MELTS IN YOUR MOUTH, NOT IN YOUR HAND Well, the Cagematch happened... Sweet Justice v. Nougat, the Least Best Dressed Harold team of the IO stage. We didn't get killed, just maimed, 49 - 20. None of us on Sweet Justice are really designed, at the moment, to play fast and furious improv. That's okay, we're all decent players and we've learned a bunch. The coolest thing to come out of the experience is that everyone on the team really wants to stay together and make something quality happen. Both Bumper and Jen still are excited to coach. We all view it as an excellent team to learn and grow with. Wow. That's some fuckin' Cagematch team, I tell you... I see this group as an experiment, as something that will be extremely exciting a year or two from now, something that we can set our sights high with and achieve great things with. You know, all that after school special bullshit. ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL I feel tremendously better about my nasty brick wall. There's a lot of things you can do with a brick wall until you find a way to break through it. Graffiti is an option. Bricks are sturdy, they make good solid security. There's some good shade under a brick wall... I've had several coaches and teachers tell me to relax and take my time at 'figuring out' improv. I'm always in such a hurry to catch up to the really experienced people that I often forget I'm just starting out. To quote Mark Henderson - Smile and breathe. He's right. I'm still going to retake my last level at IO and the Annoyance, just to get a firmer grasp on what's up and feel like I'm not just paying out money to get to the end of a program and 'graduate'... AND THE DEL AWARD GOES TO... Yep, the Dels are the IO equivalent of the MTV music awards. We all got dressed up (and looked damn good, I must say), we all got drunk, and we all cheered for each other in pretty silly categories. The Sidewalk Ends (soon to be Runaway D-Train, if things go well) was nominated for Least Best Dressed Team. It was a blow-out in Nougat's favor however. That's the second competition those sloppy peeps have won against my team... They are well deserving of the honor and wear it proudly (pardon the pun). God damn, I love award shows. TWIRLY TWISTER The cable show is kicked into high gear again. I'm excited to be working on it, just like when we first started. If improv hadn't taken such a huge chunk out of my life, I'm sure the show would be of better quality. But, fuck it, right? What can you do? We got picked up by SCITV for this fall. We have a following at the CAC. People have recognized me from tv... weird. Opal and I are even talking about new shows - Twirly spin-offs. God damn. THRILLER THEATER is a show I'll be working on very, very soon. Just cuz I need a few more things to do. Life would be much better if I didn't have a day job. Unfortunately, nothing I do outside of my day job pays me money. Except house managing at the Playground, which covers my team/practice time costs for all my teams. Almost. Eek. COWBOY KILLERS is the new name of my Playground team. At our last rehearsal, I noticed that we all smoke Marlboros, aka "cowboy killers". I made this observation and everybody liked it as a name. We'll always be lecherous retards underneath, however... NIK CHAROV is a big dumb idiot. Research your articles, Wonder Boy. And don't take people's quotes out of context. You raised some good ideas, but they were buried in the midst of telling me that I need to fuck my way to the top and that Charna advocates being a racist. Can't wait to see your Harold show next week, sugar. PSYCHO RAPTURE DEVOTION, PART II I'm such a little acolyte. Excuse me while I light some incense in my shrine to Joe Bill, and then take some cancerous lumps for Mark Henderson. Eep. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY 1. I'm a visual person. That means I want things to look nice on stage. There aren't many visual improv people out there. We're the weird ones who rarely initiate things. 2. Nougat men are sexy motherfuckers. Even if they dress sloppy. 3. Improv doesn't have to be funny. When you try to be funny, you're usually not. 4. I swear way the fuck too much. 5. According to Nik Charov, I'm only out to do improv for the fame and fortune. In order to do this Nik says, I'll be sleeping my way to the top. So, um, Charna? Busy tonight? Or maybe it's Gracie I'm supposed to talk to... Required viewing: Screw Puppies, Saturdays @ 12:30am That's all I have to say about that. VACATION I feel like I took a vacation from improv this week. Not many rehearsals or shows to play in or see. I got some "me" time. I don't remember what to do with myself when I have "me" time anymore. Watching television is awfully boring too, after flying through the last two months. This is where having a life outside of performing comes into play. I'll have to work on that. SUBSTITUTE BIMBO I spent my Saturday evening sitting in with a group at the Playground called Occam's Razor. It was a fun show, though four of the six people playing were sit-ins. I like the