'Sup home skilletrinos! I'm all half-shaded and blue and faded (ergo I'm a bad mamma jamma). Revel in it. Maybe I ought to come to terms with the fact that I'm not a 20-hours-a-week blogger any more. Every blog wants regular readers, and every reader wants regular posts. To the three of you, my bad. I have to remind myself that my journey here is not to write an awesome blog and build readership, but mostly as motivation to periodically record my thoughts and experiences in the world of comedy, so I can look back on it one day and sigh. Fun!
Conservatory is going well... our focus right now is truth in comedy. The kaibosh has been put on space alien cats running a smoothie shop scenes, and Tim O'Malley is gradually plying us into performers who react authentically. It's surprisingly difficult to "act natural"-- it feels like when you get caught in a lie and you're just trying to be cool the whole time. "Where's the baby?" "Ah, yes, the baby... is... sleeping in his crib. Yes that's right." Meanwhile you're thinking to yourself-- "Baby? Oh shit!!! Why did you put me in charge? What does he look like? How do I just leave? YIIIIII!!!!"
I live a 5-minute walk from the Annoyance practice space. Love that. Here is the view from the top onto one of my classmates below. If that stance doesn't say comedy, I don't know what does.
I felt slightly out of my depths at Annoyance-- if there were ever a place where one was put directly on the spot, Annoyance would be it. When coming out from the back line to start a scene, the instructor caught me looking back at the line "asking" someone to come out and do a scene with me so he "punished" me by having me act out a scene all by myself, using Susan Messing's "Wake Up, Motherfucker" game (the improviser is "asleep", inhabiting a character as he does so. Someone bids that motherfucker to wake up and then the improviser goes about a morning routine as that character). I did a baby-talker with 4 little dogs who eventually puts a gun in their mouth (the other requirement of the scene was that one must die at the end). It was pretty fun, actually, and made me feel like there could be a one-person show in my future if I keep at it.
My apartment hallway looks like a mental institution. Now it is!
Truthfully, though, I'm feeling vaguely stymied, creatively. I think it's the beautiful weather coaxing me towards the beer and patios and away from the sullen glow of my laptop. The Gorilla Tango Theater is looking for proposals, and I've been thinking the time might be ripe for me to pitch some kind of a show. Variety sketch? Full-length play? One-woman show?? Whatever it is, there have to be prizes for the audience involved. I'm fully stuck on that.





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