Break out your team colors when UAB's Alys Stephens Center presents "The Complete World of Sports (Abridged) Comedy Show" by Reduced Shakespeare Company, with shows at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 14, 2011, and at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15, 2011, in the center. Sport your own favorite team's jersey to this show to win a prize. Tickets are $45, $38, $28; $20 student tickets. Call 975-2787 or go to www.AlysStephens.org.
 
Reduced Shakespeare Company, the "Bad Boys of Abridgment," unveil a brand-new show: "The Complete World of Sports (abridged)," which reduces every sport ever played in the entire history of the world, according to the troupe's description. From the earliest cavemen playing "Neanderthal in the Middle" to kids' soccer practice, the entire history of athletic competition will be blasted in a tour de force of funny, physical theater. A marathon of madness and mayhem will ensue as the world's greatest sporting events are shrunk down to size; it's interactive, family friendly fun for all ages. A merciless but affectionate satire of an ESPN-type broadcast that "owes as much to the insanity of Monty Python as to the inanity of actual sports programs," says The Boston Globe.
 
Since its 1981 origins as a pass-the-hat act in California, the Reduced Shakespeare Company has created seven stage shows, two television specials and many radio pieces which have been performed, seen and heard the world over, according to their Web site. The company's itinerary has included stops at the White House, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, London's West End, Seattle Repertory Theatre, American Repertory Theatre and Montreal's Just for Laughs Festival, plus live performances around the world. The company is well known for its shows "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)," "The Complete History of America (abridged)" and "The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged)."