stage at the Playground - it makes you feel like you're actually doing something theatrical instead of the hanging out with the drunks at IO. Maggie's newest character - a waitress from Hooter's that yearns for a correspondence course on refrigerator repair. Sally Struthers is just really damn funny to me. Don't ask. Thanks, Gus. Occam's Razor was fun. I'm really not scared of you. Really. RAPTURE PSYCHO DEVOTION, PART III I have a new idol to add to my shrine. Liz Allen gets the shelf directly next to Joe Bill's. The kids from the Sidewalk Ends (which we've decided is just gonna have to be our team name) had a workshop with Liz on group games that was really, really effective. This is a woman that knows what she's doing. We all walked away feeling like we had learned something that we could practically apply in our improv work. Valhalla and Mission:Improvable are very lucky to have her as a coach. Liz will be offering more workshops in the future - I highly recommend her for group or individual work. She's all that and more. One exercise in particular really pushed us together as a team. Instructed to close our eyes, Liz asked us to listen to the group energy and act accordingly. That was it - nothing wordy or clever to do. The experience that resulted felt like floating in the waves at the ocean. Your body is loose, you let the water push you in the direction it wills, you're weightless. It pulls you in immediately - connections are made and broken. At one point in time, I found myself embraced by a teammate and pulled away by another. I couldn't help feeling the sadness and loss of this connection; it made a dramatic statement to me that, even with my eyes closed, looked beautiful. The entire team ended the exercise (which went on for a considerable amount of time, though none of us felt any time passing) on the floor, in a position that suggested worship or prayer. Pretty damn amazing. BABY GILLIAN Big congrats to my teammate, Jim Nemeth. He's the proud papa of a new baby girl named Gillian. This is Jim's third kiddo. He brought us cigars that tasted faintly of vanilla after our workshop. Thanks, Jimbo. You're the greatest. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY 1. Improv based off little slips of paper is sure to backfire on you. 2. Nougat men are sexy motherfuckers. I know I wrote that last time, but it warrants repeating. 3. Even at the tender age of 24, I fall asleep in front of the television just like my mother. Required reading: Kevin Mullaney's Improv Resource Center - chock full of the latest in the improv communities across the country, as well as Kevin's essays and other stuff. That's all I have to say about that. LIFE, IN A NUTSHELL I looked at my calendar today to see what the week had in store for me. I discovered that almost every night I had something improv/theatre related going on. I gave it a good hard thought and suddenly realized that if I stick with this improv stuff, this is how the rest of my life will be. Graduating from college left me feeling the same way - you're happy, but yet there's this underlying sense of dread that the next years of your life you'll be working your ass off. It's completely worth it, don't get me wrong. Maybe I should just not think about the future for a while... SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, TOUCH NO EVIL Joe Bill teaches from the viewpoint that there are three different kinds of improvisers - the kinesthetic, the verbal, and the visual. Kinesthetics enjoy doing objectwork, tend to jump up and "do" things first; they usually have a high energy level. Verbals love words; they talk through scenes, and are effected by what they hear. Visuals want things to look right; they wait and observe, tend to have a very measured pace to their scenes. Every person is a combination of these three types, in a specific order. Most improvisers are kinesthetics or verbals. I'm a visual-kinesthetic-verbal. I get stuck in scenes a lot because I really want to say/do/act the right thing, I fear looking stupid. I hardly ever have a snappy line to say, but I often have a stage picture I'd like for people to form. I think I'm the most frustrating combination of improviser around, but I would have made one hell of a silent film actress. As a visual person, I love silence on stage. Love it. I think it's the most powerful thing a performer can do, because it causes the whole room - stage and audience alike - to implode. Silence makes tension and tension makes a scene interesting. One of my favorite silence scenes to this day comes from a JTS Brown show - it was the final beat of the show, before they break back into the character monologue. John Lutz and Sarah Gee enter as newlyweds to find John's parents (Jen Bills and Ed Goodman) waiting to spend quality time with the happy couple on their honeymoon. John is furious, Sarah (the very drunk bride) is happy as a clam. As the scene progresses, we find the groomsmen hiding in the closet and a full out party erupts in the honeymoon suite, with everyone plying Sarah with more drinks. John