I hit a bunch of the shows this weekend at CIF... Annoyance Theater, Friday, 8pm: I ran into Joel Grey and we checked out the first Showcase show of the evening. Our house guests, Ari Voukydis and Betsy Stover from New York, were performing with UCB's Real, Real World, so I figured I'd watch their show. The audience was a completely different feel from the Mainstage crowd - a lot of non-improvisers and fans of the out of town groups - odd to see at an improv show. I'm used to seeing more performers than non-performers, but perhaps that's just the kind of group the Playground and IO tend to pull. Yellow Man Group - I remember these guys from the Summer Intensive program over at IO. They are some of the best performers I've ever seen - highly committed to what they're doing, high energy... that kind of high school cheerleader feel to them. I give them a tremendous amount of credit for improvising in English and trying the kinds of games they did outside of their native tongue. Japanese isn't a language that easily translates back and forth to English, and their English - to - Japanese game was very impressive. It might just be me, but I really enjoyed the references to Japanese culture that they threw in - like their use of Kabuki theater as a scene style. It's different from what we serve up here on Who's Line is it Anyway? I almost wish that they had done some of their improvising in Japanese and let us just watch - a lot of things translate well just from the actions, expressions, and tone of voice people choose to use. It's obvious that they are talented improvisers, but the improv part of their group is stifled by the language gap. Their tremendous stage presence and energy outweighed this awkwardness, however. Showmanship goes a long way. The Real, Real World - The show got the same comment from a lot of people, including myself - Tremendously talented cast, tremendously restrictive form. The concept is good, but the "director" of their show lays on every situation and every monologue, down to the conversations their going to have and the subjects of their confessionals. It's a shame, too, because from what little improvisation the cast gets to do you can see that they are an intelligent group that could come up with some really interesting scenarios. Of note - the improvisers playing Clive (didn't catch his real name), Leviticus (Rob Riggle), Nancy Drew (Betsy Stover), Guiliani (the actor is a spitting image of the New York mayor) and the slew of "swing players" that provided support work throughout the piece. Sheila - The best group of the evening, including the 10pm show. A highly gelled, cohesive ensemble that plays smart, hard long form improv. They don't pander to the audience with bits, unlike a lot of Chicago style improv. Good callbacks, smart moves, highly developed characters. I've seen them at the Playground before, they are consistently excellent. The one aspect they don't bring to the Playground - the two man guitar & percussion "band" that plays incidental music and does sound effects and support work behind their scenes. It cast a very cool "Shadowy Men from a Shadowy Planet" thing on their show. Annoyance Theater, Friday, 10pm: I hate to say it, but I wasn't really that excited to see this, especially after sitting through the first two hours of improv at the earlier Showcase show. The Playground Bullies, the conglomeration of the five ensembles that applied for the festival, had the final spot and girlfriend duties and home theater pride dictated that I would stick around. Schaefe and Jason Chin joined me at the back of the theater where the comfy padded chairs were (my ass hurt from two hours of Annoyance brand folding chair) as the first ensemble took the stage. Improv Asylum & The Brody Theater - Two completely different ensembles, exact same reaction. How did these people secure spots in the Showcase while some local groups of real talent and quality are playing crappy fifteen minute slots at Improv Til Dawn? They both suffered from a lack of cohesiveness and honestly, acting talent. Brody Theater, thankfully, made an attempt at long form improv instead of playing the same short form games as every single other non-Chicago ensemble. You can see that there are a number of talented improviser in their ensemble, but the rest of the group really holds them back. The question, in my mind, is why these ensembles don't pick forms or games that better suit the talent of the group as a whole. Improv Asylum did a lot of singing games - which is excellent if your ensemble can sing. Unfortunately, only one member had a voice strong enough for anyone outside of the first five rows to hear. Brody Theater suffered from immature scenework - not blue or bad, but scenes that displayed a lot of beginning improviser mistakes and pitfalls. They did support work, however - so much so that anything going on in the actual scene was drowned out by the offstage noises or random pantomime (which Jason and I found highly amusing, but the rest of the audience didn't seem to find any humor in. We got a lot of glares from the people in front of us because we were actually have a good time.) There is hope for Brody, I'd like to see them again and see if my reaction is different. Fuzzy speaks very highly of them, and I really trust