Affability

The major tenant of improv is "yes and". Initially this is an effective mantra cultivating acceptance, support, and collaboration. As performers gain experience and confidence the strict adherence to this philosophy becomes a liability for interpersonal communication and creative output.

Off stage the "yes and" credo can cause reticence for team members to speak up, stand up for themselves within the group, and voice personal wants or discomforts. This mentality can lead to a kind of stagnant apathy because everyone is thinking of "the good of the group" and doesn't want to "rock the boat" no decisions get made and problems get ignored until people are so fed-up they blow-up or quit. People make a lot of unnecessary concessions because they want to "yes and" their fellow performers/friends, going along to get along is prevalent. Being blindly agreeable is only accidentally beneficial, doubly so in a creative setting.

If something is bothering you artistically or personally you should voice it, do so in a calm and open way, I'm not advocating temper or slander, but I am advocating direct communication and letting concerns be known. "Yes and" does not mean do whatever someone else says, it means listen and collaborate, your personal feelings and opinions should not be sacrificed simply because they run counter to the perceived groups. Individuals make up a group and each individual needs to have a say.

On stage, after a certain point, the literal application of "yes and" becomes unnecessary. "Yes and" is an idea, a style, a mode of performance. There comes a point when actually saying it is no longer necessary and where doing so sacrifices the integrity of the performance. Recently I've noticed a lot of affable scenes. One person comes in with a point of view, an angle, and their scene partner is totally agreeable. And totally boring.

There's this idea that some players get trapped in, that whoever speaks first has ownership over the scene and they simply agree with whatever the person says. In order to build a scene, to truly collaborate and support, that other person has to contribute content. They don't have to say "yes and" they don't have to have overt(i.e. saying "yesyesyes") agreement, they have to "yes" the idea and "and" it further. That can be done through any number of ways- specific details, physical play, argument, emotion, back story, stakes etc. That isn't done by simply nodding at your scene partner and agreeing with what they are saying. That puts all the impetus on one person to invent everything about the scene and its boring to watch. Two people discovering and building a scene is fascinating, one person inventing a scene while the other person affirms their inventions bores me to fucking tears.

"Yes and" is a hard and fast rule when learning improv. But once learned it becomes mailable, it can be bent and twisted and tied and tucked. Once understood fundamentally its effective application is much more ethereal. Acceptance of others ideas(which does not necessarily mean accomdation of), honesty, and openess, these are the cultivated traits not blind obedience, assimilation, and passive agreement.

Groups are made up of individuals and individuality must be maintained and expressed. Only then can a truly cohesive and strong group emerge.

The Hague: Fin

After 8 months The Hague had our last show tonight. It was a very eclectic group and our time together fun and challenging. Everyone had their own style and more often than not we would come together, clash, and create something that worked despite the disparity of our different approaches. Sometimes it didn't work which is no rarity in improv. And when it didn't it was never boring, everyone on the team is strong, aggressive, and opinionated so our failures were just as interesting as our successes. Sometimes we were water and vinegar other times we were vinegar and baking soda. There were always surprises.

I don't feel any regret. For me the desire for the luster and love- the cultivating of a close knit group- faded after my first iO team FireCup. It's not as if we weren't friends but we were all, or at least I was, more concerned with the shows and the quality of the improv than with hanging out with each other a ton. I'm grateful for our time together and for a chance to get to know the people on the team I didn't and to spend more time with the people on the team I did. I took pleasure in most of the shows, pride in some, and I learned something from them all.

The two people that made the whole experience exceptionally special for me were Rich and Caitlin. Caitlin I've been friends with for over a decade and aside from one directing scene in college where I was Richard III and she was Lady Anne we never got to perform together. I consider it a great gift and something I'll very much miss, seeing her each week and improvising with her. The Hague gave us a chance to reconnect and get close again. Rich on the other hand I did not know. I knew who he was but we had no connection. When he was added I think we were all a little cautious. We had no need to be because although Rich is perpetually dry he is open. I loved playing with him despite, at times, his moves and ideas going directly counter to mine. It was frustrating but stimulating. He made me stretch. And he became a friend, not something I anticipated given his outward reserve and sarcasm.

Of course I loved playing with everyone else. I always love playing with Julia, James, Pants, and Ellen who I've been on teams with on and off for a couple years and it was a treat to be on a team with Mark and Dan who I had known previously only tangentially.

It was a good run and a good team. Improv can be fleeting and ethereal. Sometimes the teams are too.

