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Shows, songs, streams and the odd guest appearance from past seasons. None of it will ever happen again. That was the deal.
The English Lovers newest production is touching, poetic, and unexpectedly funny. It’s an improvised play about the threads that bind us: visible and invisible, chosen and not. Because sometimes, what comes around isn’t the end, it’s where we begin.
The English Lovers will use the most innocent suggestions proffered by its audience to send them on rides of fantastic fun. Your humdrum experiences will inspire them to flights of inanity and insanity (and occasional profanity) and revitalise the everyday. Come and create with the Lovers – scenes, songs and stories whipped up in the effervescent mists of the here and now – and let your wish be their command!
Welcome to The Last Resort… because who wants a silent night anyway? The English Lovers provide a warm and wildly improvised escape to a paradise of holiday cheer with just the right amount of mischief! Sun, sand, questionable resort staff, and umbrellas big and small will greet you at the door and whisk you away to a place where Christmas comes with coconuts, cocktails, and the occasional ukulele. It’s Christmas in Paradise: Where the sun is hot, the punch is strong, and you’ll never want to check out!
+1Every life sends ripples along the continuum of our world. This spring, the English Lovers will invite one different guest every evening to share with them a few of the moments, relationships and events that have touched them, and building on these memories, will look at extrapolated lives and parallel adventures that they inspire, surprising their audiences, and themselves. Many thanks to all our fabulous guests and to our audiences, for making this such a special show!
They’re at it again! For decades, the Lovers have been tag-teaming their way through musical escapades. Tumbling from the haughty heights of solo soprano to the dizzying depths of barber-shop bass, they stop at nothing to explore the age-old question: WHOSE SONG IS IT ANYWAY? Come to this year’s Spurwechsel for more spontaneous lyrical delight.
The English Lovers return to Vienna’s legendary English Theatre to amaze, delight and surprise friends and fans old and new with their special brand of improvised madness. From subtle sublimity to blatant buffoonery, from opera to indie pop, every moment of every show is spontaneously custom-crafted for that evening’s audience. Come and witness the low-brow hijinx of Vienna’s favourite improvisers!
+2Why are there reindeer, but no fogdeer? Where did Santa live before he moved to the North Pole? What’s so aphrodisiacal about mistletoe? What came first, the turkey or the eggnog. Ever wondered how certain Christmas traditions came to be? Come and watch the English Lovers explicate, explore, and explode some not-so-common myths surrounding the most wonderful time of the year.
The English Lovers Unpack the Rat one last time* to pay tribute to the founding leader of the White Shoes Orchestra, our beloved Klaus ‘Heartbreak’ Erharter, currently tinkling the ivories in that great big band in the sky. Join The Big D, Jimmy le B, Mike the Knife, Jake ‘Shenanigans’ Banigan* and a whole slew of colorful* femmes fatales from the Orchestra’s checkered past. We’ll have a jiving, swinging, genre-springing whale of a night singing all your favorite hits for the very first time. We’ll make Heartbreak proud!* *maybe
After reading countless plays at the Radio Cafe, the Lovers have been invited to give an anniversary appearance, at which they will completely improvise a reading – yes that’s right – of a film script that never was and never will be. Come along and enjoy the ride!
+1In their ode to this great city, each night the English Lovers create urban images, stories and songs, inspired by the form of the classical symphony; from the bustle of Allegro through the pulsing, relentless Largo and the playful Scherzo to the victorious Finale Rondo.
Artwork created during each show will be auctioned on the spot in aid of neunerhaus. The artists are: Alexander Czernin; Veronika Vitovec and Sophie Vitovec. Seen through the eyes of the Lovers and the painters, the city of your experiences will seem both more familiar and more alien; Vienna as it is, was, and never will be.
What stories can be found within a picture? How might our perception of a photographic image be changed, if brought to life? And where might such daring forays take us? Endowed with a portfolio of photos by the wonderful team at Studio Paradiso the Lovers set out to answer all these questions and more.
Thanks to everyone who joined us at this lovely theatre for one hell of a 25th anniversary!
Expect the Unexpected! There’ll be fun and games galore in this evening of extraordinary storytelling, not to mention song and dance, so buckle up for the ride of your life!
It’s time to celebrate this holiday season with stories, songs and the power that comes when we join together, however far apart we may be. This year at yuletide, let us all come together and enlace dozens of half-remembered Christmas traditions into a brilliant braid of storytelling.
Whether you’re streaming us on your phone or splashing us onto a wall-sized video screen, we Lovers can’t wait to swim up the digital stream to share our spur-of-the-moment tales with you. Thanks to everyone who helped us tell stories this December! Heartwarming, gut-busting or just plain wacky, there was something for everybody as well as music and songs galore.
The English Lovers find themselves at their wit’s end (but by no means at the end of their wit!) as they travel from nonsense to sense and back again, driven by the ludicrous demands of a disembodied producer and spurred on by the laughter and love of you, their esteemed audience. Don’t dream it … Stream it!
Banished from the traditional holiday celebrations taking place at Windsor Castle, this distant and withered branch of the royal family tree decides to take matters into their own pale, blue-blooded hands and illuminate this most holy time of year with their own festive follies.
With guests! Whimsical improvising and whimpering infighting are the order of the day in this draughty, daffy castle as the simple folk – aka the audience – watch their local gentry stumble through mishaps musical and mute, inspired by the humble Christmas cracker: Uneasy lies the head that wears a paper crown.
