Carl Kissin

KISSIN “STEROID” SCANDAL

Tests positive for web-based

ego enhancer

Professional athletes were already

reeling from allegations of using

performance-enhancing drugs, but until recently, comics had escaped detection.

All that changed when Carl Kissin began dabbling in websites. “I just wanted to keep up with all the other actors. I knew they were doing it and I didn’t want to be left behind.”

As he started to create one page after another highlighting his career

and accomplishments, Carl felt bigger

and more powerful, but kept ignoring the growing danger of extreme self-involvement. “There’s no question it’s a rush. I mean essentially, on these

pages, I am Lord Carl, a loving God, knowable to those who would know me.”

The ego trip came to a screeching halt when he realized that all the promotional hype didn’t actually make him any more talented. “It was rough. I had posted a lot of great quotations about myself as well as some cool pictures, but on stage -- same old me.”

Carl got cleaned up and went back to the hard work of writing, performing, and teaching. “I left the

“Depressed, Depressed!” has

Happy Debut at Donnell.

Authors perplexed at the irony.

DONNELL LIBRARY THEATER, Mar. 28 - It was supposed to be this year’s “feel-bad” musical, but audiences who saw the one-hour work-in-progress presentation of “Depressed, Depressed!” (book & lyrics by Carl Kissin, music by D.D. Jackson), spent nearly the entire time laughing.

“You would think that the story of a comic named Neal, who has been dumped by the woman of his dreams, falls into depression, and struggles to raise himself from that psychological abyss, would make an audience cry,” said Kissin, “but I overestimated the sensitivity of theatergoers.

Apparently in this callous and harsh world we live in, depression, a serious illness that often leads to Bergman films, passes for comedy."

Performed as part of the Donnell Library Songbook series hosted by the charming John Znidarsic (known in the Bible as he whose name cannot be pronounced), “Depressed, Depressed!” played to a full and uniformly enthusiastic house, very few of whom admitted using mood-elevating drugs.

Now wiser for his experience, Kissin reflected, “okay, so I guess a show about depression is a comedy, but next time, I’ll write a musical about kittens and puppies -- hopefully that’ll inspire abject misery.”

PUCK BLDG., Apr. 24 – Carl Kissin performed three of his award-winning monologues at a sold-out scholarship benefit for the Collegiate School, the oldest school in the United States of America as well as one of the most academically prestigious.

Carl, who graduated from Collegiate at the age of 16, was shocked when the school revoked his diploma immediately afterward.

“We’ve now seen the kind of man Carl has grown up to be, and quite frankly it doesn’t reflect well on our institution,” said headmaster Lee Pierson. “We have produced innumerable leaders in their chosen fields and superb intellectuals, whereas Carl, just as in high school, is a ‘look-at-me-I-need-attention’ comedian. It was mildly amusing back then, but now -- well, we feel it’s time for him to grow up, get a real job, make money, then donate it to the school.”

Asked if these events had soured him on his beloved alma mater, Carl replied, “By no means, no -- I’d like my son to go there some day and also have the opportunity to disappoint them.”