Justice

Last night The Night Shift had a show at The Playground. Last Wednesday, tonight, and for a couple other Wednesdays in January we have a night with Yes Diggity and Squall, two other Playground teams. This week there were only two audience members and about half the members of each team so we decided to do two mash up teams instead of our three individual teams.

The first mash up team started off well- an established setting, an interesting premise, and some fun characters. It wasn't great but they were figuring it out. As the piece went on I noticed one guy off to the sides waiting, let's call him Doug. After a while Doug entered the scene and took over. Non-stop talking, steamrolling of others ideas, with no regard for give and take. Doug came on and it was apparent to me that he was judging the piece, figured it "wasn't going well" and had it in his mind to "fix it". That's a good instinct to have but how he tried to "fix" it was by talking over everyone, negating others statements and ideas, and by repeatedly calling one woman's character a bitch. This behavior is unacceptable.

In life there is rarely justice, I've talked about this before, but in improv there can and should be. Doug is a talented guy but his methods were not funny, not inspired, and made him look like an asshole. And there's a fine line between being an asshole onstage and being one off stage. That kind of improv is unacceptable and makes people uncomfortable, Doug needs to realize that. It is also on the other improvisers performing with him to let him know that.

When someone is acting like an asshole and treating people like an asshole in an improv show it is important that that person get their comeuppance. There's a fine and blurry line between the personal and the professional in improv shows and if we feel uncomfortable as a person in a show with what someone else is doing it is a valid feeling and we our entitled to act on it. In this show I was waiting for one of the other players to stop him, to call him out, to bring him down. What that looks like sometimes with people like Doug is talking louder than him. If he shouts- you yell, if he interrupts you- you don't let him get a sentence out without an interjection.

Sometimes you have to fight. Not physically or personally or off stage. But in an improv show if you feel put down or let down or called out or taken advantage of you respond in kind. Use your imporv, use your skill, use your wit. Turn the tides.

Take a stand.

Goodbye Gary

Tonight was Gary's goodbye show. It was really fun and loving and sweet. There were two sets with Gary then a series of tributes/bits for him. All the expressions of affection were very genuine and there was a palpable feeling of friendship in the room. That of course was off set by some gentle and not so gentle ribbing.

Gary will be missed but there wasn't a pervading feeling of sadness because Gary is an amazingly talented guy and there is no doubt from anyone that he will do well in New York. Also there is no doubt he'll come back to visit. 

A lot of things were said about Gary- how nice he is, how talented, and how fun. What I will remember most, Gary's defining trait in my eyes, is his fearlessness. I've seen him again and again in improv shows and with his sketch and stand-up engage in dangerous material. Stuff that seems almost impossible to pull off. I wrote about one of my favorite bits of his last year: No Guts No Glory. He has the ability to walk a razor's edge of controversial material and make the content funny and at times poignant. Recently Gary and Carmen did a frat boy scene about date rape. As a concept it should have been awful but some how they managed to make it funny and make a point. Gary constantly delivered fresh innovative perspectives on perilous subjects.

Every time I watched Gary there was an element of courage, of daring, and it is that which I'll miss most.

Good luck my friend.

The Improv Mind

The first couple years I performed I could remember every suggestion, every scene, every show. Weeks after I could recall in detail moves and characters and took great pleasure in holding on to them. At a a certain point my mind hit critical mass and I lost it all. I still remember some stuff and can be jogged into remembering more but for the most part most of it fades pretty quickly. I don't miss it, the recall, it seems fitting, my memory mirrors the transient nature of improv.

My short term recall has vastly improved. The holding capacity has transferred from the long term to the short term. In a thirty minute span I can juggle scores of character names, premises, locations, and narrative arcs. But the specifics dissipate shortly after the lights are pulled.

Being able to be present and hyper aware in a show is more vital than being able to reminisce after a show.

Sand

Brunlieb, Thomas, and Scott are the improv team Sand. They had a show last night at midnight at iO. It was a great show and the crowd was packed to watch 'em. It was one of those nights that happens every once in a while where friends perform and they are great and the audience members are all friends who perform and the energy in the room is full and positive and loving.

It had been a while since I had seen them and I think, for me, iO is the best place to watch improv. I don't mean the best improv but the best stages, the best set ups, and I feel the best in them. So watching them last night I enjoyed them more and was able to be more open when I was watching. What struck me was there form, their structure. It is relatively rigid or seems so- they do a monologue then three scenes with the person who gave the monologue, another monologue from a second person then three scenes with that person, a monologue by the third persons then three scenes with them then done. They called their own out and just took a bow without a light pull. What struck me was given the spartan simplicity of the structure they could stop worrying about form completely and focus exclusively on the characters which they are wonderful at, its their strength.

