Groucho impersonator goes for the laughs

Frank Ferrante bestowed lots of laughs upon the crowd that attended Tuesday night’s “An Evening With Groucho.”

Ferrante, an actor who’s been portraying Groucho Marx for almost 25 years, came to Chadron to perform his two-act comedy.

The laughs began when the pianist came onstage. After a few bows, he sat, then, as he got ready to play, one person began loudly clapping once more, and the applause went up again. After this went on for a few minutes, the audience started to suspect something. The one man clapping loudly, and alone, was hidden by a ball cap and a heavy looking coat.

Sure enough, after the pianist finally got to sit and play his song, it was that same man in the ball cap who ran onstage and introduced himself as Frank Ferrante.

After Ferrante introduced himself, he began speaking about the Marx brothers’ lives, their movies, and their comedy, all while doing his make-up.

Finally, placing a pair of glasses on his face and sticking a cigar in his mouth, he announced that he was “the one, the only: Groucho.”

After a few classic Groucho Marx jokes, Ferrante walked into the audience. He interacted with all different people, shaking people’s hands, teasing the audience members, and quickly rattling off joke after joke.

He had excellent interaction with the audience, even bringing a couple people on stage.

After tossing his pianist off the piano, he brought up Tracy Reyes, a CSC student. Reyes played “Whitewater Chopsticks” while Ferrante gave the audience looks of surprise, and hopped around to the music.

Later in his act, he brought up Walt Mays, the 12-year-old son of Professor Roger Mays. After asking if Mays was interested in show biz, Ferrante drew his same makeup on Walt, and announced that he had found his future replacement.

Besides fun interaction with the audience, Ferrante also told a bit of history about not only the Marx brothers, but also comic legend Charlie Chaplin and music composer Stephen Sondheim. It was a good opportunity to learn about cultural history while at the same time getting a good laugh.

There was not a single moment throughout the show that was disappointing.