The heavens swore back, in the form of a large cloud resembling a middle finger.
Henry, annoying everyone nearby as a beggar under the bridge. eventually gave up and stuck his hands in his out-of-prison compensatory uniform...and found a card! For a strip club, the Ciocia, advertising strippers of various appearances including blatantly male. Apparently it doubled as a comedy routine when people who really weren't sexy enough to be strippers filled roles in burlesque. It very explicitly accepted ex-convicts and beggars off the streets, with some pithy line or other about society stepping on you anyway might as well have fun.
Conveniently, it was only a few blocks away! And unbeknownst to Henry, where CYOC writers in both that world and this would take advantage of him further. Its street-side appearance was surprisingly humble for such a large building, looking more like an old theater building and an apartment jumbled together than a private affair.
He applied for the 'person off the street' job offer fast-track special. Henry's job interview was overseen by a fat blonde matron (almost historic in her stereotype) and a bespectacled also fat man (fitting the modern weeb stereotype instead), occupying a couch across from a private stage. Both found Henry's old gymnastics skills catching up to him in pole-dancing much faster than physically reasonable. The two chubby managers conferred and offered Henry a job on the spot...but with caveats.
"The Ciocia is no ordinary strip club." the woman warned.
"And while you have talent, the base isn't all that impressive." the man confirmed.
"Besides our burlesque, we happen to make use of a certain site to enable our shows." the woman continued.
"You could say the experience is....transformative." the man said, pointing fingerguns at Henry and making a wink.
Henry didn't get it, so the man dropped his hands.
"Call me Sir Left, call her Lady Right." the man said with a dismissive shrug. "You'll do well with improv. We have a few back rooms because this place was an undersized hotel conference center. You'll get food and whatnot as a job benefit. Pay is minimum wage time worked plus tips. We can see your narration, not that you know what that means. Do what you will with the magic pockets gimmick, our writers can handle it. Staff don't join here without a plan. Bed me whenever and Lady Right if you think you can survive. The show can probably go on, and we'll deal with any side effects on the audience."
Lady Right made a high-pitched 80s villainess laugh behind a folding fan. Sir Left chuckled evilly.
"Okay?" Henry consented to all this.
Lady Right acquired a paper airplane from somewhere and flung it at Henry, who caught it. She told him to unfold it and he did, revealing a set of improvisational prompts and times.
"That's the shows scheduled." she clarified. "The others can show you the ropes, and assistants will handle converting scriptless ideas into scripted special effects. Whatever happens, just roll with it. Even the authors don't always know what will happen next, but they've discovered how to write in the effectively immediate edit by edit."
Any boring stuff that needed to be dealt with was explained offscreen. As far as it matters, Henry probably isn't going to object and the audience is presumably in on it enough to not object either (or at least transform themselves more afterward).