It just seemed so genius to me and almost like a trick, have a form so set and firm that any thought of it vanished- freeing you up. I enjoyed the show as an audience member and laughed my face off but also felt liberated as a performer watching my friends be truly original not as improvisers but from a longer view as theorists, inventing a new canvas, a new solo, a new way to play.

A great team, a great show, an eye-opener.

Two Things I've Learned

Tonight was a great night of shows and elucidated two things for me that have been percolating for a while. Two tricks or lessons or sign posts whatever you'd like to call them.

1. Pronunciation. Saying words in an odd way is funny. Not all the time of course but talking normally or with a little bit of accent and then every once in a while inappropriately stressing a syllable here or there or injecting consonants or vowels where there shouldn't be any makes people laugh. You set up expectations and then subvert them. It can also help discover character- what kind of a person would say x like that. Jeff and I had a fun first beat scene in the Schwa show tonight. We were two southern ladies at the race track fanning ourselves. We were doing accents, Jeff better than mine, and every tenth word or so I'd say weirdly. It got a big reaction, the audience loved the scene, and it started the show off at a good pace.

2. Trust. In improv classes and on teams trust is something you hear a lot about. "Trust your teammates, trust their ideas, trust the work." Which is all well and good, its a good idea but realistically difficult to implement. Just telling people to trust each other- people who may be strangers, people who may not like each other- does not bring about that bond. In improv as in life real trust must be cultivated and takes time. I trust a few of the people I perform with certainly not all, that's no slight on those I don't but it's a rare thing and should be. I'm comfortable with everyone I perform with, comfortable enough to try or do things that make me uncomfortable but comfort is not trust. I have to trust someone to do something I directly do not want to do, I have to trust someone in order to do something I think is a terrible idea.

During the Prime set tonight I initiated a scene as a fortune teller at a fair. I was calling for someone to come get their fortune read, I anticipated it would be one of the other performers. After a couple seconds Craig come out as my assistant and said something like "here's one! here's a girl wants her fortune told!" indicating a young woman sitting in the front row. I was stunned, I looked at Craig to see if he was in fact serious, if in fact he was indicating I should interact with this audience member, he was. In retrospect it's not that shocking, I've seen it done many times, people talking directly with the audience, but I've never done it and I've never seen Craig do it. I thought that it could be really disastrous and making that move could open the flood gates for a lot more audience interaction. In short I thought it was a fucking terrible idea and I did not want to interact with this young woman. But I trust Craig- he's a great friend, a mentor, and long time collaborator, he's never given me bad advise and I still frequently follow his example. I got down on a knee and began to read this young woman's fortune. Craig was backing me up and Brett and Sabine came out shortly there after. The young woman was receptive, excited, and played along. It went over very well.

I did something I'd never done. I did something I did not want to do that I thought would go badly and it went well and people liked it. I did it because I trusted the person that set me up for it, but trust is no common thing.

The Ringer

I've been performing with Andel, on and off, for about four years. Whenever I'm on a team that needs a sit in I always think of her first. She has a unique combination of edge and goofiness which is incredibly fun to play with. Her energy is infectious and doing a show with her is an adventure. She can be unpredictable but not in a disruptive way in a exciting-surprising way. Andel is one of my most talented, and certainly most experienced, friends. She has her own view of the world and her own style which comes out onstage as well as off. She's been a great friend to me since we met and any excuse I can find to share a stage with her I use it. Her presence seems to exponentially improve any show.

Andel sat in with The Hague tonight and we had one of our funnest shows in weeks. It started off well and took a hard right turn into gooftroupe fun about ten minutes in. For some context Andel is notorious about wearing sweatpants or workout pants or stretch pants for shows, rehearsals, basically all the time. For the show she was wearing these weird hip-flared, burgundy, MC Hammer type pants and a baggy sweater. In the first part of the show Mark and her were doing a scene and it ended with Mark saying "And what are you wearing?" A couple scenes later Mark and Andel are out together again, Mark starts to initiate a scene and Andel stops it and says "Wait. Mark, were you commenting on my outfit in that earlier scene?" Which got a big laugh. I was a little panicked but Julia came out and we transformed it into Andel's fantasy land with baggy cloths and bandannas growing on trees. We were all breaking a lot during the show and the audience seemed to really like it.

