Super Happy Funtime Burlesque is a Michigan based troupe that defies explanation. Calling itself burlesque for lack of a better term, Super Happy Funtime is a genre-spanning theatrical troupe that performs sexy dances, bawdy musical comedy, and hipster rock opera. Think Rocky Horror and Saturday Night Live. SHFB is a nationally touring act that is bringing a new musical experience to America. Based in conservative Grand Rapids, MI, the group stages over 100 productions a year while driving its big red converted school bus around the country. Each 2-hour show is led by a scathingly funny and utterly honest emcee who is teamed up the lead burlesque dancer, who is a shy yoga instructor during the day. Live music is center stage with Super Happy Funtime. Most burlesque shows consist of girls dancing to MP3s. Our group features original music written for each dancer and performed by a talented 5-member band, the End Times Orchestra. Cynical emo scenesters pee their pants when the rock opera vaudeville comedy tsunami drowns them in undiluted awesomeness. What’s even more impressive than the ego stroking gigs with celebrities is our rabid fan base. How does a 18 member touring show living in a bus manage to tour the country when the music scene is dying and its hard enough to take a 4 piece act on the road? The fans. Through the Kickstarter website, SHFB has raised a staggering $35,000 in up front fan investment for its tours. SHFB fans spend. Super Happy Funtime’s audience is made up of independent thinkers, DIY crafters, brave cultural explorers, burlesque fans, and music lovers from 18 to 80. It’s a public radio crowd. These people are bored with cookie cutter entertainment, because those bands have no character, no presence, and their songs lack originality. The women love the empowered dancers and the men love to look at the pretty girls. The group has played all over the country, selling out vaudeville-era theaters and honkey-tonk bars from Chicago to Lubbock ,TX to Sioux Falls, SD to Los Angeles. SHFB is foraging a brave new path of a theatrical and musical underground without compare. It represents a new medium in entertainment; not theater, not a band, an entirely nebulous entertainment destination that is a fresh alternative to the plethora of rock bands, circus revivals, and rehashed musicals. Thern there’s SHFB’s 350lb fat man who dances around in a bikini. Some easily chalk it up as mere entertainment. But, at the end of the show, for every pair of hands that come together as result of being satisfactorily entertained, there is another whose clap is a thank you for provoking liberation of thought; a dissection of convention.” — Drew Storey, The Rapidian Super Happy Funtime Performs at Beachland Ballroom Friday, September 2 Doors 8pm, Show 9pm 15711 Waterloo Road Cleveland, OH Tickets: $10 www.beachlandballroom.com/ www.superhappyfuntimeburlesque.com/