The Invisible Theatre vs The Visible Theatre

The Invisible Theatre. The name is brilliant. When I was a kid in the early 70's I used to go see their shows during the first one, two, three years of their existence. It was all original works performed in The Cellar at the old Student Union at the UofA. Tickets were fifty cents. Oranges were passed out to the spectators when they came in the door. The rumor was the oranges were laced with LSD. The saying though was that if the spectator didn't get the feel of the play, at least they got the feel of the orange. I remember at the end of a show there would be orange peels left on many of those tables in the cellar. I can't say I got the feel, as in understood, all their work at that time. It was out there. It was political or satirical or just different. I was just a kid. Some of the shows and scenes and images are vivid, others less so. I can still repeat a few lines from some of the shows, do an impression or two believe it or not. I have a few odd remembrances too. There was a band that played before and during some of the shows. A guy played an electric keyboard in that band and he was named or called "Lightning Fingertips." I used to always like to check out the posters. I believe it was Merle Reagle (sp?) who was the artists for those posters. I have some around, courtesy of my brother, and I should check how to spell Merle's name. Anyway, those posters were very cool, that artwork he did. I remember once seeing him sitting in The Cellar, must have been during a rehearsal, and he was drawing the poster for the upcoming show with some kind of ink pen. Seems like Merle played piano too. I remember watching one of the Major Smack shows, Tim Fuller as the Major, and there was a female impersonator. I didn't realize it was and I couldn't understand what everyone thought was so funny. I just thought it was a woman singing strangely. In the play "Oats" there was Rabs Bar, spelled the same backwards and forwards - strange what you take with you. Those plays were my introduction to theatre, everything about them, even getting backstage and seeing everyone changing in the same room and nobody cared! Well, at home, I started The Visible Theatre. I was the only actor in it until I got my friends Dennis and Gary to help out with the small parts. Gary later went to one of the real shows and practically got in trouble somehow because his family was, uh, lets say, very conservative(?). I don't really know honestly. I think he even had to quit The Visible Theatre because we were getting too politically Jerry Lewis. Dennis and I survived to do a few parodies and skits - which I remember were just shy of brilliant.