Whenever I ask Andel to sit in with a team she almost always says yes. The shows with her are always aggressive, energetic and refreshing. I know if I can get her to sit in it'll be a great experience. She's a great friend and an improv trump card. She always delivers.

Timing & Bits

Tonight The Night Shift hosted the 4th incubator night at The Playground. Nine teams played short sets- some of them themed, some essentially a protracted sketch, some straight up classic prov. It was a fun night as it always is, a little rowdy but not overly so.

Each group had a limited amount of time and revealed some instances of varied comedic timing. There are two types of comedic timing- 1. the rhythm of a joke, when you pause/when you speak, the cadence of the punch line 2. the awareness of when a joke or bit has run its course. They are both equally important however it seems like a disproportionate amount of improvisers have the first ability not the second. I'll borrow from one of my favorite authors Jonathan Lethem and call the violation of this second kind of timing tugboating.

Desperado had a really fun set, what was essentially a protracted high-energy Taco Bell commercial. The team danced around to Simply The Best and threw out tacos to the audience. They ended their set by getting a suggestion and then taking a bow. They had ten minutes they only used five. They presented the bit, they executed the bit, they ended the bit. Simple, concise, fun.

Ghost Car did a pseudo-planned murder mystery where people died one by one and the killer delivered an outline to the audience(I'm wish I could remember it). They asked me to play the SNL outro music after and they all got up and hugged and congratulated each other like they do on the show. I let it go a minute or so then gave them a slow fade. Total probably about six and a half minutes.

The other improv sets had varying degrees of success. Mostly because of this ability to look at the set as a whole while inside it. How long are the scenes, what purpose do they serve, and how quickly or slowly are we approaching a conclusion given what has gone before.

The set before ours was a mash up of a couple teams and random performers some of whom are perpetual tugboaters. (It's not an insult, Joey Romaine the funniest guy I know is a tugboat.) The set started off fun and went quickly meta which with mostly performers in the audience audience can get a lot of traction. The set ended with the lovely Tim Joyce dancing with finger lights and singing. I pulled the lights and got down to do our set. Molly came on stage to introduce our team but someone from the mash up decided the set wasn't over and tried to delay ending by initiating the normal iO ending to a show, Freeze. Whether the intention was comedic or deliberately antagonistic toward my team it was ineffective on both counts. It was awkward and there was a brief sense of hostility, deliberate or otherwise, that has no place in a celebratory night of comedy and community.

It passed and we did our set, brief and to the point, the highlight of which was Damian coming onstage halfway through and getting a standing ovation.

The lesson: see the ending, feel it, and close. Don't wear out your welcome. Don't tug the boat.

Take The Note

Tonight I did something I hate. I denied Jamison's note. Jamison was giving The Hague notes after our show tonight, he was talking about our first game, James came out and did a handstand with his feet on the back wall and said "I'm a lawnmower" we slowly built the game around him, found it, and had some fun. A scene or two later I made a move to put Pants in a scene with a lawnmower by tagging out James and pushing forward a chair making the chair the lawnmower.

Jamison's note was a good one, when James makes a strong physical and declares "I'm a lawnmower" we should go out and support him by matching him. The game came together but it came together slowly, it was a bit tentative, and only Ellen matched him physically by doing a handstand with her feet on the wall. His next note was to me although he didn't call out me specifically. He said that since we've already set up that someone doing a handstand is a lawnmower we shouldn't switch it up and make chairs lawnmowers, use what we've already done.

For whatever reason, pride mostly, I took umbrage with these notes I felt like they were unfounded and unimplementable. I spoke up because in my mind I was right and he was wrong and I needed to say that. I said I wasn't physically able to match James's physical as a lawnmower in the game and logistically couldn't make the move of Pants doing a scene with a lawnmower unless I used a chair because it would have been too messy of an edit. After I said this in a very righteous tone it effected the dynamic of the rest of notes. I regretted it immediately.

The coach is there to give notes, that's their job, all they can share is their opinion and what they saw. Let them do that. If you don't agree simply don't take the note, ignore it. There's no need to defend your performance and nothing will come of it if you do. The coach isn't saying "you did this wrong" they are saying "this is what I saw" in Jamison's case and I think with almost all coaches there is nothing personal in whatever observations are made. No one thinks less of anyone else because of the content of a show or the way it's executed. I took it personally when Jamison said those things so I felt the need to set the record straight-totally unnecessary and counterproductive.

I apologized to Jamison right after and hope to never negate a note again. I may not agree but I won't actively disagree.

