Editor’s Pick: Elvis Birthday Fight Club
Attendees can expect 'seven rounds of flimflam fisticuffs.' Also, there will be puppets. This weekend at Creative Alliance in Baltimore.
Roughly a dozen years ago, producers with Astro Pop Events were tossing around ideas for a new wacky, over-the-top party, similar in spirit to Countdown to Yuri’s Night, the wild “holiday for space” they would launch into orbit every April until retiring the concept in 2015.
Specifically, organizers were asked to throw a new party on January 8 — just an off-beat, one-time-only kind of shindig.
Once they learned the date just so happened to be Elvis Presley’s birthday, they ran away with the idea until they got “all shook up” over an event that all but demanded to be revived year after year on account of its uproarious name alone — styled as a misheard play-on-words regarding the King of Pop’s dying wish, while seated on his toilet, “Commodious,” no less.
Instead of his wish for a commemorative nightclub, Presley’s legacy lives on here as an underground “fight club,” billed as an “action-packed, punch-drunk, below-the-belt, hilarious night of lowbrow theater.”
That might all be truer than ever with the bizarre event’s 11th incarnation, pushed back a year and a half by the pandemic to become more of a half-year birthday bash, with performers full of pent-up parody and needing to let off excessively silly steam.
“This one goes to 11,” crow the evening’s organizers.
As ever, the show full of antics is hosted by a Presley impersonator and his sardonic sidekick and femcee Kitty Glitter, providing “a little more conversation” in the form of color commentary throughout.
Attendees can expect, to quote the official description, “seven rounds of flimflam fisticuffs [as] the centerpiece of the action, and in between, bouts of burlesque performances [offering] a sexy reprieve from the cartoon-esque violence.”
Also, there will be puppets.
Beyond that, organizers want to leave everyone guessing, especially regarding the details of the show’s seven fights, this year featuring the work of fight choreographer James Finley.
“[The event’s] fight card is always a closely guarded secret, and trying to anticipate who, or what, might be on the roster is half the fun.”
Over the years, “Elvis’ Birthday Fight Club” has featured matchups that are even a hoot on paper: Princess Leia vs. Xena Warrior Princess, My Little Pony vs. Leatherface, Freddie Mercury vs. The Queen of England, and Dr. Frankenfurter vs. Dr. Phil.
Friday, July 22, at 7:30 and 9:30 pm., and Saturday, July 23, at 7 and 9 p.m.
At the Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave., Baltimore. Tickets are $25 to $40.
Visit www.astropopevents.com.
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