And just like that the Crossroads Comedy’s part of IndyFringe is over. Electoral Dysfunction made its Indianapolis debut on Friday August 14th with a quick three show run that featured hilarious standup sets, engaging conversations, awesome improv sets, and passionate cheering, booing, and laughing from sold out crowds.
Electoral Dysfunction (ED) was created by Tom Brennan of NYC (yep, a coastal elite). When I was with Philly Improv Theater we had ED down to Philly many times. Being a fan of comedy and someone who is a little too online, it’s been one of my favorite shows for the better part of a decade. Even living in Indy and running some Crossroads Philly shows, I continued to invite Tom to do the show even thought I couldn’t be there myself to see it. That gets old though, so I pitched the plan to Tom to do Electoral Dysfunction here in Indy as part of the 2026 IndyFringe Festival. And, being the students and practitioners of improv that they are, both Tom & Robert said YES, and they were happy to do it.
To be honest, as late as two days before the debut, I was wondering if people would come see this show. Many are probably trying to avoid anything political, turning to the arts to escape – and I don’t blame them. I do the same. We also didn’t get to do too much in the way of promotion. Tom and Robert are based in NYC and I’m based in my house running Crossroads Comedy Theater, usually only leaving to teach a class and this session I had three leading up to the festival. I didn’t even get to make time for preview night this year, which would at least have put me in front of people and promise a good time.
We’re able to check in on presells and when I heard on Wednesday where we were sitting, expectations were pretty low. I figured if we get 15 per show, that will still feel good. We’re in the District Theatre Cabaret which is wonderful, intimate space that’s very conducive to the kind of standup, discussion, and improvising that we were putting up.
Thankfully, my attendance concerns were put to rest. We had three full houses with two shows at capacity. The third show, Sunday, 8/16 @ 8pm was about a baker’s dozen shy of a sell out, but still felt just as full due to the nature of the space and the enthusiasm of the audience.
I’m a very big “tell them” person. Did you like something? Tell them! Did someone do something that made you smile? Tell them! So often we get in our own heads about our actions we’ll even lose sense of what we do well or if something was appreciated or not. So I have a bunch of thank yous and kudos to hand out. I will begin with our stand-ups for the run – Dwight Simmons, Sherra Lasley, and Tennah McDonald for warming up the audience and being just as fun and smart in the discussions. I said this to them as well, but I really enjoyed how increasingly politic-infused the sets got from Friday to Sunday.
Thank you to our panel guests Adam Henze (Flanner House & Indy Type Shop), Ebony Chappel (Free Press Indiana), Max Maneater (Emcee & Producer), Serena Van Orman (IU Indianapolis), and Peter Blanchard (Mirror Indy) for joining our hosts & comedians and having more engaging and civil discussions than anything you’ll see on any news network.
Thank you to our improvisers for crushing each show. This was a group who had never performed together before this run and was composed of varying experience levels ranging from students in Crossroads classes to a couple years performing to veteran performers with decades under their belts. And they performed as if they were doing it for years. It’s true that because it’s improv you never know what you’re going to get, but I would say that mainly applies to the content, not the quality. When you stack a cast with great performers – you know you’re going to get a great show. And that’s what they gave people to round out the night. Congrats Holly Brooke, Mariah Davison, Kelsey Griffin, Sam Hammersley, Brock Richardson, Cliff Seaton, and Chad Woodward.
Thank you to the audience for shushing every attendance concern I had and being so attentive and appropriately vocal throughout the run – even if a little too honest at times. I always love when I’m behind the scenes in a show, because I like walking around and hearing the immediate reviews as people leave. Everything was positive. Whew.
Thank you the The District Theatre for being a great space for the show. To Ray our tech operator and Helena our house manager for helping to make things happen each night. Thank you to Adrian for seeing that each show was recorded. Rob at Indy Ghost Light for taking some great pics. And our last minute production assistant Felix for helping me decide on chairs, helping to set the stage, and getting the cast warmed up.
A big thank you to Callie, Max, and Paul at IF Theatre for everything they do. A festival like this does not happen overnight. It’s pretty much a year in the making. So many moving parts including staff members, artists, shows, volunteers, egos, sponsors, vendors, buskers, forms, delays, intra-fringe events, bills, shirts, passes, and so on and so on. And they still make time to get out and support as many shows as they can from the audience.
And of course, thank you to Tom Brennan and Robert George for saying yes to making the trip. I got to literally shine a light on one of my favorite things with the original people behind it on stage. It was so nice seeing them do their thing and watching my new community enjoy what they do too – even if that enjoyment expressed itself in justified booing.
Part of the artistic mission of Crossroads Comedy Theater is, to itself, be a crossroads of arts and ideas. Electoral Dysfunction featured stand-up, discussion, and improv – but it also featured multiple opinions meeting on stage. I think a show like this is really important right now. With algorithms giving each opinion its own feed and channel that are fine tuned to support reinforce that opinion – our beliefs and even our facts are not challenged and our brains are not engaged and growing. All this to say, you’ll see this show again. Sign up for our newsletter to the right or in the footer to keep up to date.
Now that I’m off-ish until mid September, I’m looking forward to getting back to Mass Ave and supporting the IndyFringe and as many artists as I can as an audience member this week. Break legs y’all ❤️
Mike Marbach
Founder & Executive Director
