ROCHESTER — The Nazareth College Arts Center will present The Capitol Steps at 2 and 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 31 in the Callahan Theater. This is the troupe’s 23rd annual performance at the Arts Center, making it one of Rochester’s favorite New Year’s Eve traditions. The Capitol Steps have elevated political satire to an art form. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or Democrat: neither side is safe from the group that puts the “MOCK” in Democracy!
The Capitol Steps return to the Arts Center for a New Year’s Eve tradition of politically based satire ripped from current headlines! Now in its 36th year, the troupe has recorded an album a year, including its latest, Orange is the new Barack, whose spoofs include “Hey Mr. Tangerine Man,” “Oops, I Tweeted Again,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alt-Right”, and “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?”
The celebrated comedy troupe was founded in 1981 by a group of Senate staffers who set out to satirize the people and places that employed them by setting politics and scandals to popular music. The troupe is also adamantly bi-partisan. Says founding member Elaina Newport, “Typically the Republicans goof up, and the Democrats party. Then the Democrats goof up and the Republicans party. That’s what we call the two-party system.”
The Capitol Steps have performed for the last five Presidents, won four awards for Best Cabaret/Musical Theatre from the Washington Area Music Association, been named “Best Live Theater” by the Washington Post Readers’ Choice Awards, won a WUSA-TV A-List Award for “Best Comedy Club,” and been named “Best Place to Take an Out of Towner” in two Washington City Paper Reader Polls. The troupe has also been nominated for a prestigious Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics, have been featured numerous times on prime-time TV, and can be heard nationwide four times each year on their National Public Radio specials, Politics Takes a Holiday.
Single tickets to The Capitol Steps are $60-$75. For tickets call – or visit – the Box Office: 585-389-2170 or order online: naz.edu/arts-center. The Nazareth College Arts Center Box Office is located on campus at 4245 East Avenue, Rochester, New York, 14618. Regular box office hours are Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. and 11 a.m. until curtain time on performance days.
