Hold onto your sash for the new pageant parody, ‘Miss Quarantine.’
Director Lauren Greenhall was inspired by the new beauty standards of quarantine.
“I was in a group chat with a bunch of friends and we were talking on how we were so stressed we were binge eating or drinking too much, and somebody said we should have a quarantine pageant show off our “Quar-bods” when this is all over and I laughed so hard thinking about what a pageant would look like right now,” said Greenhall.
With iPhones and whatever they could find in their apartments, the 30-person team produced a 40-minute comedy special with over-the-top contestants including Joan of Arc.
Real life newlyweds Courtney Maginnis and Casey James Salengo play Miss Kentucky and her roommate.
“I think people were starting to get a little sick of un-produced content,” said Maginnis.
“I got to perform shirtless which is always good. I put a lot of work into the sweet upper body and I like to show it off when I can,” said Salengo.
There were challenges technical and otherwise.
“Every single day you didn't know if a member of the cast or crew is going to be manically excited and emailing you all day ideas that they had or if you would have radio silence from someone for 48 hours because someone they knew had gotten coronavirus. It was a lot of us just going through this hard time together,” said Greenhall.
And keeping it funny, David Ebert plays the host.
Miss Quarantine brings together many former members of the Upright Citizens Brigade, good news for comedy fans who were heartbroken about the troupe's recent demise.
“The way I used to describe UCB to people is it's a gym. It’s a place where you go to train and exercise these muscles and to meet your people to meet your tribe,” said David Ebert, an actor in Miss Quarantine.
And with so many from the world of improvisation working on this project, there was a lot unscripted fun to be had. You can see it all for free at miss-quarantine.com.