Shut up and take the note.

A Packed House, A Silent House

Tonight was a fun, odd evening of shows. There was a great crowd for Schwa because it was a new team's first show- Sonis. They had a good show, it was nice to see my friends Ryan and Ben on the cab stage, although it was a tad nerve infused as new shows tend to be.

There was nine of us for Schwa and because someone started saying "nine!" in a German accent we decided to do something German inspired. I flippantly suggested German expressionism, one of my favorite theater styles I studied in college, and everyone jumped on it even though it seemed Jeff and I were the only ones who actually knew what it was.

Our set was very weird and presentational. Lots of melodramatic pronouncements directed at the audience interspersed with scenes about death and futility. We at one point went through the nine lives of Danny's wheelchair bound character Donny ending with a chess game with Death. It was a lot of fun and a nice challenge to play within a certain genre. The audience dug it I think, they seemed on board and into all the bizarre transitions and content.

The Prime show afterwards was a different story. There were only about 8-12 people in the audience, not unheard of but relatively rare for our slot, small crowds have never really bothered me especially if I'm playing with people I love. We almost always win over small or reticent crowds because we play with an energy and volume that fills the room. Tonight was a rare exception.

After the first minute or so of the show we started ramping things up and gaining speed, doing fun physicals and playing multiple characters. I was having a blast and noticed laughs from time to time, not a lot of them, but I didn't think anything of it. When the lights went out and our show ended there was a thunderous silence. A good five seconds of no applause, no nothing. It felt like a full minute. Shock hit me in the face. Eventually there was a smattering of pained applause, we took our bow and got the hell out of there.

I found it kind of absurdly amusing. It was not as if the show was bad, it was in fact good, we put a lot of energy in it, so it was just the night or the crowd or the cold front that settled in. It was a nice reminder that most things are out of my control. I had a great time with my friends and that is all I can do, no sense in dwelling on it, just an interesting anomaly, another experience. Brett was the most bothered by it I think. He's one of those guys that is just so naturally funny, that audiences just inherently love, that he's use to getting laughs all the time so when he doesn't he's mystified.

It was a great night that ran the gambit, from energetic excitement to aggressive muteness.

Chance

Natalie and I did our two person show last night at Comedy Sportz after two years in discussion: Chance. Natalie and I got close when we were put on my first, her third, harold team together at iO together FireCup. We had a lot of chemistry on stage and were fast friends off stage. Since the team was cut we haven't been able to see each other as much or perform together at all but our connection hasn't weakened.

Natalie has been organizing a night at Comedy Sportz on Wednesdays and she slotted us last out of four teams. The show started off with almost no audience save for the performers. As the night went on about 20 or so random people came in off the street, young but not a savvy improv audience. I became a little nervous for three reasons. One because I've only performed at CSz a couple times and I'm not entirely comfortable there, two because the people that had come in were talking and kind of drunk the type of people that could get out of control rather quickly, third Natalie and I hadn't performed together in three years, stylistically we've both changed a lot and I wasn't entirely confident on how we would fit together.

We started our show and it was great. Smooth. The crowd loved it, we were challenging each other and having fun, it flowed. The chemistry we use to have was still there and was just intesified because of how much better each of us has gotten in the years since sharing the stage.

It felt natural. It was like going home.

Sisyphus

Recently some shows I've done have felt like a lot of work, unpleasantly so.  People not on the same page, at different energies, with divergent points of view coming together like pieces from random puzzles. I've felt I have had to expend a disproportionate amount of effort to clarify a scene or make it work or help move a piece forward. It's also felt like a struggle to have fun. I've spent so much energy trying to do my part in holding a show together I forget to have a good time. It's a bad feeling and relatively mystifying considering it's all pretend and we're all doing it for free. It's frustrating. Feeling like this thing that is suppose to be fun and funny and energetic is an absolute struggle.

When improv works it feels great and its effortless. When it doesn't work its like Sisyphus. Expending all  energy, exerting all will, to move something that cannot be moved. Fruitless, desperate, futile.

But after talking to Craig and reflecting on it a bit I think it's more of a mental hole I've gotten myself into. The only thing I'm in control of is myself, in improv as in all things I am the arbiter of my own fate. I can have fun regardless of the audience or the differing ideas or opinions of the people I'm playing with. Ideally there is the idea of group mind and support tying all the players together but that's not always the case. Sometimes people are in funks, sometimes people have styles that aren't compatible. That's all ok. I'm responsible only for my own happiness, my own enjoyment. If a piece works or if a scene work is not under my control.

