‘Charlotte Squawks’ Returns for 21st Year of Sassy, Localized Satire

The Carolina Panthers winning the division despite a losing record is celebrated with a rousing medley that includes “We Will Block You,” a satirical take on Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” The sassy, brassy production number “Estella” sings the praises of Charlotte’s first Black woman police chief, Estella Patterson, to the tune of Rihanna’s “Umbrella.”

In “Let Us Get a Star,” the Grammy-winning for the TV musical drama SMASH, “Let Me Be a Star,” gets a local upgrade in which impassioned foodies beg the gourmet gods to bless the city with more than one Michelin-star restaurant.

These are just some of the comedic and melodic barbs featured in Charlotte Squawks 21: Hold My Beer!, a tuneful and topical package of satire, sketch comedy, video vignettes and parody songs rooted in the faults, foibles and dysfunctions of the Queen City.

The irreverent institution, which runs from June 4-28 at Booth Playhouse this year, is a mash-up of Saturday Night Live and Forbidden Broadway, says Mike Collins, co-creator of Charlotte Squawks alongside Charlotte attorney Brian Kahn.

Now in its 21st year, the locally written, performed and staged musical comedy revue would be old enough to legally buy a beer if it were a person, but Hold My Beer! is a doubly-fitting subtitle for the show because 2026 has truly been a “hold my beer” year.

Collins, longtime host of WFAE public radio’s morning news show Charlotte Talks, co-produces and directs the annual summertime stage play. He notes that it has been particularly tricky to nail down the topical parody tunes for this year’s production of Squawks because the 2026 news cycle has changed with whiplash-inducing frequency.

New I-77 toll lanes were prepared to plow through town — and now they’re not. Vi Lyles sailed to electoral victory and settled in to serve her fifth term as Charlotte’s mayor — but now she won’t.

“This year has been a tough slog,” Collins admits.

The problem is not so much the timely monologue that Collins delivers at the top of each show, or even the two comic newscasts — similar to Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” — that he co-hosts with cast member Johanna Jowett.

“We’ve always had to make some adjustments over the run of the show,” Collins says. “We can do that easily in the monologue and in the newscasts because we actually read the newscasts.”

The show’s carefully choreographed musical numbers, however, are a bigger challenge. There are 22 songs in this year’s show, performed by combinations of Squawks’ 11-member cast. One number about the proposed — and apparently dead-in-the-water — toll road project has kept co-creators, cast and crew on their toes.

“I’ve already had to rewrite that damned [toll road] song four times over the past month,” says Kahn, who remains a co-producer and writes the show’s script and song lyrics. “I’m sure I’ll have to rewrite it again.”

Kahn adds that he wrote a new song for the show when Mayor Lyles surprisingly announced her resignation.

“Now [there is] going to be an all-out scrum for the interim mayor position,” says Kahn, who is also managing partner of McGuireWoods’ Charlotte office. The new mayoral number means a previously scheduled song about NC Senator Phil Berger’s defeat in his district’s Republican primary was dumped — much like Berger.

“Something had to give,” Collins offers. “The show has to be as balanced as we can make it … from fast to slow, from groups to solos, from local to national. Otherwise we get stuck in a rut and can’t get out of it.”

Collins compares putting the show together to assembling a complicated puzzle. It’s a puzzle that’s not quite been fully put together by the time this story is going to press.

“It’s very much a work in progress,” Kahn says. “We’re building the plane as we’re flying it.”

The birth of ‘Charlotte Squawks’

Kahn and Collins seem like the ideal partners to create a show like Charlotte Squawks on the fly. Growing up, Kahn loved comedy. He worked as a political cartoonist in high school and college while singing in an a cappella group and performing in musical theatre.

“The ability to deeply analyze the issues and get to the heart of what makes them interesting, or funny, or uncomfortable is a lot of what I do as a lawyer,” says Kahn, adding that a theatrical background comes in handy when he makes presentations in court. “Lawyering is storytelling; writing shows is storytelling as well.”