and respect his opinion of talent. The Playground Bullies - First, a short rant about the creation of this team. Five different ensembles that happen to be at the Playground applied to be a part of the festival. Instead of choosing one or two of them or denying the theater altogether, CIF decided it would be best if the Playground was represented as an "all-star" group, combining members of all of these teams. Great idea in theory, crappy in reality. So you've pulled the one or two most "talented" people off these ensembles and lumped them together to rehearse for two months. Expecting anything as good as their original ensembles is ridiculous. These improvisers don't have the time to really foster a group mind or come up with a unique form... it goes on and on. The Playground is founded on the idea that all the ensembles that make up the membership are self-governed and the individuals on those groups decide the fate of the team. If one of them wishes to apply to a festival they should be viewed as a separate entity from the theater. If every team applies, they should be judged on the individual merits of each group, and not have the festival try to include the theater as a whole. End of rant. The Bullies did a good job, especially considering the quality of the first two groups. It kind of fucked them over, since the audience was sleepy and bored - that's when the bits start coming out like crazy. They were entertaining, the audience did wake up and laugh - that's good as far as a festival is concerned. Doing ground-breaking improv is always the best, but being entertaining is definitely a plus. The ensemble had a lot of really aggressive improvisers, so some people got buried and some people were constantly hogging the stage, hence the less than subtle initiation halfway through the show, "He just won't leave". Thankfully, there are some responsible players in the group that knew exactly when and where they were needed - listening and reacting. A good showing for the Playground, but hopefully the last time we get blended together like that. My opinion - if Jonathan Pitts does it to us again next year, we draw straws and let one team take the showcase spot. Improv Til Dawn, Saturday, 10pm It's completely packed in the Turn Around Theater. When we arrive Don Hall is almost in panic mode as he has no interns, no Shaun Himmerick and no idea if the groups scheduled to play are actually present. The confusion dies down as the show starts... Oui Be Negroes was a huge disappointment, especially since it was their last performance in Chicago. I was really hoping to see them do a show, but instead I got to hear the ensemble tell me repeatedly that they were going to LA the next day. I got the feeling from hearing a lot of groups from the previous night, and seeing OBN that many people were pissed off about playing Improv Til Dawn. 15 minutes is hardly any time to do a show, especially if you're driving/flying in from out of town. Black Sheep had a really fast and furious jaunt that left a rather sleepy and bored audience (there are some not so good groups playing ITD) laughing and ready for more. They could have gone for a lot longer than their allocated time and still remained strong. Bare Essentials was interesting and funny - a lot slower piece than the previous groups had done, but quality nonetheless. It's kind of like watching Andy Eniger do Sybil - Fuzzy and Shaun play all the characters and have to run back and forth to their different positions. After an hour of ITD and a few more groups that weren't very entertaining, we left for the bars to conclude my festival experience with that age old improviser tradition - drinking, drinking, and more drinking. WHAT I LEARNED FROM CIF 1. Long form is so much more interesting to watch than short form. Even bad long form. 2. Next year, Jonathan Pitts should have a local ensembles stage to showcase Chicago talent, so singular groups from Improv Olympic (like Prefontaine or Georgia Pacific), the Playground, the Annoyance and Second City can actually show their stuff off to all the out of towners. We do improv exceptionally well in this city, why aren't we showcasing more of it at our own improv festival? 3. There is such a word as "sketchprov". 4. Matt Besser will show up for one inning of a Cubs game - no more, no less. 5. New Yorkers go crazy in Strange Cargo. 6. The best thing an individual improviser can ever do is take the risk to be in a scene and commit completely to it. The best thing improvisers can do is make every single person in their team look really, really good and support them like crazy. That's all I have to say about that. 5/3/00 I LOOK LIKE A DORK Matt Chapman's words, not mine. Since Mark was sick and Emily couldn't make rehearsal, Kissing George (or at least Fuzzy, George and myself) moved rehearsal to the Armando Diaz show for some watching of improv and good old fashioned team bonding. This was the first Armando I have seen in almost a year, and the first time I've set foot in the Improv Olympic in the last six months. The show was good, but not spectacular - not like the Armandos I saw when I first signed up for classes at IO. The entire cast, except for Noah and Miles (of course), is new from my last time Armando Experience and to be perfectly honest, a bit