Slay ‘Em With Spoof

The Acme Players’ new sketch comedy bill, “Acme the Vampire Slayer,” will slay you with funny scenes of hyper-reality, played with winning physicality at the Acme Comedy Theatre.

Buffy and Angel don’t pop up, but plenty of blood-curdling characters do. In Josh Gilbert’s “Slumber Party,” a father (Gilbert) wants to join his daughter’s party (Danielle Hoover, Joanna Daniels and Kristen Trucksess). Robert Yasumura plays a different sort of father in his “Cool Hand Nuclear Family” where “mother” (Ted Hardwick) and father, living in an all-male penitentiary, face their daughter’s (Billy Wright) first date (Josh Gilbert).

Switching to girl talk, Trucksess’ “We All Do It” is about one woman (Trucksess) telling her friends (Hoover and Daniels) more information than necessary about her life of sexual solitaire. “Diggin’ It” has two female construction workers shyly exploring romantic possibilities. In “The Ball and Stick,” Hardwick is a teacher attempting to find common ground between two students--a goth dressed as Dracula (Yasumura) and a more ordinary boy (Jamie Kaler).

Wright and Yasumura play two artistically sensitive artistes having a hissy fit in front of their gauche client (Kaler) in their “Basket Case.” Kaler’s character continues into the next skit, “Where Eagles Cry,” as he takes his girlfriend (Hoover) to meet his ladies’ man grandfather (Gilbert).

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A tipsy country and western star (Wright) sings his ode to alcohol the day before he tries sobriety in “Dear Alcohol.” Kaler and Daniels’ “True Romance” takes place at Chino penitentiary, as the nation’s worst serial killer is getting married before his midnight execution. Yasumura and Trucksess’ “Fame” has the slight-framed Yasumura as a young boy picked up by a gaudy older woman (Trucksess) who wants to make him a star if he’ll doff his shirt.

Wright’s “Slab Meat” tells the sad tale of a meat factory’s last day under the inept management of the founder’s son (Wright). Hardwick gives an oily rendition of a lounge lizard, performing his fourth-rate act on the closing night of a third-rate club in “Nostalgia Night.” “A Friend in Need” will bring shivers of recognition to anyone who has ever had a whiny roomie (Kaler) who insists on sharing his misery.

In Gilbert’s “Buddies,” a remedial bio student (Wright) becomes friends with the frog (Gilbert) he’s dissecting. Lastly, Kaler is a giant boy who doesn’t know his own strength in “Of Mice and Boys,” a warped tribute to John Steinbeck’s novel.

Most of the humor is gentle and some just plain silly. But M.D. Sweeney arranged and paced this bill well, with musical director Jonathan Green (assisted by Christian Malmin on drums) adding a steady beat and sometimes clever musical commentary. The Acme Players are in fine form.

BE THERE

“Acme the Vampire Slayer,” Acme Comedy Theatre, 135 N. La Brea Ave. Saturdays, 8 p.m. Indefinitely. $14. (323) 525-0202. Running time: 2 hours.