Collins has a similar background in theatre and comedy, and as a radio and television personality he’s made plenty of public appearances over the course of his career. Deep down, however, Collins always wanted to be like legendary late-night TV host Johnny Carson.

“There was no book to tell you how you got to be Johnny Carson,” Collins says. “There was no path.”

In 2003, the comedy gods — or Keith Martin — intervened.

Martin, then with the since-defunct Charlotte Repertory Theatre, approached Kahn to create a show that parodied Charlotte as a fundraiser for the city’s public TV station WTVI. Martin also asked Collins to host the show, christened Charlotte Squawks as a spoof on Collins’ radio show Charlotte Talks.

The very first show went up at McGlohon Theater in Uptown. It was a modest production with minimal choreography, costumes brought from performers’ homes, and a cast of eight, including Kahn.

“We were good at selling tickets, but we weren’t a great fundraiser because we made fun of the sponsors and pissed people off,” Kahn remembers.

Squawks got dropped by WTVI but Blumenthal Arts saw potential in the scrappy musical comedy revue and agreed to co-produce the show. It was moved over to Booth Playhouse for its second iteration, where it is still performed 23 years later.

In the time since, Squawks has only skipped two years. There was no production in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. In 2008, Squawks canceled a season when Kahn’s wife gave birth to triplet boys. By then, he had retired from the cast.

“I wanted to stay married and be present,” Kahn explains.

He continues to write the show’s book and lyrics while designing a constant barrage of PowerPoint slides that flash on screens throughout the show. The visuals act as a kind of Greek chorus, adding humor and commentary during the parody songs.

“It’s a frenetic piece of [the show] that I think the audience really likes,” Kahn says.

The Squawks team also produces videos, either mock commercials or commentaries on the news cycle. They serve to break-up the musical numbers and sketches but have a practical purpose too; they give the cast a chance to change costumes and allow crew time to bring on props or scenery.

Collins has been fully committed to every production except for Squawks’ second year, when he was double booked, appearing simultaneously in Charlotte Rep’s production of the play Copenhagen. Even then, Collins opened Squawks, breaking off mid-monologue to replace himself with a cardboard cut-out of … himself, before racing down the theater aisle and up the street to catch Copenhagen’s opening curtain.

‘Squawks’ sharpens its comedic claws

If there was any fault in Squawks’ early years, it was that the production was too careful not to offend anybody, Collins maintains.

“We found that the edgier we were, the more people liked it,” he says. “We thought Charlotte couldn’t take it. They can take it, and in fact they want it. They thirst for it.”

One surprise element the show springs on audiences is the use of guest stars. Former Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson, and former Panthers head coach Ron Rivera have all popped up on Squawks, either onstage or on video. A recurring guest is former Queen City Mayor and NC Gov. Pat McCrory.

One night, when McCrory appeared onstage, Collins talked with the then-governor’s security detail. They said a show like Squawks would never fly in Raleigh because the state capital, unlike Charlotte, doesn’t have a sense of humor about itself.

That said, the show has had its fair share of hecklers, push back and walk-outs.

“Every year people walk out and I love it,” Kahn insists.

“Some people sit in the front row and don’t laugh and don’t smile ever, and we see them,” Collins notes.

One year, Randy Marion car dealership took offense at a faux commercial that lampooned the company’s habit of putting all its family members in its commercials. The business sent Squawks a cease-and-desist order.
Kahn wasn’t ruffled.

“First of all, why?” Kahn says. “And second of all, I’m a lawyer. I know where the line is and this isn’t even close.”
Everything, it turns out, is fair game for Squawks as long as the creators, cast and crew can “find the funny” in the topic, Collins says.

“If it’s happening in Charlotte, it’s coming up,” Kahn promises.

Hold My Beer! will tackle rising gas prices, Sycamore Brewing’s attempt to rebrand as Club West Brewing, the Uptown car crash involving Charlotte Hornet star LaMelo Ball’s camouflaged custom Hummer, and the current administration in Washington D.C.

“If you are a hardcore Trump fan, you probably will not like our show,” Kahn says.