green. Don't get me wrong - they are all very talented improvisers who I have seen do wonderful things with other ensembles. They have some glimmers of really taking the form and running with it, but it's still not quite there. Former coach Matt Chapman was Armando for the evening, joining him as guests were Ali Faranakian and a guy from IO West who was very funny but who I don't know the name of. I like that John Lutz and John Mulhern are now involved with this show - they are very funny individuals in their own dark ways. I love watching Craig Cackowski play too - he's great at support work, he's got a really good idea of what his strong characters and choices are and runs with them. The strengths of the cast lie in the individual players and their own unique talents. Once these start to blend into a more cohesive group mind, Armando will be a force to be reckoned with. My problem with the show - bits, bits, bits. Sure they're funny, but they began to run over the actual scenework and destroy the really good stuff that was happening on stage. Miles and Noah should know better than to walk in to every scene with a wacky one-liner, and it's a bad influence on the rest of the cast because they always get laughs, albeit cheap ones. It's fun, but there's got to be a middle ground between scenes and bits. I remember one scene Mulhern and Miles did where you could visibly see the gears shifting in Miles head from "bits" to "slow" based off Mulhern's initiation. Again, this could be due to the relatively young cast and might get fixed with time. We'll have to see. PEACE I think I've finally reached a certain level of peace with the Improv Olympic. For the last few months I've been fighting it in my mind because I really disapprove of certain things and people that are an intregal part of their system. I'm proud of my theater, the Playground, and I think that there is more freedom and a better sense of what the artform is living there. That doesn't mean, by any means, that all of the rest is crap. I have friends that play on Harold teams. There are some excellent shows in the Del Close Theater. I have referred many beginning improvisers to give La Charna a call about classes. I've reached a point where I can just say fuck it to the bad stuff in order to support the good. Don't expect me to be signing up for the training center or interning, I haven't forgiven that much... but I certainly won't deny it's existence or it's validity. THINGS I LEARNED TODAY 1. Thanks to several people, I have learned a lot about dragonfruit. If you'd like to see the ferious fruit in living color, you can find it at this very odd website about fruit stories. It's in Japanese, but you can see the picture. Thanks to Kerri Miller for the link. 2. Ms. Bills taught me all about AOL Instant Messenger, and I fear it may be my downfall. So easy to talk... so many people to talk to.... so boring at work... You can find me at maggiep26, if you'd like to chat or vent. I like both. That's all I have to say about that. THE BITCH GODDESS, AUGUST Remarkably, I managed to miss a goodly portion of the Playground's anniversary weekend due to my extended, miserable cold. I heard the party was fun and the reunion show was neat. I caught the regular set on Friday, since I was house managing. Aside from a little off-stage drama on the newest Incubator team, Mr. Fancypants, the show was good and had a pretty full house. I can't say that I really enjoyed a majority of what I saw on stage, but that's mainly due to the fact that I desperately wanted to go home and try to sleep. Illness and improv don't mix. Highlight of the night was Inside Vladimir. I really like how their team plays. They have a dark innocence, naive cynicism and awkward grace about them. There is a theatricality in their scenework that you don't necessarily get from other groups. Sure, they can do dick jokes. They've been around long enough to understand the quick and easy ways to get an audience to laugh. But that's not very challenging, and they know it. I like the way Nicki Margolis finds characters that don't necessarily fit her diminutive self, I like the way John Mulhern and Chris Day will take the time to develop a scene slowly and deliberately, I like the way the entire group supports the individual choices of its members. I hope, in another few years, I can play as cohesively and smart as they do. TO QUOTE KEATS... I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the nature of art and theater. Why it is we do what we do and how it is important... They're thoughts that will be long in the making, to be sure, and I know I've probably touched on this before. Why do improv? It's the hardest and easiest question to answer all at once. Why do improv? There's a bazillion flippant answers. Why do improv? I believe that through improvisation we can create the highest form of beauty imaginable. The art comes without warning from the darkest reaches of our minds and lasts only moments for a few to experience - like fireworks or lightening. There is beauty in the connections we create as performers because it is not rehearsed or planned, but stumbled upon through our subconscious. It is more valuable than a million Picassos. A work of art can give only an individual interpretation and a general feeling. An act of improvisation creates a communion between improviser and audience; it is mutual. It is truth. Momentary, spontaneous, lasting truth. There is nothing more beautiful or valid in humanity than truth. It angers me when people, improvisers or audience members, dismiss improv as just a few bucks worth of entertainment. These are the same people that play music as background noise and put artwork on their apartment walls so that things don't look so bare. There is more to any art than entertainment. I firmly believe that we can learn about ourselves and our world if we just pay closer attention to that which we do on stage, if we give it more consideration than the occasional dick-joke, if we look to create beauty even in its terrifying and horrific forms. