Elizabeth Lord and Lauren O’Neill poke fun at ‘The Bubble’ that is Olympia in new show

What do you get when you put storyteller and impresario Elizabeth Lord into a bubble with singer/actress/burlesque performer Lauren O’Neill?

“The Bubble,” a variety show-game show hybrid that aims to entertain, amuse and take a look at the Olympia bubble — a place isolated from the reality of the wider world.

Debuting Sunday, the every-other-month show will be “a cross between a TV game show, ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ and ‘Laugh-In,’ ” according to the press release.

Each episode will have a special guest (Sunday’s is local comedian Sam Miller), and each will feature soundscapes and props created by Phillip Allison and Donald Palardy III of String and Shadow Puppet Theater.

Lord and O’Neill both live in not only the Western Washington bubble and the Olympia bubble but also the theater bubble and The Evergreen State College graduate bubble (Lord graduated in 1995 and O’Neill in 2002).

They met about 15 years ago, when Lord was managing The Midnight Sun Performance Space and O’Neill was acting in plays there. They’ve worked together over the years — perhaps most notably in Lord’s “Lord Franzannian’s Royal Olympian Spectacular Vaudeville Show” and in the two-person play “Parallel Lives,” which they did together in 2011 — and for years have wanted to work together more.

O’Neill, who’d been taking a break from performing, was ready to take on a new project, and the two, both big admirers of one another’s work, decided to do something completely different.

They share a bubble of their own, it seems — a place where anything and everything (coffee, New Wave music and the similarity of frogs’ eggs to bubbles) generates both silly quips and salient observations.

The Olympian caught up with the dynamic duo to talk about the project, bubbles and more.

Q: What is “The Bubble”?

Lord: “The Bubble” is a live, absurd, satirical game show. Bear in mind we haven’t done it yet, and we anticipate it will evolve as it goes.

O’Neill: We want to try some different things and stitch things together. There will be elements that will randomize the direction of the show, not to give too much away. There will be things that might be outside the scope of a normal show.

We wanted to try something new, and we’re both kind of weird. (She looks at Lord.) I’m not calling you weird. (She pauses.) I’m calling you weird.

Lord: I need more weird outlets. I do a lot of commissioned work; I do compassionate work with the Heartsparkle Players. I do honest work with StoryOly. This is an outlet for weird, absurd non sequiturs.

Q: Say more about the idea of the bubble.

Lord: For years, I’ve referred to living in Olympia as living in the bubble. Before that, I was out at Evergreen State College, where everyone was in this bubble. People there are often shocked and dismayed that things off campus didn’t operate the same way they did on campus. People were not as sensitive and considerate.

It extends further. You’ve got the bubble of the western part of the state of Washington and the I-5 corridor. Then I realized everyone lives in their own bubble, no matter where they are.

O’Neill: We might perceive the larger bubbles that we are living in, but we often don’t perceive our own individual bubbles.

Q: How did “The Bubble” happen?

O’Neill: I have been taking a break. I left Tush (Burlesque) in February 2018. I hadn’t really stuck myself anywhere yet, and I got a message from Elizabeth that said, “Did you leave Tush? Do you want to do something?”

Lord: For at least four years, when Lauren and I would get together, we made a promise to each other that if we ever found a scripted play that we wanted to do, that we’d produce it together.

This is another way to show ourselves. We want to spend more time with ideas, concepts, characters, themes, and we want to allow that to be flexible in the moment.

There’ll be sketch-type bits, and I’m hoping the audience will find the characters familiar. “Oh, I’ve met that guy before.” We want to give Olympia a little poke, and ultimately we’ll be poking ourselves right back.

O’Neill: We live in this bubble, too.

Lord: We don’t need to pop the bubble.

‘The Bubble’

• What: Olympia entertainment powerhouses Elizabeth Lord and Lauren O’Neill team up for an every-other-month show that aims to illuminate and poke fun at the Olympia bubble — without popping it.
• When: 7 p.m. Sunday and the first Sunday of every other month
• Where: Cryptatropa Bar, 421 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia
• Tickets: $5-$10 donation suggested at the door; no one turned away for lack of funds. The show is open to ages 21 and older.
• More information: 360-754-3867

This story was originally published April 3, 2019 at 3:32 PM.