With Anne Weiner, Bronwynn Mertz-Penzinger, Dennis Kozeluh, Jacob Banigan, Jim Libby, Kathy Tanner, Michael Smulik, Sophie Kozeluh · Improvised music: Klaus Erharter, Belush Korenyi · Improvised lighting: Karl Börner, Michaela Pink, Stefan Rauchenwald, Ricarda Springer
From the Golden Age of Musical to the fusions of the present, the Lovers tackled ALL of the styles, playing everything from philatelists to philanderers, Russian spies to Roman soldiers, priests to jewel thieves and dinosaurs to k.u.k officers. Yes, the final show on April 13th, the fin de serie you could say, was ‘Fin de Siecle’ – set in a Vienna relying entirely on buttons – and the children who made them. Thanks to all the audiences that helped build these amazing stories!
“A crooner’s work is never done until his final song is sung.” The Gentlemen of the English Lovers grapple with their own mere-tality. Jake “Shenanigan” Banigan bemoans his lot as another birthday rolls by, and Jimmy Le B, Mike the Knife and the Big D join him in celebrating careers that peaked at sea level. Musically undermined by Klaus Erharter and the White Shoes Orchestra, the gents Unpack the Rat.
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+1Join the Lovers on their Christmas holidays in a remote, rustic cabin. Unable to leave and cut off from the outside world, your beloved improvisers resort to games to keep from eating each other. Fueled by your childhood memories of Christmas and flavoured with their peculiar brand of humor, these evocative scenes will leave you grateful for all the memories you never had.
How did I get here? Where did I come from? Why am I wearing this toaster? Pack up some everyday or crazy items for the show and watch as the English Lovers, having less idea than usual,wake up on a stage peppered with the audience’s jetsam and spend the evening piecing together the most memorable night they’ll ever have forgotten. Come and join the fun for an evening you’ll never forg… Never mind.
Does ‘White Christmas’ make you feel blue? When you hear ‘holiday spirits’, are you thinking ‘self-medication’? Does every “Ho! Ho! Ho!” leave you low, low, low? Come and share your pain with the English Lovers in this, the most wonderful time of the year … not. Take your place on the couch, take a deep breath and tell Santa … er … Sigmund what you always wanted for Christmas but mommy and daddy never loved you enough to…to.… WAAAHHHHHAHHHHH!
+24Even a simple deck of cards can be shuffled in more ways than there are stars in the universe. Each performance has infinite possibilities, starting from a few basic elements. Three English Lovers, a Musician or two, and a Projection Artist begin the show with the first impulse; not an audience suggestion, not a word or idea, but simply an impulse, stemming from the presence of everybody in the room.
One movement, breath, sound or image inspires the next. From this, a chain reaction leads to stories, bits of life, poetry, music… and only at the end do we know what the show was. Music and visual artistry join the inimitable English Lovers, to once again push the envelope, promising to take you all on a poetic, funny, and transformative roller-coaster journey into The Moments Between Nothing and Something. In cooperation with Wien Kultur
+173Five of the sexiest English Lovers of all time join forces on this once-in-a-lifetime night to remember to forget! Listen as Jake Shenanigan Banigan, Jimmy LeB, Mike the Knife and the Big D rasp, moan and croon their way through times hard and high, floating their improvised tunes on ivories tinkled by Mr. Heartbreak Erharter himself, supported of course by the hippest rhythm-section this side of your pelvis, featuring WolfMan on double-bass and the man they call Sticks, on drums.
Chances taken, wagers lost, conquests made, wives swapped…the chequered histories of these macho men will be remembered in the warm glow of whiskey, obscured by the haze of countless cigarettes, and dressed up in black tie and French cuffs. On this night, no soul is too bare, no lie too big, no chord too diminished…
2009 Unpack The Rat · 2010 Waking Jake · 2011 The Night That Never Was · 2012 Cherché La Femme, Findez La Femme · 2013 The European Tour · 2014 March Forth! · 2015 Jailbait · 2016 Keep Your Day Job
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+20A monster dwells amongst the clutter under the bed of our souls. Its claws hold tight our most secret opinions. Its fangs guard our deep-seated beliefs. Its scales protect our darkest prejudices. We know this creature and we dare not let it out. Yet what happens if we shine the harsh light of public scrutiny into the eyes of this creature and force it to face that which it fears most: Exposure? In cooperation with Wien Kultur
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+2What do you get when you take a randomly chosen style or genre and combine it with a randomly chosen period in history? a) Medieval Science Fiction? b) Caveman Romance? c) Renaissance Western? d) An unforgettable show from the English Lovers? Right you are! Join the Lovers as they bend space and time, put new twists on old worlds and leave you wishing that history could rewrite itself!
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+1BLIND DATES takes a theatrical look at the fears, dangers, despairs and joys of people getting to know each other. The actors, working with the audience, take turns creating a full rich character, complete with fears, dreams and history.
As in real life, each person knows a lot about themselves but nothing about the other. Then the audience chooses a place for these strangers to meet. As the play unfolds, the audience learns more about the characters then just what this meeting reveals. Improvised music and lighting completes this unusual glimpse into the intricacies of a chance encounter. This show is like nothing you’ve ever seen or will ever see again, even when you see it night after night.
+14On the road
From the old albums
More photos with each production above.