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all WHAT I LEARNED TODAY 1. I was born too late to be a part of the 60s counter-culture, but I'll be damned if that stops me now. 2. Mulhern, Mulhern, Mulhern - there, I've said it. 3. The people on YesAnd.com really need to lighten up. Required doing: The Hunger Site - This has nothing to do with improv. It's a website I visit every morning. You can donate food to hungry people just by clicking on a button. And it's completely legit. Made especially for the incredibly lazy philanthropist. That's all I have to say about that. MEMBERSHIP Kissing George got voted down by the Playground on our membership application. We don't agree with the process they chose to take in their vote or the reasoning they presented us with, but it doesn't matter. It's done. The fact remains that we have one less show than their member teams, we don't have to do box office, we aren't responsible for cleaning their theater and we don't have to show up for Board meetings. It kind of opened our eyes to the fact that we dodged the bullet on a bunch of added responsibilities and expectations. Sure, we lost out on membership. But we're not the big losers here... The Playground lost out on a group of dedicated improvisers who were more willing to work for the theater than a good deal of its "members". There is a lot of apathy at the Playground and a lot of lazy people in the membership. Membership has responsibilities above and beyond showing up and doing your scheduled performances. There are member teams that don't live up to the performance expectations and some that don't live up to their commitments to the theater. It's not the utopia it was set up to be. The theater has given me a lot of opportunities that I wouldn't have been able to get someplace else. I've brought a lot of my ideas and energy to the Playground... and I will continue to. I'm not a part of a member team... so what? My destiny in theater and improv is pretty clear, and it's not as a performer. It's spooky, but a lot of the things I now want and talents I'm beginning to develop put me on a path that is a lot closer to La Charna than I ever imagined... Everybody has a piece of the Playground, since it's a co-op, but some people have a bigger piece because of the things they bring to it and the work they do for it. And with that in mind - I may not be part of the membership, but I hold a much bigger piece of the pie. And I really like pie... so I'll be back for a bigger helping next time. REUNION I'm so so happy that Dennis O'Toole, my former teammate from Sidewalk Ends at IO, has decided to take George and I up on our offer and start sitting in with Kissing George. Rehearsal on Monday night was a lot of fun with both Dennis and Joe Burton (our other new sitting-in member) along for the ride. Friday night is our first show in about a month - also our first show in a really long time that's not First Impressions, since we really haven't had time to teach Joe or Dennis the form. We'll run wild and be funny. IMPROV FROM THE SIDELINES Along with giving a lot of thought to the nature of improv and why we do it, I've been mulling over my place in the grand scheme of things as well. I do enjoy performing - it's something that I've been doing, in one capacity or another since I was eight years old. I've always had just enough talent to be okay at whatever it was I was doing, but not enough to be really successful. The stuff I'm really good at is never in front of an audience and will never been seen by anyone. Things from the sidelines... I was always a better coach than a swimmer, I'm a much better techie than an actress - you get the point. It's something that I have to come to terms with - as much as everyone dreams of being in front of an audience, some of us are most useful off-stage, behind-the-scenes. I think I've always known it. Instead of pursuing acting in college, I chose to spend time learning design and stagecraft - because I knew that way I'd always be able to be a part of the theater. I wanted to work in TV and film, so I chose to pursue entertainment law - because, I reasoned, that's one of the only ways to make money in the business. It's not the road everyone travels, but I'm now realizing that's okay. There's less people like me in the performing arts, who enjoy putting everything in place so that others - the talented others - can be showcased. It's really different to look at things from the sidelines. FUN FACTS ABOUT MEGAN I learned too much these past weeks and most of it made