There's also pleasure that can be derived from the struggle. From exerting effort. From doing the work. As a performer it's naive to believe it's always going to be great easy shows, sunshine, rainbows, and unicorn ice-cream. Every opportunity has it's problems, every gig it's price. Life is a struggle. Art imitates life. Ups and downs, peaks and valleys. All you can do is keep doing.

Try again, fail again, fail better. Rinse. Repeat.

Goodbye Yolo

Yolo and her fiance Pat are moving to Seattle. Yolo is one of those people who I've traveled in the same circles as over the past couple years, developed a great deal of affection for, but never got to know that well. She was added to Schwa last spring and I was fortunate enough to do a handful of shows with her before her emanate exodus.

She has a sweet, playful, contagious energy which I will miss very much. She probably only played in half a dozen shows during her brief schtint on Schwa but in each one we did a scene together. Her last show and our last scene is the most memorable for me. Craig and I played brothers and Yolo was our prim, refined, tightly-wound, dignified mother. The scene consisted of her telling us to sit up straight, speak clearly, and be gentlemen while we pathetically tried to ask for a later curfew. It was effortless to do scenes with her and always fun. It's a shame she is leaving when we just started to get to know each other and get to play together but I'm grateful for the time however brief.

I wish her and Pat safe travels, happy trails, and a joyous new life.

When It's Good, It Feels Good

I was never an athlete or musician, I have always been a performer. I think I latched onto it at an early age because it was the only thing, out of the many things I tried, that I was good at. Every once in a while you find yourself in the those moments on stage where you hit a groove. Where things start happening without effort. You find yourself in an effortless type of flow. Athlete's call it the zone. I don't know what musicians call it. For me it's like being totally in the moment but also detached from it, floating above it, in actuality doing nothing and just being a conduit for something other. You can see every move, you can anticipate and feel every laugh, groan, and gasp.

My parents were in town tonight to see Deep Schwa and Prime. Schwa had a good show, the past couple weeks it feels like we've been on something of a streak, getting back in the rhythm of things, the cast fitting together. The show ended a little early before we could tie everything together but all in all a good show.

Craig was out of town in Austin and I asked Vince and Sabine to sit in with Prime. It's odd to perform on Sunday's without Craig because I always identify Sunday night shows as his shows. He is always a constant, stabilizing, joyful presence. I was nervous for the first time in a while. Excited to play with my friends who I don't get to play with and to perform for my folks in a show they had never seen before but nervous because I wasn't sure it would go well, without Craig I wasn't confident.

I've found though that nerves more often than not give you an edge- makes you present and sharp. The suggestion was Mississippi River and we were four southern boys heading down the river to get some revenge. The show was great. It was such a joy to have Sabine and Vince play with Brett and I. Sabine has great timing and is always good for a one liner or a seemingly effortless joke. Vince plays big characters and has the most phenomenal reactions. I caught myself a couple times just watching and appreciating Vince reacting to things. Brett was open and welcoming and was a great facilitator and instigator of fun in the show in addition to his normal quickness. The show came together in a very organic way and I think all four of us lost ourselves in it and had a blast. As the show progressed the audience got caught up in the infectious energy. Because of the holiday tomorrow it was a packed crowd and I think we all ended on a high.

It was a great show. One of the rare ones where you derive a great deal of pleasure from very little effort. It was the perfect show for my parents to see and I am grateful for the entire evening.

Thunderdome

Tonight I played in a mash-up as part of Carmen's experimental show Thunderdome. It was the first time I had gone to the show and it was really fun, had a very casual energy. Carmen opened with some stand up, a 5b team played, there were some sketches, and two mash-up groups. Carmen, throughout, was advocating people to take some risks.

I started our set with a potentially offensive Japanese accent. The piece moved on to Carmen setting Gary up to make fun of Playboy models at the Playboy mansion. And teetered on almost going to some place extremely dark when Gary mentioned school shootings. Tisher would have called the set "very naughty".

There was a lot of swagger and very little artifice to our set but there is something to be said for risk. We are all experienced and in order to push further, to make strides- you test boundaries. You introduce content thats dark, horrible, or abhorrent because you've never gone there or because you are testing to see if you can get the audience back after you've disgusted them. I don't think overt racism, sexism, or tragedy is funny, I don't find it humorous in the least. But I do think it's fair game subject matter to do comedy within and about. There's an amount of edge and guts involved that I love to experience and to watch.

