Cleanse your Soul at THE REVEREND JEAU'S REVIVAL

When his band Pants Velour was touring with the likes of Mobb Deep, Dru Hill, A Tribe Called Quest and Naughty by Nature, frontman and lyricist Josh Raff had a bit before one of their songs where he would serve up a fake sermon as the Reverend JEAU. The character, which he created, was so popular with audiences that Raff knew the good reverend would come back again someday.

As such, Raff is bringing his signature character back to life in The Reverend JEAU's Revival, playing at the Hobgoblin Playhouse this June as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival.

"When we stopped touring, I knew that I had to find something else for Reverend JEAU," Raff said. "I thought, 'what better place to resurrect him than on the West Coast and at the Fringe.' It's such a fun show and audiences can expect a little of the unexpected."

The Reverend JEAU's Revival is a lightning fast one-man hip-hop comedy show about a wildly deluded evangelist and his most accomplished acolyte. Packed with original music, inspiring doctrine and endless laughs, the Reverend's willing congregation (the audience) is guaranteed to receive the invaluable gift of enlightenment and self-love through the Reverend's own journey filled with drugs, high powered marketing schemes, emotionally unavailable sex workers, perilous treks along the Appalachian Trail, interventions, erotic love lasers and redemption.

"This whole thing started as a bit about a guy who realizes he's an average looking white guy and goes looking for his average looking white girl companion. From there it just took on a life of its own," Raff said. "When the Rev became popular, I wanted to expand his horizons, to give him a back story and a journey. This show is how the Reverend JEAU becomes the Reverned JEAU."

The show is co-created by Josh Raff and Lizz Leiser, a playwright, producer and co-founder of the New York group the Serious Theatre Collective. It's directed by Nathan Markiewicz, who recently directed Moving Day for the Barrington Collective. The show is currently playing at the Parkside Lounge in New York before coming out to Los Angeles.

Raff has high hopes for what this character could become and he can't wait for Fringers to meet him.

"The reverend wants to give them laughter, entertainment, emotion and inspiration," Raff said. "And hopefully they'll want to come back and tell a friend that they HAVE to see the Reverend JEAU."

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

http://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/5216

Photo: Andrew Eccles
Design: Matt Tarulli