me really angry. So instead, some interesting things about me: FUN FACT #1: Megan was a highly competitive synchronized swimmer for ten years. She opted to go to college instead of being an athlete. Sometimes she sees people she used to swim with or compete against in the Olympics or Visa commercials. FUN FACT #2: Megan works with dead people. She used to order them for the medical school, now she just works on the curriculum that uses them. She also used to order brains, which makes her kind of like Igor. FUN FACT #3: Megan has never had the chicken pox. FUN FACT #4: Megan can read Tarot cards. She owns four different decks, one of which is a voodoo deck. Fortunately or unfortunately, she does not know how to make voodoo dolls. So there you go. Weird facts about me. That's all I have to say about that. TICK... TICK... FAG. Kissing George played its first non-First Impressions show since we were still an Incubator group this past Friday. It was odd - Emily summed it up best afterwards: "I forgot we could do that. I mean, just be funny and have fun." Mark decided to sit in with us, for shits and giggles. I've always liked it when my coach performed with the team, though it was a little strange being in scenes with Mark since he knows a lot more about me than my teammates. I need a little time to switch gears back to the basic montage again - I like First Impressions because I enjoy finding the connections between the characters on stage. I need a more fixed and finite universe than the limitless possibilities of a montage. I just need some time. Dennis was great his first time out with us and I give him and George a lot of credit for running from their earlier shows at IO to make it in time for our slot at the Playground. Friday was also Mark's birthday, so in the great tradition improv celebrations, we headed over to Emily's apartment to drink some beer and drink some more beer. The festivities led up on to the rooftop of the building, which had this amazing atrium thing straight out of a Batman movie - high ceiling with big wooden crossbeams, weird stone gargoyles and a fabulous view of the city. STABILITY With the addition of a few new people to the team, Kissing George has finally reached a stability that's been lacking since we were first formed by the Playground oh-so-long ago. It's better, actually, because we picked these people, we already know that we like them and enjoy the way they play. It's so much easier than putting up with a semi-stranger's bad habits and feeling forced to get along with someone for the good of the team. Sure, I'm not best friends with everyone in the group, and I never will be. That's not how it works. The Sidewalk Ends was one of the most tight-knit groups (socially) that I've ever been around. We all hung out, but there were some people that you never really got to know. The beauty of improv is that onstage you can act like you've been the best friends forever. Keeping the ensemble together and moving forward is like herding a bunch of cats. Once you get one of them in the right spot and pointed the right direction, the rest of them have wandered off and are hiding under the bed or behind the coach, hissing and scratching. We've finally got the stability cat in place. Now we have a bazillion others to put in line. But the stability cat is the biggest one of them all... FU! I have to admit. I really liked the show. The fighting could be a little bit better, but they've only been rehearsing for a little while. Ron Sweet is excellent as the protagonist and he's really into throwing his body around on stage. It's a fun cast and they really have the spirit of kung fu going for them. I hope Auntie Charna decides to give them the slot... My only critique of the show is that it's a little man centric. They could use another woman or at least have their one woman do a little less girlie shit and a little more grrrrlie shit. LEGIT So I finally got off my ass and registered the domain name for Full Deck. If you've ever ventured off Sweet Justice and on to the rest of this site, you'll find that this is just my "personal" page. Allison "Opal" Bazarko and I started Full Deck Productions almost two years ago as a joke when we created a little cable access show called Twirly that aired indie film and video on Channel 19. Twirly is on hiatus, but the decision has been made to make our little joke into a legitimate production company. I'm the stage productions chica and she's the film goddess. Add to the mix Fuzzy Gerdes as our evil computer genius and self proclaimed King of shortform, and Mark Henderson, who will be doing something, we're just not sure what. Eventually these pages will be moving to a much more official Full Deck Productions site, but we don't have them there as yet. You can click the link, but there's just a helpful webpage from Register.com saying that we're coming soon. But you can click the link if you like, I won't stop you. THINGS I LEARNED TODAY 1. Jeff Griggs once touched the bare midriff of Sandra Bullock. 