Chicago’s Dollar Store Comedy Show: Two years and 1$

What do 9-inch-long industrial tweezers, a plastic socket guard and a bottle of generic Rogaine have in common?

All three cost $1, and all three have been the focus of recent sketches at the Dollar Store Show, a monthly hour-long event where artists from the Chicago area focus their creative energies on items from the dollar store.

A typical Dollar Store show, at the Hideout bar in Bucktown, presents acts by three Chicago-area performers plus co-hosts Jonathan Messinger and Jeremy Sosenko.

Before each show, Messinger selects an item from the dollar store and then artists have one month to create a performance based on the article. Previous acts have concentrated on a baby kangaroo figurine encased in a bar of soap, a collection of small, plastic airplanes in its own suitcase and a gyral umbrella made to place above a child's crib that emits strange noises.

"I pick them out without any [performer] in mind," said Messinger, 28, a writer from Wicker Park. "Some people come to the show the month before to get an idea, but I try to keep it as random as possible."

The show features both popular and less-known performers and has become notorious in the area. For about the past year, almost all the shows have been sold out, according to Messinger.

To celebrate their success and the second anniversary of the Dollar Store, Messinger and Sosenko have organized a special show featuring four of the best acts from the past year. Two musical artists, Pearly Sweets and Lord of the Yum Yum, will also perform at the event.

Artist Jill Summers, 32, first appeared at the Dollar Store in April and will offer a repeat performance Friday. Summers, a writer and musician from Bucktown who records her fictional works with music accompaniment, said she hates to perform live.

When she was invited to present a piece for the Dollar Store, Summers wrote a story around her item " the socket guard " and recorded it at home. To add a live element to her piece, Summers enlisted her husband and her sister to help her arrange a puppet show to accompany the piece.

"It was totally a blast," she said of her performance in April.

Messinger first came up with the concept for the Dollar Store show in late 2004. Though Messinger now works as the Book editor for TimeOut Chicago, at the time, he was unemployed and was mostly looking for something to do, he said.

"I had a lot of friends in a similar situation in comedy and theatre, so I was trying to think of something that could combine them and be fun," he said. "We put on a show in November 2004 and it went well."

Both Messinger and Sosenko, who began as the co-host in January, also perform pieces each week. Though he sometimes finds it difficult to write new material every month, Sosenko said he is glad he takes the time.

"I like it because otherwise, if I didn't have a monthly deadline, I wouldn't be writing this stuff," said Sosenko, 28. "It's worth the week of anxiety before the show."

Both Messinger and Sosenko said they hoped to expand the scope of the Dollar Store, perhaps taking the show on the road to cities across America or creating a compilation CD of the best performance. On Nov. 21, the Dollar Store will offer an all-ages show at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The Dollar Store show begins at 9 p.m. at the Hideout on West Wabansia Avenue. Admission costs $7 and is restricted to ages 21 and over.