A BACKGROUND I'm not really Maggie Parker all the time. I once had a dream that I was married to Trey Parker (the guy that does South Park) and since people always fuck up my last name, I adopted it. Maggie was the name we didn't pick for the family dog when I was growing up. So Maggie Parker is really a figment of my imagination, forced on to everybody out in TV Land. Everyone has a bunch of names they use throughout their lives, this is just one of mine. When I'm not being Maggie Parker, I study improvisational theatre at the Improv Olympic and the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago. I've been in the programs for a little over six months now, and I'm slowly easing myself into the community. Why do I do this? It's fun and there's nothing so wonderful as making people laugh. I'm a neophyte to the system though, so I really don't have a lot of experience. I'm not here to spout wisdom, just say what I got to say. SWEET JUSTICE Is the name of a team I just formed with a bunch of people at the Improv. We're just doing it for shits and giggles, maybe play the Cagematch or catch a guest spot at the Playground. My partner in crime, Allison Bills, found us some most excellent coaches last night. THE SIDEWALK ENDS Is the name of my official, sanctioned-from-Charna-and-the-other-gods-of-IO team I perform with at the Improv. It's a play on Where the Sidewalk Ends which is a collection of poetry by a man named Shel Silverstein. He recently died, and therefore the Sidewalk, well, ended. It's amazing to me how many people don't know those simple facts I just threw out at you. I naively assumed that everyone read Silverstein's poems as a kid, but the general population continues to prove me wrong. I naively assume too much, anyhow. HANGIN' WITH D-NICE Tonight the kids from the Sidewalk Ends are having a little bonding session at IO. Bonding sessions are almost as important as rehearsals, I think. Improv is based on your life experiences, so the more shared experiences and stories your group has to draw from, the better you gel on stage. We have a show (our second) tomorrow night, and I think everyone's a little apprehensive. We're a lovey, lovey team, but we've hit the first tension mark, with each other, our coach, the system. I can feel it, at least, and I'm worried that it will transfer on stage. In fostering a group mind, you need harmony, not eight people pulling in eight different directions. RAPTURE PSYCHO DEVOTION It happens. You become an acolyte to a particular teacher. A lot of students find themselves with a Susan Messing crush or worshipping Mick Napier or whoever. I'm waist-deep in the Joe Bill experience - it's got to be annoying to others to hear me talk about what we did in classes or re-telling anecdotes. Almost as annoying as when your best friend just starts dating somebody and has to tell you every single goddamn detail about their newfound love. As an acolyte, you're justified in your psycho devotion - if somebody can really break down part of that big scary Paradox of Improv, then they have given you a huge gift that you should share with as many people as you can. If you feel better about what you are doing because of their coaching, they are setting you on the right path. Why not share the answer? Joe Bill. Love him, love him, love him. There's lots of other giftgivers out there - and not just in improv... WHAT I LEARNED TODAY Maggie's Observation: There's a lot of gossip in any community. Improv's no different. Don't give in and join in on the rumor-mills. Improv's not about spreading stories, it's about finding the funny. It's hard to resist, and impossible to eradicate, but don't contribute your own two-bits. If you've got to do it, find a person outside of the community to spill your guts to. They won't find it very interesting, cuz it's really not very interesting. God, I sound really preachy. Fuck it, go talk about somebody behind their back right this very instant. I'll wait..... Done? Good. Feel better? Probably not. Required Reading: "The Devil and Billy Markham" by Shel Silverstein That's all I have to say about that. SIDEWALK CRACK The Sidewalk Ends had our second show at IO last Thursday. A bizarre little set... our suggestion was Hollywood and we ended up with scenes about pornography, obsessed Star Wars fans and gnomes. I have an annoying habit of wanting to laugh with the audience at my scene partners which surfaced that night as Allison Bills and I did our gnome bits. There's just something about lisping gnomes in show business... I think we all felt that our first show was more funny, but it was a solid performance and we did get some laughs out of a really small, low-energy audience. Not that you can ever blame an audience for not being into a show - they paid good money to see something entertaining, and if they seem dead, it's more than likely because what they've been shown on stage is pretty dead too. Most of the tension of the team seems to have been expelled, though we had an awkward rehearsal on Sunday. Half the team showed up on time, our coach was 45 minutes late and the others weren't there - a huge fuck you to those of us that did scrape our asses out of bed at 8am on a Sunday morning... TWO DOZEN YEARS Is how old I am now. My birthday was on Saturday. I'm feeling pretty old, but I know I'm still quite a young pup as far as everyone else is concerned. I took the celebration crap in my own hands this year, since I seem to have one of those summer birthdays that everyone