed several times on a cable access television show called “Erica’s Tyme,” hosted by a trans woman on a sparse television set. One of the episodes was re-aired several times a day for months.
We developed a regular following, and by the time we decided to call it quits and go our own directions, we performed a farewell show at the Wired Frog with about 150 attending.
The core members of our group were: Lou Houchin, Airick LaPratt, Clifton Highfield, Jesse Callis and Chuck Charbeneau. We were sometimes joined by Nick Szerba, Jay Pringle Mark C. Holden, and many others.
Most of us were teenagers, ages ranged from 17-25. I was the straight-edge sober one, but it was the wild years for most of us, and it gave the troupe an intense, unfocused energy that was thrilling, and it’s an energy that I’ve only come close to a few times since then.
RIP MRS <3
Did you perform with us? Have a memory or memorobilia? Get in touch via my contact page above and I’ll keep adding to this wiki.
In September of 2020, members shared some memories on Facebook!
Airick LaPratt
I remember the first time I went to see a PRCC show with Jesse. He had an older brother I kinda knew but he had a group of friends that went to this coffee house on 9 mile to see this hilarious show. First time we went, it was canceled. So to learn what improv was, Jesse and I tried to play phrase in the car ride back. We kept going every week, eventually collecting tips or a cover charge. Then after like a year or so, only Andy and Lou came to a show and they needed someone to host $10,000 Pyramid and I did it. Took me 45 minutes to get the suggestions after that Jesse and I started taking “classes” from Lou and Andy where we pretty much had to convince Jesse’s mom that we were not being molested by these creepy older dudes.
Clifton Highfield
Remember Jason buss had party’s above wired frog? When I almost fought chuck? Rehearsals led by Mark c Holden aka funny person? Remember joe janes invited us to second city after Xhedos that time? Remember piss in a cup? A bowling alley show with a makeshift green room for wig changes and shots? Big red truck rides? Lou belly pillow? Songs? Made up and good af!
Joe Krause
OK. So. Piss in a cup. That was at a venue with a stage but no green room, so offstage was just standing behind a small curtain with no escape in the corner of the room. Someone had designated a “piss cup” for this “greeen room” and Clif discovered that the cup also featured a hole in the bottom. If you’re looking for my memories, reread the stuff up there, cause this whole paragraph is just me explaining pissing in a cup. You don’t need to go on. This is the end of the memories section.