LAKEVIEW — On the verge of a possible strike and caught in political crosswinds, Chicago teachers could use a good laugh.
So Lilly Allison assembled six of them for her stand-up showcase at The Annoyance Theatre. On Saturday night, the comics will share the best of their wayside school days at the Lakeview theater, 851 W. Belmont Ave., as part of Allison's A Lill Annoyance Stand Up Show series.
Life inside Chicago Public Schools is rife with comedic possibilities — along with hilarious student anecdotes, there's plenty of workplace fodder, Allison said.
"Kids say the funniest things — you just have to remember it," Allison said. "I used to teach sex ed, so there was a lot of material in that."
Still, she's careful to keep things light, particularly on the day when her principal and another administrator were in the audience.
"I had to do a quick run through in my brain of what jokes I'm doing, but they loved it," Allison said.
Still, "If parents come, I'm going to need a little head's up," she joked.
As a drama teacher at Rogers Elementary School in West Ridge, the CPS theme was a natural choice, she said.
"Especially with all the bad press teachers are getting right now in the media with the strike, it's nice to have a little bit more of a fun, light-hearted event," she said.
Along with the strike, we've got a couple other suggestions of some hard-hitting CPS topics that the right comedian could really nail:
• The district canceling final exams if teachers go on strike
• Blaine Principal Troy LaRaviere's ousting and the subsequent battle between supporters and CPS
• Recent elections for the Local School Councils
• LaSalle Language Academy mistakenly accepting 500 students who were supposed to be wait-listed
• The Barbara Byrd-Bennett scandal
Allison said if Saturday's event is successful, she could set up additional CPS nights for the stand-up showcase, which she started about a year ago.
The other teachers performing are Mark Saltz, Tom Filline, Rad Turkin, Dae Jun Sung and Mathias Muschal.
The show starts at 9:15 p.m. Tickets are $5, and an open-mic night follows the show.
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