tries to push them out the door, to no avail. Sarah collapses from all the alcohol, dead. The scene transforms to an earlier beat in a hospital operating room where a man's wife has just died (the wife was also played by Sarah). Bumper Carroll (the insensitive husband in the earlier scene) stood for a good thirty seconds in silence before speaking. Boom. Instant implosion. Bumper speaks and the scene transforms back to the failed honeymoon, where all the guests go about partying as if nothing happened. As the partying continues, John silently crosses to Sarah, picks her up, and slowly walks into the audience. Boom. Again, his silence created a really powerful moment for the audience to see. Simply amazing. One of my favorite things I've ever seen at IO. I love symbols/stage pictures too, though they're harder to form in improv, I think, because the main drive is getting the verbal information out. John picking Sarah up made such a lovely picture of despair. MEISNER The Cowboy Killers have been working on Meisner techniques over the past few weeks in rehearsal. Mark kind of surprised us with it at first; I had a really violent reaction to "living in the space" with my teammate Simone. God, how I hated Mark for turning me into a psychotic lunatic. Just a big sobbing mess of person that wanted to get away from the rest of my team. Walking home from that rehearsal I realized that the exercise was a really good experience, even though I was still deeply hurt by what had transpired on stage. Very apprehensive last night as we had a workshop with Rob Mello at Artistic Home. I think I was more scared of working with Rob because I've heard so many stories floating around the improv community of how "mean" he is as a teacher. I enjoyed myself last night, and I'm looking forward to taking some non-improv acting classes. BLUE SUNDAY The kids of the Sidewalk Ends had a really blue rehearsal this past weekend. One reason, I think, is that we're all a little freaked that Charna (owner of IO) will break us up on the new schedule. She saw our last two shows, which were by far our weaker efforts and gave us some really harsh notes after each show ("You guys aren't professionals on stage", "You guys suck" just to name a few). Her criticism really doesn't bug me too much because I know that how she is about Harold teams, but some of my teammates were really hit hard by her comments. I knew that my team wouldn't last forever, but I guess I'm not ready for the Sidewalk to end. Hate living in fear of the schedule. It looms over you. Makes being funny less easy. I have to give credit to the folks at the Playground - the Incubator program really takes the time to shape its teams before shoving them out on stage to fend for themselves. Coaches care about their groups, it's not all about status like I feel it is at IO. I like my IO coach, don't get me wrong, he's a great guy and he does care about his work. I'm not lying when I'd say I'd take a bullet for my coach at the Playground. Mark wants us to learn and succeed, not just put on a good show. He wants us to find a form and team identity of our own, on our own. He expects us work hard and make progress. That's a huge difference from going through the motions of a Harold every other week. SCOOBY SNACK Jason Chin is back from LA and I'm ready to do some work on Thriller Theater. Time to kick the rust off my techie tendencies. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY 1. Most lesbians really aren't into guys, even when they're wrestling with one on the kitchen floor. 2. Nougat men are sexy... oh, hell. Mandy and Katie are pretty hot. 3. George Dixon isn't afraid to throw girls into brick walls. 4. Meisner exercises bring out the "fight or fuck" tendencies in us all. It seems like everyone wants to beat the shit out of one another and then make out, or vice versa. Required viewing: Pictures of Lillie, Chicago Comedy Co., Black Sheep I'm very philosophical today and a bit self-destructive, just to warn you. FEAR AND LOATHING The IO schedule finally came out. I can't emphasize again how much I hate living in fear of this schedule. It's the only part of my improv life that I honestly feel no control over and no choice about. Sure, I'll have auditions that other people will judge me at and scenes that won't go my way. There's not a lot of control or choice about those, but you know what to expect when you enter those situations. Performing at IO is like playing Russian roulette. Strike that, performing in general is like playing Russian roulette... more likely than not the people in charge won't see your good shows and will see your lousy shows. When you're out to make an impression, you inevitably mess up and tense up on stage. I think external fear has no place in improv. Internal fear can help shape you as a performer, can drive your work. I'll explain. Internal fear is the kind of fear you get late at night when you don't think you're alone in your house. The creepy fear that sits low in your gut, it happens right before you jump out of the airplane, right before