As if to prove Kahn’s point, cast member Lucia Victoria describes a Trump “tribute” she sings in the upcoming show, which is set to the bold and brassy James Bond theme “Goldfinger.”

In “Goldfucker,” the lyrics reference our current president’s obsession with all things gold. Trump, played by Victoria’s husband and Squawks cast member Jeff Stetson, even trundles onstage during the number.

“He’s doing various ridiculous things that you would expect from our president,” Victoria says.

Amid the funny, Squawks occasionally presents a serious number. This year, it’s a heartfelt tribute to local businessman and activist Manolo Betancur, the founder and owner of Manolo’s Bakery, who has become a rallying figure in the community’s resistance to ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents’ attacks on Charlotte.

The ‘Charlotte Squawks’ team sticks together

A lot of heart and effort goes into producing each year’s show, and that can take its toll on the performers. Victoria reveals that, after last year’s production, roughly half the cast of Squawks announced they would be leaving the show.

“It was a big year; we had a great year [but] we were tired,” says Victoria, who has been with Squawks for 13 years.

“We actually got as far as having auditions scheduled and then got a call, and they’re all back,” Kahn says.

“It’s a bit like childbirth,” says Victoria, explaining the cast’s decision to return. “It’s really painful and hard on your body, and then a few months later you remember how cute the baby was and you want to have another one.”

Collins notes that almost all of the cast have worked at one time or another in professional theatre. In fact, one Squawks alumnus, Nkeki Obi-Melekwe, went on to star in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical on Broadway.

The process of birthing Hold My Beer! began right after the previous show wrapped in 2025. Kahn opened a document file on his computer and immediately jotting down on concepts, sketch ideas and song parodies that he thought might be funny.

From January to April 2026, he worked on the new songs and started sending them to Collins, who has only vetoed one or two suggested parody tunes in Squawks history. In April, Collins got together with the show’s choreographer, Linda Booth.

“[We] get these words on a piece of paper and they’re very clever, but sometimes the challenge is to find out how to stage them,” Collins says.

After consulting with Collins, musical director and conductor Bill Congdon started working on the songs’ arrangements, fitting the words to the music and working them out with a five-piece band, including keyboardist Kaarin Record, guitarist Tim Murray, bassist Dave Vergato, drummer Greg Lilley and woodwinds player Jack Murray.

The returning cast, which includes Alex Aguilar, Griffin Digsby, Olivia Edge, Patrick Ratchford, Susan Roberts, Kayla Simone and Bobby Tyson in addition to Victoria, Collins and Jowett, came together in early May to start rehearsing and learning the music in broad strokes before choreographer Booth came in to work with them.

Collins says directing Squawks is unlike other stage shows he’s directed in the past.

“[They] were book shows, where you know what the songs are, the script is set in stone, and you just do it,” he says. “[Here] we’re making it up. No one’s ever done these songs this way before.”

It’s not unusual to run a number in rehearsal, realize it doesn’t work and decide to restage it.

When the audience comes on opening night, they’re seeing a new musical that no one’s ever seen before, and the Squawks team doesn’t know how a number is going to land until it’s in front of the audience.

It’s an arduous process to produce an unusual show — with the result that enthusiastic audiences return year after year to see what new surprises Charlotte Squawks has in store for them. It’s not unusual for the show to sell out before it even opens. So, why does Squawks continue to connect with audiences year after year?

“We don’t shy away from a thing because it’s difficult … but if folks can get a little bit of laughter out of it, it doesn’t have to be as divisive, it doesn’t have to be an elephant in the room,” Kahn says.

Read more: My Trip Through the Introductory Improv Class at CATCh

Victoria feels Squawks’ satire connects Charlotteans to their city.

“It’s provided an identity and a way to connect and laugh about everything that we both love and are frustrated about with our city,” she maintains.

‘We’re the only show right now that takes Charlotte on,” Collins says. “Charlotte’s a character in the show, and the people in the audience are included in that character, because they’re part of Charlotte.”

Despite — or maybe because of — the hurdles, frustrations, rapid-fire changes and sheer lunacy that Charlotteans have learned to live with, the city truly embraces laughing at itself.