forgets about... Many thanks to Jason Chin for sharing some of his birthday cake and pie with me after my box office shift at IO on Friday night (Cancers stick together, what can I say...), to Shaef and Dan for buying me WAY too much beer on Saturday, and to everyone who hung out to watch Co-Ed Prison Sluts and Screw Puppies. It was a treat to see the Annoyance shows - my first time to see Mick Napier in something other than Armando Diaz and Bumper Carroll's first time to do Screw Puppies as well... Bumper is a funny, funny man (who got pimped by the Annoyance crew every second he was on stage... hee hee) - love him. THE PLAYGROUND I had an audition on Saturday for the Improv Incubator program at the Playground. The audition was fun, I got to play with some people I'd never met before, it was very laid back and easy. Special birthday present for me - I made one of the two teams they pulled together with some of my IO partners in crime - George Dickson & Jay O'Connor. We meet tonight at the Gingerman to discuss things. Honestly, I don't need more stuff to do in my life, but I really want some more stage time - I'm sort of addicted to performing. Much better addiction than say, heroin. BOOZE Improv people drink a lot. I drink a lot more now than I ever did, even in college. Not to say that all improv people are alkies... AMUSEMENT Even though it was a bazillion degrees and I was starting to doze in class on Saturday, I still got my Joe Bill lesson for the week - Everyone has insecurities. Turn your insecurity into amusement on stage. If you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation or character, have fun with it. I can't play happy people on stage. They turn into stupid bimbos, which I guess is what I equate "happy" into... I tried to amuse myself with a happy character in rehearsal (especially since I was in a pretty black mood due to the late coach and teammate issues) and played a rather dreamy girl that desired everything that I despise. Mike Bertrando said it seemed that there was some sarcasm, but I had fun with my lines... I wonder if this amusement plays out in real life... I'm pretty insecure in big crowds. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY 1. Being late is a sucky thing to do to other performers. Being late to work is an entirely different ballgame, unless of course, you're an actor. 2. Audition more. Even if you don't get the part, it's great practice and you'll meet lots of nice people. Required viewing: JTS Brown, Thursdays, 10:30pm That's all I have to say about that. CAGED IN I played my first Cagematch on Friday. Because of the holiday weekend, the usual Champion/Challenger system wasn't going to work, so Jay O'Connor scrapped together some teams for shits and giggles. Mine included T.J. Jagodowski (Second City Mainstage) and Christina Gausus (a bazillion things, but JTS Brown & Road Show, pop into mind). Needless to say, I was a bit intimidated and spent the majority of my time thinking, "What the hell am I doing on stage with these people?", which resulted in some pretty crappy scenework on my part. A good experience, nonetheless - we tied the other team (made up of various teachers from IO and members of the Fandom Menace cast). IMPROV OVERLOAD Should have really been the name for my weekend. I'm slowly surrendering more and more of my life to this artform. I'm not complaining. Just observing. Soon I'll be living on the orange vinyl couch in the Del Close Theatre, as long as Gracie's not around to kick me off . My problem with the overload is that I feel sort of mind-wiped when it comes to any ideas about my own personal scenework and characters. I'm at the point that I don't want to talk about improv for a while - I'd give anything for a conversation about anything else. Enough of my bitching... highlights of the weekend included Georgia Pacific's set on Sunday night (complete with Joe Bill & T.J.), Susan Messing's Fourth o' July party and "Inside the Improv Studio" with Tina Fey. 1776 was a great time. Hearing everyone sing is a much better 4th of July show than watching a bunch of fireworks. Jason, I know you don't want to commit to anything this far in advance, but it would be very cool to turn the reading into an annual event. For those of you who missed out - Dave Hill has a voice that could melt butter. Kristin's in love, Dave, so watch out... WITH AND AGAINST Listening to Tina Fey talk about improv and sketch comedy was refreshing. It's nice to hear a successful woman address things in an otherwise "boys club" environment. Not that anything she said was any different from what men have said about the subject... It's nice to find out about other's experiences and compare them to your own, where you're at and whatnot. Required Reading: Donna Foulk, Glamour Queen That's all I have to say about that. A BOOK CAN TAKE YOU ANYWHERE Yeah, that's right. Everybody should read books and newspapers. I know your mom and your teachers have tried hammering that shit home for years, but it's true. I recently rediscovered reading when we lost our cable TV in the moving of apartments. Reading makes you think. Thinking makes you interesting. Being interesting makes you popular with your friends. You see, it's really just a three step process to winning friends and influencing people. It's really hard to start reading again if you haven't done it in a while... my brain hurts. WHERE'S THE WHIPPING BOY? The Sidewalk Ends had our third show last night. Thankfully, we survived our first schedule