2. The correct ice to bathtub ratio is six bags for every one bathtub full of beer. Required reading: Any book by Chuck Palahniak. He's the guy that wrote Fight Club, and he's two others out right now that are equally excellent. That's all I have to say about that. SOME THOUGHTS More thinking about improv, of course. It seems I can't get away from it lately. I meant for this journal to be of my experiences with improv and it has splintered in a thousand different directions. I think that the same thing applies for my involvement with the art as a whole. Improv was a great jumping off point for me. It made me finally realize that my strengths don't lie on the stage or as an artist, but in the coordination of people who truly have talent. The people I've met and connections I've made I can only give the time I've spent with improv the credit for. Here's the thing: I'm tired of it. The current state of improv and what's acceptable as performance will only stretch itself so far. It's an exercise for actors right now, and in performance, nothing more than an excuse to do funny bits. There was much relief at the Playground when Kissing George showed up and did a montage at our last gig - "I'm so glad they dropped that form that they were never funny at". Being funny wasn't the point. It was never the point, in our minds. What the community is looking for, from what I've observed, is people that can do bits and get instant gratification from their audience and their teams. I can't do bits, and honestly, I'm not a very "funny" person. I don't fit the mold, and I don't want to. I like my team - they are truly a great bunch of people, willing to look at things from a different point of view. I enjoy playing with them. But I'd have to say my ambitions in improv end there. I'm not quitting anything. I've just given up trying. And I've given up trying to defend my ideas - I seem to be alone in the crowd. I guess that the original intention of this journal is pretty much dead. My journey and soul-searching as an improviser has finally come to an end, but the kind of end you get from a lackluster summer action flick - lots of explosions, little resolution, even less cohesion. I'll have more revelations and things to say - I always say that I'm done talking about something and have more thoughts several days down the line. The ideas I have about improv will not work right now, or perhaps, ever. I need to find someplace where I can explore what I have in mind - That's why I'm eager to start things up with Full Deck. It's something I have some control over and something that I know I'll learn a lot from. And most importantly, it's mine. It's my ideas and my experiments. I don't have to kiss somebody's ass to be a part of it or apply to become a "member". I can help people use and develop their talents to the fullest, instead of stringing them along or being used for their more immediate skill. I am not a patient person. I'm sick of sitting around waiting for the next thing to happen to the arts. You can't sit - you have to act. If you see something you think could be better, you have to go in and fix it. Waiting won't help. Del's been gone for a year now, Mick and the Annoyance are packing things up to go off and explore something new. There's no shortage of creative minds in this city or elsewhere - we just have to be willing to wade through the failures into somebody finds something good. Don't settle for the status quo, people. Expand the limits of what you do. I know I ramble and I bitch constantly. I'm disappointed with the complacency of things. I want so very badly for somebody to show me something to believe in with improv. Give me some truth, bring me something to feel about - hatred or love or anything. And for God's sake, DON'T TRY TO BE FUNNY. THE END IS THE BEGINNING IS THE END Don't get the idea that I'm going to stop writing. It would take a lot to get me to shut up. I need to let go of improv, not completely mind you, but as the answer to what I'm looking for. So here's my shallow reasons for doing it - It's fun. It's a nice to be on stage. It gives me something to do. WHAT I LEARNED TODAY You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need. Required Reading: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey That's all I have to say about that. I'll be in Jamaica all next week, so please forgive me for not attending to this site 'til then.
5/1/00
CIF is over, the Playground anniversary weekend is just starting...
Required viewing:
Postmortem (WNEP Theater Foundation)
Sundays @ The Playground
Admission $10
5/9/00
I have what seems to be the worst cold in existence. It's so bad that I finally gave in and went to the doctor for some medicine, which I really hate to do. Now I have codeine cough syrup, which is a favorite of mine. Ah... sweet codeine.
Why? Why not. Simple enough.
Why? Because. That's pretty easy, too.
But it doesn't really mean anything.
It's fun.
I like to make people laugh.
I'm too lazy to memorize a script.
I'm an actor and it's helps my scenework.
It's neat to be in front of an audience.
I want to be on Saturday Night Live, Second City Mainstage, Fill-In-The-Show/Theater-Here.
These still don't answer by question, and it seems that we should be trying to achieve something better than this. Something bigger.
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
5/18/00
Alright, I'm done with my little temper tantrum.
5/22/00
Countdown to Jamaica: 5 days... and no improv. A vacation's a vacation from everything, after all...
5/26/00
I'm leaving for Jamaica tomorrow at 6am.
