Brave New Workshop: Promiscuous Hostility and Laughs in the Land of Loons

Rob Hubbard

Oct 2015 · Arcadia Publishing

About this ebook

In 1958, former circus aerialist Dudley Riggs opened a Minneapolis coffeehouse with a stage for performers and created an American comedic institution. What started as a way to draw customers on slow nights became the Brave New Workshop, a comedy theater sinking its satirical talons deep into the culture of Minneapolis-St. Paul for over half a century. This theater helped launch the careers of many talented performers, including satirist-turned-senator Al Franken and his Saturday Night Live partner in comedy, Tom Davis, as well as comedian Louie Anderson, Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead, screenwriter Pat Proft of the Naked Gun films and many others. Author Rob Hubbard tells the story of the hilarity, irreverence and imagination of the Brave New Workshop--a funhouse mirror to the world around it.

"If you've lived in Chicago, you know what Second City is. If you've lived in the Twin Cities, you know what the Brave New Workshop is. Founder Dudley Riggs and the Brave New Workshop played a big part in my comedy career. Read the real history of this company and the actors and writers from it who have influenced comedy on television and the big screen for over 50 years."
- Louie Anderson

About the author

Despite Dudley Riggs once saying that "St. Paul doesn't really exist; it was made up by F. Scott Fitzgerald," Rob Hubbard has lived there all his life. The former artistic director of a small but award-winning Minneapolis theater company, he has spent most of the past few decades as a journalist, chiefly focusing upon music, theater and the arts.