you run out on stage; it's born straight from your own brain. It's the fear that turns into excitement after you get off the roller coster, that makes you return for another ride. External fear is knowing the bully will beat you up after school or wondering where your next paycheck will come from. It's the fear that turns into dread, that makes your back and shoulders tense into tight cables. This is the kind of fear that turns people into drunks. Anyway, the schedule came out, we survived less one original member and picked up a new kid fresh out of Level 3. I guess that's when I started playing too, so I can't grumble too much and he seems pretty nice. I hate the way my former teammate found out he got cut, though. Imagine calling at 9am to find out where rehearsal is and being told that, hey, you're not on the team anymore. Grrr. We did get twice as many shows, two on "free" Wednesdays and one on a Saturday. That's good, especially since Charna thinks we suck. SLAYING THE DRAGON Improv is all about conquering the unknown. I think of it like slaying a dragon. Sometimes the dragon is fear, sometimes hate, sometimes inhibition. It's never the same thing; it's a chameleon dragon. You run out on stage to attack the dragon, you and your scene partner. Hopefully you come back alive and without teethmarks. FATAL ATTRACTION There's a lot of emotional stuff that flies around on stage, both in improv and other theatre. Some of it is easy to leave behind, but I find that I become too deeply attached to some things that happen up on stage. It's hard to let go of an emotion you really tap into - they're delicious, even the bad ones that hurt. Maybe that's because we spend so much of our lives masking what we really feel towards others. Maybe it's because we spend so much of our performing lives with the same team or troupe and there are already attachments and friendships formed. Anger, fear, love, disappointment. How can you turn something off when you've just been thrown through a table an hour before? How can you not wonder about whether or not the kiss you received on stage was from the actor or the character? It just adds to the confusion and uncertainty... which I guess is a good tool in improv. Sometimes I get really frustrated and angry on stage, not necessarily because of what happened in a scene or the notes that I'm getting, but because I desperately want to get out of my body/mind/whatever and into a new one. That way I can start over hiding again... people know too much about me as it is. I don't like being vulnerable. (And yet I sit here and write all of this down for the world to read. I'm a big fuckin' hypocrite.) WHY am I doing this? What the hell do I hope to get out of it? Goddamn it - I'm losing all perspective as to why improv is fun... I used to think I was a creative person... when will that be back to me? Everything's a blank slate. I open my mouth to speak and my mind won't let the words pass my lips. I get so angry, so often. It feels like I'm an empty shell and it scares the shit out of me. Is this how it will be for the rest of my life? Somewhere along the line on stage I think I opened an old wound. It hasn't healed right. ABUSE ME is the current battle cry of my stupid little brain. Unfortunately, I'm smoking and drinking again. Murky mornings, ashtray tongue, headaches. Goddamn it. Why am I doing this to myself? I should stop writing this entry. I'm in the wrong mood to be talking about anything, really. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY 1. Sometimes regular mice can have Spanish baby mice. These baby mice say, "El squeak". 2. An improv performer can move through relationships faster than a greased pig and no one will bat an eye. 3. Blue tongues disgust Ron Nieves. Expand-o-grow tongues from Uncle Fun's are fascinating. My uncle Al likes to eat tongue tacos. 4. When you get the red final notification letter in the mail, it's probably a good idea to pay your bill. Required viewing: Inside the Improviser's Studio, 9/6/99 That's all I have to say about that.
8/4/99
God damn, it's been a long time since I updated this thing. A lot of stuff has happened, I guess I've been busy busy, so that will be my excuse for slacking off in the update department. Don't you hate people that never update their websites? I do... oops, that's me. Shit.
Annoyance Theatre, 3747 N. Clark (across from the Metro)
Admission: $5, or $3 if you saw Co-Ed Prison Sluts
8/9/99
Hey, look at this! Two updates in a relatively short span of time. I must be on drugs or something...
8/24/99
Busy week. I've had switched between having Phish and Pink Floyd stuck in my head for days now.
August 26, 1999 @ The Playground (Roscoe & Lincoln), 8pm
Admission $5
For more info, go to The Playground home page
8/31/99
My day job is driving me nuts. It's the end of the fiscal year and we have to go through all the bills. I can barely keep my own checkbook balanced, much less an office budget on track. Ack.
@ the Improv Olympic, 3541 N. Clark Street
after the Armando show, 10:30ish
featured guest: Rich Talarico
