Mount Olive native Whit Baldwin performs in BATSU! NYC, a cross between an American improv comedy show and a Japanese game show. (BATSU! NYC|Courtesy photo)
Whit Baldwin, right, performs in BATSU! NYC, a cross-cultural comedic game show in which getting egg on your face is just part of the job. (BATSU! NYC|Courtesy photo)
Most people would never willingly put their fingers in mousetraps, but it’s a par-for-the-course punishment for Whit Baldwin upon losing a BATSU! NYC game. (BATSU! NYC|Courtesy photo)
BATSU! NYC is a high-energy, anything-goes, cross-cultural comedy/game show starring, among others, Mount Olive native Whit Baldwin, second from right. (BATSU! NYC|Courtesy photo)
For Whit Baldwin, right, performing on the BATSU! NYC stage is a far cry from the performances of his youth in Goldsboro’s StageStruck productions. (BATSU! NYC|Courtesy photo)
Mount Olive son Whit Baldwin, left, says he is willing to ‘do anything we need me to do in any given performance.’ He is a veteran of hundreds of BATSU! NYC shows. (BATSU! NYC|Courtesy photo)
BATSU! NYC got its start in late 2010/early 2011; Whit Baldwin has been performing all sorts of crazy antics in the show since day one. (BATSU! NYC|Courtesy photo)
Of his work with BATSU! NYC, Mount Olive’s Whit Baldwin says, ‘I often can’t believe I get to do something so fun and ridiculous for a living.’ (BATSU! NYC|Courtesy photo)
‘I love being on the stage,’ says BATSU! NYC’s Whit Baldwin, left. He and his fellow performers will spend much of August in Scotland, taking part in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. (BATSU! NYC|Courtesy photo)
“BATSU! NYC” is a cross between an American improv comedy show and a Japanese game show, wherein the losers of the game are subjected to some form of weird, ridiculous, or humiliating punishment. As the name suggests, it’s staged in New York City. Seemingly, it has no connection whatsoever to Mount Olive. But that’s if one didn’t know Whit Baldwin. He is the connection.
Baldwin was born and raised in Mount Olive, graduating from Southern Wayne in 2000. He then attended Florida State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Music degree in musical theatre. Following college, he moved to New York City, where he’s been ever since. He still holds his hometown close in his heart, though, returning at least a couple of times a year with his wife, Jenny, and daughter, Betty, to visit his parents Barton and Brenda Baldwin.
Growing up, Baldwin cut his performance teeth in musicals in Goldsboro’s youth theater, StageStruck, beginning in the fifth grade and continuing throughout high school. His performances in BATSU! NYC bear no resemblance to the musicals of his youth, and to envision what a BATSU! NYC performance is like, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, audience participation is an integral part of every performance. Second, based on prompts or suggestions from the audience, BATSU! NYC’s on-stage “comedy warriors” improvise games in a fashion similar to what you may have seen on the TV show “Whose Line is it Anyway?” Third, batsu is the Japanese word for “penalty” or “punishment.”
“If you lose, or in some cases if the audience doesn’t think what you did was funny, you receive a punishment,” Baldwin explains. “Some punishments include: getting shot with paintballs at close range; putting your hands in mousetraps; eating sushi off of someone; wild zany characters doing wild zany things to us; and we even wear a dog shock collar around our neck [and] when the audience doesn’t laugh we get shocked.”
BATSU! NYC got its start at the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011, and Baldwin has been with the show from the start, first as just a performer, but now as company manager and part-owner, as well. (They now also have a separate BATSU! Chicago cast). Originally, they started with one performance a week. “As the demand for tickets grew so did the show, to the point that now we have shows Tuesday through Saturday, with double shows on Friday and Saturday nights, as well as two to three shows a week at BATSU! Chicago,” Baldwin says.
As BATSU! NYC nears its 2000th performance, Baldwin is always ready to do whatever it takes to make each show work. “At this point in my time with the show, I can and do anything we need me to do in any given performance. Having done hundreds of them, I’m ready for anything we need.
“I love being on the stage,” he continues. “There’s nothing quite like the feeling and dopamine rush you get from creating something off the top of your head alongside some of your best friends and then making a packed audience erupt in laughter. It’s so much fun and I often can’t believe I get to do something so fun and ridiculous for a living. It’s a pretty easy show to have fun in.”
Right now, Baldwin is especially excited about a new adventure BATSU! NYC is preparing to embark on: Throughout most of August, the performers will be taking their game to the next level, so to speak, by traveling to Scotland to participate in the acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe Festival, an annual, three-week performing arts celebration. “We are getting very excited,” notes Baldwin. “My wife Jenny and daughter Betty will be coming as well so it should be a truly incredible family adventure.”
The adventure is all the more special for Baldwin, as it’s one more step toward normalcy following the craziness of the pandemic. “When the pandemic happened and our show shut down, I truly didn’t know what was going to happen with the show or my life that was so intensely connected to it,” he says. “I had spent, at that point, nearly 10 years helping build something and I had no idea if we would ever be able to come back. Well, two years to the day that we closed the show we opened back up and haven’t looked back since. Edinburgh is just the next step in our pursuit of comedy and entertainment glory! I am so thrilled and honored to be a part of it, and I could be doing none of it without the support of my wife Jenny and daughter Betty. They are both the how and the why of every single thing that I do in life.”
