Mee-Ow Show

Creator Paul Warhauser with Mee-Ow memorabilia, in the Northwestern University Archives

Co-creator/co-producer Josh Lazar was a theatre aficionado. By his junior year he had seen one or two Waa-Mu shows, the long-running revue show at Northwestern University. While Lazar respected the talent of the performers, he was disappointed in the outdated content of the shows. His opinion was shared by many students.

Lazar went to a meeting of the Associated Student Government (ASG) at Northwestern to pitch the idea for a new show he called MeeOw that would include all forms of original creative expression, including, but not limited to, music, dance, singing, acting, comedy, and poetry. Since Lazar hadn’t thought about a producer and director for the proposed new show, ASG turned him down.

In a hallway of the Foster Walker dormitory, Lazar approached undergraduate sophomore Paul Warshauer, who had also been in a production of “Streetcar Named Desire” with Lazar, and whom Lazar considered to be a consummate producer.

Warshauer agreed to co-produce the new show, and they returned to the ASG in the first week of October of 1973, to request recognition and funding as an official student organization. They brought along other theater students who had expressed interest. Warshauer and Lazar submitted the required paperwork, with Warshauer insisting on hyphenating Mee-Ow to more clearly parallel the Waa-Mu show name.

The original logo art was created by Rob Maciunas in 1973. Northwestern's mascot is a Wildcat so the logo was a tribute to the school's feline roots.

Lazar purchased a display ad entitled, "Had Enough of Waa-Mu?" in the October 8th, 1973 issue of The Daily Northwestern.[1] After a few initial meetings, the group was recognized as a student organization by the Northwestern Student Government early in 1974.[2] Additional funding was supplied by Patrick Goldstein then chairman of the arts organization known as "Orgy of the Arts." With official recognition, an office, and a storage locker in the Norris Student Center, the group grew to include a set designer, Chris Rusch, a marketing and promotion Director, Terri Blum, a music director, George Lisle, a "Surrealist-in-Residence", Joseph Radding, and the show's first director, Jeff Wilson.

"Mee-Ow" was created in reaction to the "closed door policies" of the venerable Waa-Mu Show, Northwestern's long running annual musical revue. A new open door policy, based on the philosophy of Henry Miller, that "Everyman is an artist." Submission of material began immediately and included poetry, original songs, comedy sketches and dance routines. An overarching theme of traveling through time was put in place based on the material submitted. The show featured traditional song and dance numbers, poetry, and sketch comedy. The orchestra was directed by George Lisle.

The first Mee-Ow Show ran April 12, 13 and 14, 1974—setting the stage for what would become one of the longest running student-created improvisational shows in the U.S.

In 1975, after mixed reviews and political and financial issues, the Mee-Ow Show was re-conceived and directed by three of its cast members, Bill Nuss, Eugene "Dusty" Kay, and Richard "Rick" Kotrba as a musical comedy revue with a smaller cast, taking its inspiration from Chicago's The Second City, Kentucky Fried Theatre and Monty Python.[3] The dance numbers were choreographed by Wendy Taucher and Karen Pepper served as music director. Richard Kotrba served as "Comedy Coordinator," thus beginning the long legacy of comedy and improvisation as the basis for future shows.[4] Kay and Nuss co-directed the '75 and '76 versions.[5]

According to cast member Jeff Lupetin, the first time audience suggestions were taken from the audience was 1977.[6] Music has been a part of the show since 1974 in one form or another either with a show band, keyboardist or combo. According to cast member Rush Pearson, Mee-Ow featured "And The and the And Thes," the first rock band in 1982.[7]

Although performances were limited at first to two venues in Norris University Center (McCormick Auditorium and the Louis Room), additional performances started at Shanley Hall in 1982.[8]

A great number of Mee-Ow alumni have gone on to perform and teach improv at many of the country's top improv venues, such as Chicago's The Second City, iO Theater and the Annoyance Theater, New York's Magnet Theater, The P.I.T., The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, LA's Groundlings, iO WEST, and UCB West. Mee-Ow alumni also founded Boom Chicago in Amsterdam and created the popular TV series Whose Line is it Anyway?

An extensive archive of the Mee-Ow Show from its first show to the present is maintained in the Northwestern Archives in the Deering Library in Evanston.