relatively intact, even though we haven't rehearsed in a while (ahem, Mr. Coach. Get yer ass out of bed on time...) and we're a team member or two short. Our suggestion was "I love you, Bob" and I ended up playing an obsessed stalker character with Joel Grey as the unwilling recipient of my affections... we typically have really fun scenes together. The show stayed in the strictest Harold form we've ever done, which was good as it gave us a roadmap to follow. For those of you that don't know what a Harold is, it's a long form improvisation composed of an organic opening, three scenes, a group game, three scenes (typically second beats of the first group of scenes), a second group game, and finally some kind of closing beat(s) to the previous scenes. We got good feedback, and have decided to drop our "slave name" for something new. Allison Bills is very infatuated with "Where's the Whipping Boy?" as Brian Paruch of Q101 (known as the Whipping Boy) was supposed to be on our team, but we all kind of feel it's too long. SCENIC DETOUR I've hit a brick wall. It happened to me in my design work as well. I've just come through the phase of learning where everything is fun and exciting and new to hit the big brick wall of WORK, WORK, and more WORK. Improv isn't as fun anymore. It's a lot of hard work. The only way to improv well is through lots of hard work, as I'm not one of those naturally blessed people who pull funny from out of thin air without even thinking. My scenework and characters need a lot of improvement. I've got a laundry list of things that coaches and teachers have said to work on. Maybe that's why I'm feeling so funky. Bleah. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY Really it should be, what I learned this weekend... 1. You can build an entire scene around the word "poo". 2. Always watch where you're walking. There's some really big holes in the ground that you can't see in the dark. 3. Don't drink a lot of coffee at 2am. You won't fall asleep until 9am. 4. The Minions of Love are an aquatic act. Required Reading: Hipster of the Apocalypse - home of Dan Telfer's rantings That's all I have to say about that. THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL Or improv. Though it might be easier if there was. Got really fucking frustrated with myself this weekend as I feel like a mildly retarded third grader in all of my improv classes/rehearsals. It's mainly me being hard on myself, but I don't feel like I'm "getting it" and I judge myself rather harshly. The fabulous Mr. Bill seemed to sense this in my Annoyance class... and went out of his way to be supportive and complimentary, but sometimes you can tell when people are just trying to be nice. That made me even more depressed and upset. Then I spent my evening interning at IO where everyone seemed to be REALLY curious about my progress in classes. Maybe I was just sensitive to that shit, however. I don't know. It made me sad. Sad, pathetic, frustrated Megan. LECHEROUS RETARD was the name of my Playground team. We're looking to fix that as everybody seems to not like it, including our coach, Mark Henderson, who was responsible for the working name in the first place. We had our first rehearsal last Monday night and I felt really good about the team. Mark's a good coach. He knows how to make us feel good about what we're doing and at the same time give us some constructive notes. Looking forward to our second meeting tonight... it's such a varied group - we have seasoned actors, people working their way through the various improv training centers and brand spankin' new players with little experience whatsoever. Adds interesting dynamics to the group, unlike my other teams where everybody's at the same place... Required Reading: It's summer. Go outside. That's all I have to say about that.
6/23/99
I've been doing a lot of puttering about the web as of late, and I've run across several journals that various directors have kept of their experiences in developing their different shows... I thought it might be interesting to attack it from a different point of view, as I'm developing myself as a performer. It's not the most original of ideas, I must give Mick Napier and Jason Chin all the credit (thanks). I'm going to throw this stuff out there and hopefully it will make some sense...
Mick Napier's Paradigm Lost Journal
The Book of Jason
6/28/99
I survived my weekend. It was a long one, chock full of improv and people and stuff. Not much sleep, however... I fear the rest of my week to be the same way.
At the Improv Olympic (3541 N. Clark Street)
Admission: $7, or $5 if you've seen the Harold show downstairs
7/6/99
What an insane week... Kristin (my roommate) and I moved into our new apartment. It's a huge mess, but getting straightened out a little bit more each day. Our newest problem: we have a really big coachhouse and hardly any furniture. It's quite empty looking, but the cat's having a field day running around.
7/12/99
Ack. Pheh. Bleah. I've been in a funky funk all week. Too many changes in my life lately, my body and mind are having problems coping. I just moved, I'm currently in search of a more fulfilling job, I'm trying to learn to be funny. This effects sleeping and eating habits.
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (you could find it at
your library or if you're rich you could buy it from Amazon.com)
7/19/99
Remember that brick wall I talked about last week? Well, I smashed headlong into it this past weekend. It hurt like hell.
