In cultures embracing the consumption of intoxicating beverages as a socially beneficial activity, citizens rarely need an authority figure granting them permission to participate. However, when informality or sheer numbers preclude individual toasts, drinking games serve to lend structure to an evening of bending elbows. The concept behind these revels designates certain words, signs and/or occurrences to serve as commands for the assemblage to suck firewater (or, for thirsty teetotalers, a Sharps or Red Bull). While Chicago's official staged versions of this popular pastime can be traced to Byron Hatfield's Bye, Bye, Liver (running continuously since 2007), the 25-year-old Corn Productions company joined the guzzle-and-guffaw leagues in 2013 with this late-nite nightcap revue. The agenda in the North Center "Cornservatory" is sketch comedy geared to customers bringing their own liquid refreshment (fortuitously, an Osco with a liquor department is located right next door). At the beginning of each episode of Drink! Sketch Comedy Drinking Game, we are apprised of the trigger word embedded in the subsequent scene. Don't worry about missing your cue after the sixth or seventh tipple—a stageside sign lights up to remind stragglers of their assigned task. The topics at the holiday edition of the show I attended included a dating-app for mall Santas, a meteorological nativity story involving two easterly winds giving birth to El Nino, and a party attended by a guest recently suffering severe facial surgery (suggested by a Freddy Kreuger mask from the Cornservatory's extensive special-effects collection). Lower-brow humor was provided by the elf-on-a-shelf's lesser-known siblings, imp-on-a-blimp and troll-in-a-bowl, as well as a proposed family gathering divided between Bulls and Packers fans. What can you expect, though, when your emcee—in this case, director Seth Wanta—proclaims himself to be Tim Burton and proceeds to deliver a survey of some violent yuletide folk customs to make Krampus look like a wuss. The show's content changes every three months, with the fall season's "Wasted Edition" resuming on Jan. 2 and continuing to Jan. 23, 2016. You might have lost the opportunity to sing "It's the Most Wonderful Time for a Beer" until fa-la-la time in 2016, but you still have a few more weeks to sip winter warm-ups and laugh at a human Roomba, a parody of Grease entitled Raised By Motorcycles, and the "Horse and Dad" radio program hosted by—you guessed it—a dad and a horse. Then again, you could wait for Jan. 30, when Drink! The Hollywood Edition makes its debut.