Gary tags in and explains there's been a school shooting. And we all start laughing, not because there's anything funny about it but because Gary has the balls to simply put that idea out there. Inject our show with dark of a circumstance. I felt this feeling in my gut: nervousness, challenge, excitement. Again, not because I think its funny but because it's dangerous territory and danger can be appealing. I began to make a move to cut to that school shooting, act it out, be the shooter, engage in some kind of surreal kabuki tragedy- five grown Chicago comedians parodying the life of damaged and dead high schoolers. I hesitated.

The moment past, Carmen started a new scene and the show was done a minute or so after. I didn't feel particularly funny but I felt good, the risk made me feel sharp. Next time if someone brings up something horrible in a show, I'll go right for it.

Creative Well

After watching Blue Jasmine last night and being totally horrified I got to thinking about Woody Allen. The guy's got not more juice left, nothing more to say, when he's reaching for inspiration, for a story to tell, he's got nothing there to grab. Rich famous people, by necessity, have to become very insular, they don't interact with the world in their own way on their own terms if at all. Because of this I think they lose some artistic ability. It is unfortunate consequence of prolonged artistic success it becomes harder to create art.

This past year Quentin Tarintino said he would retire before he started making bad movies. He said something like- directors who have success continue to make movies after they have lost the ability to make good ones. Spielberg hasn't made a great movie in ten years. Lucas hasn't made a great movie in twenty five years. Tarintino himself hasn't started making bad movies but you can't argue that the movies aren't as good. Like him they've gotten fatter, soft around the edges. There's no as much bite to his movies anymore.

Not to say talented artists can't create good art once they've become successful but it becomes harder. They have to work harder, they have to keep striving to be original, to tell a unique story. Some artists have a deep creative well, some strive to replenish it with life experience or research, but some keep dipping the bucket in the same old shallow swampy well and come up with a bucket of mud and call it art- Allen.

The past week or so I've been feeling it bit off with my performing. I've been feeling a bit gray personally and I can tell it's effected how I perform. My well needs replenishing. You have to recognize those moments and do something about them. Fill the well back up. If you don't you're just going to keep creating the same old thing, keep doing the same thing you've done before, recycling something that's already been recycled- it just comes across boring and sad.

There are some artists who circle around the same couple themes and don't very their style. John Irving one of my favorite authors writes about similar things, has similar themes and plot devices. It works because he attacks each story from a different angle, the characters are vibrant and three dimensional and he usually has something incredibly specific he researches in depth about in preparation for each book(i.e. tattoo culture, red light district in Amsterdam etc.). Stephen King also uses similar themes, tropes, and character types. But his stories are original even if they share some of the same parts. His ideas are fresh if at times the packaging is not.

Everything is about balance As artists we run hot, we run cold and we even out. I think I'm at a point where I am evening out and I hope I'm on the other end of feeling stagnant. But now and again you need to assess and think about what you're putting out. Think about your creative out put. Is it thick or is it thin? Where am I finding my inspiration?

Fear 2

Follow the Fear. -Del Close                                                             Fuck your Fear. -Mick Napier

I got an opportunity to do the industry showcase tonight at iO. Meaning I did my five minutes of solo sketch for some producers and a packed house. It was an interesting evening. With this kind of audition type performance there's a lot of weird energy, lots of nerves, and it can get kind of infectious in a bad way. For the first time I felt not above it exactly but distant from it. Distant from the icky feelings and expectations that go with an audition with stakes(or perceived stakes) maybe because I was added last minute maybe because I'm better at taking things as they come and not playing the tape forward too much.

It seemed as if the evening was a success. Most people had good material and the crowd was responsive. I was toward the end of the show. I had some fear going into it but nothing that took me over, nothing that messed with my mode. Some general nervousness and fear of how-it-will-go I think can give you a little bit of an edge, a little gas in the tank. Fear of blowing a "big" opportunity, that kind of fear is poison. Placing so much expectation and need and desire into something like this is just going to back fire and make you hate yourself. This thing isn't going to validate me because I'm already validated by many things.

Anyway. I got up did my set and part way through I realized I wasn't getting many laughs. Material I've done before that's gone over well wasn't going over well. Stuff I'm proud of and think is interesting and funny wasn't getting much of a reaction. I had a split second of panic or more accurately shock. I was surprised I wasn't doing better. Oh well. I plowed through and finished my set and was done. I felt a little disappointed afterward, questioning why I didn't get a better response. Did I structure it wrong? Not enough jokes? Too edgy? Too sexual? But as I chewed it over and talked to Tisher about it I realized I did what I do. I presented my material well and if people didn't think it was funny or if it was too biting or untoward that's fine. There's nothing I can do about that.

