Big Tobacco’s “Pinocchio”
UCB Franklin
July 14, 2026 — Closing Night
By Chris Cassone
cc@chriscassone.com
The Franklin neighborhood of UCB, the Upright Citizens Brigade, was on fire Tuesday evening. As one show spilled out, its audience screaming with glee, the line for Pinocchio stretched down the block. It was a good sign. Anticipation was thick in the air.
I did as much research as I could on Big Tobacco, the troupe behind tonight’s performance. Suffice it to say, its four members are a well-oiled comedy machine, and they only seem to be getting started with this “reimagining” of Carlo Collodi’s timeless classic.
Let’s start here: this was 180 degrees from whatever Walt Disney delivered. Get those visions of “When You Wish Upon a Star” out of your head. These folks have different DNA, and they brought the receipts.
Big Tobacco is a comedy troupe of Emerson grads who coalesced in Los Angeles after the school’s “semester abroad” program here. Brad Beidman, Lyndsey Kempf, Brian Fitzgerald and Eli Lutsky all come from the rapid-fire joke tradition of vaudeville, Mel Brooks and ’90s television sitcoms. As Fitzgerald put it, “If you don’t like one joke, wait a second because there will be another right after.”
All four share responsibility for concept, writing and staging. The minimal sets are a clue: this is a stand-up-driven group that works beautifully together. They do not need much. They only need each other.
And the voice of God.
Cleverly, that voice belongs to Jay Lutsky, Eli’s father, who serves as a wisecracking, know-it-all narrator. Booming from on high, he comments with wry, dry deadpan, stitching scenes together and reassuring us that we have not accidentally been slipped some LSD.
The premise is simple enough: take the basic bones of Pinocchio, then attack them with a Zap Comix sensibility, thoroughly inane and proudly X-rated. As Fitzgerald said, “We hit the basic beats of Pinocchio.” They do. And after that, you are on your own, because nothing is sacred with this bunch. Not the sanctity of the nuclear family. Not the holiness of the Pope. All is fair game.
Four actors become more than a dozen characters through deft costume changes and the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief. Everyone in this story wants to be something they are not.
Geppetto wants to be a real father. Pinocchio wants to be a real boy. Jiminy Cricket wants to be more than a bug. The Blue Fairy wants everyone to stop asking her for miracles.
You know, the basics.
Fitzgerald does yeoman’s work as Geppetto, the evil Honest John/Stromboli figure and, in his tour de force, the Italian Papa himself, His Holiness the Pope. His command of the stage and magnetic charm pull the entire story together. Did I mention his Italian wiseguy Pope was fabulous? Because his Italian wiseguy Pope was fabulous.
Eli Lutsky plays the naïve Pinocchio, who catches on to the principle of self-abuse quicker than most teenagers. His rosy, red cheeks belie an eagerness to follow the path of least resistance, eventually straight to Pleasure Island. In that way, he is uncomfortably like all of us: forever tempted by the quick jackoff payoff.
Fun fact: Disney actually created a Pleasure Island as part of Disney World’s complex, aimed directly at adults with fast-paced nightlife. It took them about twenty years before they seemed to realize the odious significance and reshaped it into The Landing.
The voice of Pinocchio’s conscience, Jiminy Cricket, is played by Brad Beidman, who gets maximum mileage from a perfectly simple costume. Just know that he has antennae, as well as six appendages.
Lyndsey Kempf is the guttural Blue Fairy, somewhere between Glinda the Good Witch and Selma Diamond after a very long night. She is torn between her job as a fairy and her own exhaustion with helping people out of trouble. “Where’s mine?” she seems to ask.
As Fitzgerald promised, the show does hit the major Pinocchio beats, and because of that, the arc works on us. We are actually pulled into the dilemma that choices have consequences. Only here, when you have a puppet eating its own genitals, well, I was at a loss for words.
Despite the fact that the audience is given intimate access to the actors’ deepest sexual fantasies, I found myself repeating: It’s only satire. It’s only satire. And it is satire, very much in the tradition of “Fractured Fairy Tales” from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, only with an added layer of sexual depravity.
Big Tobacco calls it a “reimagining of the classic tale…for all the pervs out there.”
Couldn’t have said it better.
Want to see Pinocchio? You will have to catch Big Tobacco this August during its month-long residency at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Word is, they will be back in the fall for more rapid-fire fun.
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/big-tobacco-s-pinocchio