Skip to main content
Hot off the heels of its tenth anniversary, Kickstand Comedy is still using the best medicine to get through the rest of the year. Fans of offbeat holiday celebrations might get a kick out of Kickstand’s improv show Christmas Future. Running Friday and Saturday right after the Yuletide on Dec. 27 and 28, Christmas Future will update Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, filling it with modern technology.
“I think a lot of people want to get 2024 over with, but they’re also terrified of what comes next,” Christmas Future director and co-writer Peter Lundquist said in a statement. “The future is going to be absurd. But at least it won’t be absurd in these specific ways.”
According to Lundquist, the iPad Kids—that’s himself, Jhordan Blumenberg, Kevin Holden and Em Sall with special guest stars Alex Beeken and Sumita Paulson—will work through the Dickensian classic and other future-themed original sketches, including “at least one steamy musical number about ChatGPT.”
The iPad Kids troupe got its start through Kickstand’s comedy education program. Kickstand Comedy co-founder and managing director Kara Moore helped launch the training center, which Kristen Schier manages. Along with its Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard venue and classroom, Portlanders might best know Kickstand Comedy for its annual Comedy in the Park show, which has attracted comedy fans to Laurelhurst Park since the pandemic’s first summer in 2020.
“We want to cultivate a strong comedy scene in Portland,” Paul Stein, Kickstand’s executive director, said in a statement. “Seeing a team like iPad Kids grow from our Sunday shows to Friday and Saturday nights, it’s encouraging.”
SEE IT: Christmas Future at Kickstand Comedy, 1006 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-719-5685, kickstandcomedy.org. 8:30 pm Friday and Saturday, Dec. 27–Dec. 28. $15–$20, limited pay-what-you-want seating available.