It was a good experience and I learned a lot from it. I don't think I'll be getting a call from NBC any time soon but I took a shot and I did it with my material. No compromises, no impressions, no telegraphing of jokes.

Fear can take many forms. Sometimes it can sound like "I wish I would have..." or "I desperately want this/I'd do anything for that..." It can sound obvious or pandering. Fear is familiar, we go way back, and it doesn't bother me like it once did, it doesn't rule me.

Fear is something to be acknowledged and dismissed. To quote Will Smith:

Danger is real, Fear is a choice.

Going Blue 2

When I first started doing improv and sketch I never went blue. I never used sexually explicit language or situations and I tried to keep my swearing down to a bare minimum. Initially I did it because I knew it could be a crutch, something new performers use because they don't know what else to do. After a while it was a badge of pride that I never went blue. I looked down on people that did, I thought it was cheap.

Over the past year playing with Timmy and Stoltenberg on Schwa and seeing Holy Fuck consistently my thoughts on the subject have changed. And from time to time I find myself gleefully engaging in the grossest/sexually offensive content I can. Sometimes it feels like the five years I spent holding myself back from that kind of subject matter built up a lot of sophomoric creative steam which bursts out every once in a while. Coincidentally most of those outbursts occur during Night Shift shows and tonight we were in rare form.

We've been doing a mono-scene for the past couple months, meaning our 20-30 minute set is just one continuous scene. Tonight our show was six girlfriends on spring break in Cabo in their hotel room. It started off relatively innocent each of us establishing who we were- the religious one, the prude etc. We started off talking about hooking up with boys at the "Blue Men At The Beach" performance and making innuendos which became progressively less innuendo and more straight forward. The show took a hard right turn when Damian told us about the local "pussy ghost" which carries a lantern and hunts down other pussies. From there we shot into the inappropriate stratosphere. Afterwards I really wished we counted how many times "pussy" was said. I estimated around 200.

It was a real fun show and we were all possessed with this manic giddiness which can come with playing fast and loose with things taboo.

Going blue can be fun for the people doing it and can be really funny for the audience. The trick is not to do it too often, be original with it, and to throw yourself into it so hard you surpass surprise, hurdle past shock, and land on something totally new and titillating.

Experimentation vs. Perfection

I imagine there's a plane that describes artists much the same as the plane that describes someones political ideologies.

Experimentation---------------------------------------------------Perfectionism
(Left/Liberal)                                                        (Right/Conservative)

I think you can apply the idea across the board- music, visual art, performance, poetry etc. Some musicians study as many instruments as they can, others focus on one instrument, one genre of music, one composer. Some visual artists paint only landscapes or versions of the same landscape, some change their style yearly, monthly or weekly. You get the idea.

I've been thinking about this idea the past couple of days. When I first started performing in Chicago I just wanted to do improv as much as I could. I wanted to just be the best improviser I could be and master any form I was doing. Eventually I got burned out, spread myself too thin, and tapered down my commitments. The past year or so I've been fortunate to have been a part of some sketch shows and podcasts, broadening my creative output. Those different forms of performance, with tangible repeatable results are, in some ways, more satisfying. After being able to do some different stuff and having some interesting opportunities my interests have started to shift.

Now I'm no longer really concerned with doing things right or often but doing things differently. When I perform I want to surprise myself, my cast mates, and the audience. I want to experiment and challenge myself and I think I'm good enough to have the result be just as, if not more, entertaining. I'd rather go into a show with no idea or no form or with something I'm not comfortable with. Or just to have fun with friends and what can hinder that sometimes is feeling like the form or the energy is stale.

I'm trying to be a little more judicious with my time and my commitments because I'm not interested in doing the same old thing. I want to do something different. not different in that performance-artist-make-the-audience-feel-weird kind of a way but different for me.

I don't want to try to refine and perfect the things that I already know how to do, that's just not where I'm at and maybe never will be. I've always had a desire to constantly push and learn the next thing and push and try the next thing.

There's nothing wrong with being an artist content with the mediums in which you operate, I understand that, I get trying again and again to make the perfect guitar riff in D minor or to paint the perfect sunset over The Badlands or to do a perfect Harold. I get it. But I don't want that. I don't have enough time to devote to just one thing.

I want to taste the fruit on all the trees.