A little closer to 42.

In light of my recent-ish grouchiness about being funny, I want to share part of a note I got from a friend who came to the Imp last Friday night. She saw the student show I was in, and stayed for One and Spite.

I enjoyed the laughter and the insights. I realized that I have begun sleeping again and also laughing. I think maybe I am really healing at last.

I don't think I'll be so grouchy anymore.

I still need to work in a milieu in which I don't have to force things, in which I can act from my heart and let the funny happen on its own. That's been very easy for me at the Imp. When I play from a place of love and joy, even if my character's emotions are mad/sad/"afrad," it works and it feels good.

High art and tragedy are still things I love, of course. So I'm getting my fix by stage managing an opera. It's called The Rake's Progress, and it opens a week from Saturday at KU. Gorgeous mid-twentieth century dissonance and minor keys. A Faustian story with tinges of the Cult of Celebrity. If you've never been in the presence of a human voice sustaining a high C, it's amazing. I wonder sometimes if there aren't chords and intervals that are real physical, physiological triggers for our emotions. Maybe there's research on that - but I digress.

The opera also covers my need for precision - but I'm finding myself not nearly so stressed as I used to get when every detail wasn't perfect, or finished yet, or otherwise what we hoped it would be. There's not much room in opera for ad-libs, but I think improv has been teaching me to roll with the punches and trust that the show will turn out fine.

I already love 2010.

I'm just feeling really good about things today. Hans and I saw in the new year at the Roving Imp last night, and I'm not the least bit hung over. I'm going back this evening for the TJ & Dave movie, and a couple more shots of delicious espresso. Hans will probably forgo the movie for some mad scientist time in the basement.

I have work coming up for the opera program at KU: stage managing "The Rake's Progress" in February, and building props for that show and "Werther," which goes up later this month. Yay! I'm using my education, and for remuneration! I'm still doing lighting changeovers at the Heartland every few weeks, and I hope to pick up a running crew gig or two at the Lawrence Arts Center. I don't see myself ever going back to full-time, with the sixteen-hour days and the nine-day weeks, but a little work keeps me from going crazy and feeling useless.

I grew up during the height of the Women's Lib movement, so it's pretty firmly entrenched in my brain that I should make some financial contribution to the household, even if we could get by, as we have for a few years, without it. After the opera wraps up, I may even look for something normal and steady-ish, like cooking in a restaurant. I've done that before, and it was fun.

I'm cutting back my improv involvement this year to more of a slow-growth approach. I don't have a deadline for whatever milestone is next. I don't even know what the milestone looks like. All I know is I was overdoing it, and the stress-to-fun ratio got way too high. If there are dues to be paid, as I'm still a less-experienced improviser, they aren't in the form of making myself unhappy, or taking bad advice to heart just because it comes from someone more experienced. I've paid 37 years of dues as a human being, and I owe it to myself to listen to my intuition.

Oh. It's almost 5:30, I need to be at the Imp by 7, and I'm still in pajamas. Gotta go. Happy New Year!

Back to the Tech Booth

You know, after Anomaly Orange's show tonight (last night, if you want precision, as it's early Sunday morning), I feel even better about my decision to tech instead of play onstage. The four players - Jessica, Tom, Zak, and Joe - did a phenomenal job, utterly rocking a new longform. The dynamic was strong and clean. Nothing was lacking. No sense of anyone missing - and no sense within me that I should have been anywhere other than where I was. A good show like that deserves a good techie, and I enjoyed what I got to do.

I had a mic in the booth, which is new territory for me in anything without a script, and I had an interactive role in two of the shorter pieces in the first half. I called the directions in Pan Left Pan Right, and in Bad Doctor (guessing game) I was the voice of the receptionist when needed for extra clues. I might have tried sound effects in the longform (I gave the players a heads-up), but the scene never called for them. We're going to play with that in rehearsal soon.

Back when I ran tech for Hype 7, I wasn't interactive. I didn't even take the edits, because I hadn't improvised myself. I took the blackouts when Matthew Reiss called "scene." I may have gained a good reputation as a techie, but when I saw what improvisers like Clay, Dennis, Guy, and Jared could do from the booth - well, it didn't seem that special to turn lights off and on!

Now I've been part of Anomaly Orange, played with them, built a rapport. Even if I haven't felt that I fit the playing style, we still get each other. I feel like if I start taking some risks in the booth, it'll work out for everyone. I'll have a new set of tools to support the scene, and if I'm the one who falls, I know I'll be caught. Nobody grows without taking risks - and I really, really want to hit that next level as a technical improviser.

I'm still going after my next level as an onstage improviser, I'm not dropping that track. It's a different learning curve for me. Sometimes you have to move around to figure out who you are. I was a little - okay, way up in my head for Coma Chameleon on Friday, but it was a good show (nothing against anyone else, but Justin Eifert was on fire!) and I did some good things, and it's going to get better and better.

Lightbulb

What's with all these epiphanies lately? I hope this increased rate of important-thing-realizing doesn't mean that untimely death is around the corner... and I'm just neurotic enough (and can't get rid of this cough) that I'm not entirely joking.

Anyway, I've been troubled by my apparent dichotomy of enjoying the practice of a performance-oriented art form, without really enjoying performing for an audience. That hasn't always been the case with me, though. I was happy to perform in dance, and I enjoy my Audio-Reader assignments (which range from obituaries to erotica). I still wouldn't call myself an attention whore - truthfully, I try not to call myself a whore of any kind, it's an ugly word - but playing for an audience isn't as unnatural to me as I was starting to think.

So, what's my hangup with improv? I love doing it, and it's supposed to eventually be done in front of an audience. Why wouldn't I want people to see me in a show? Is it the art snob in me? Is it my perfectionist nature, and the feeling that I'm still not good enough (after all, she said, tongue in cheek, if improv is to overcome its amateur, acting-exercise stigma, it should be done in public by the people most skilled at it)?

More the first than the second, I think, because I'm really not half bad onstage. I just haven't done much that makes me feel personally connected. These look-how-fun-and-energetic-we-are comedies... I'm a placeholder in those, a warm body onstage. I like finding important truths about the world. I like discovering beauty, revealing the poetry and music in the scene. I like making people think, maybe even cry, and if they laugh along the way, it's the spoonful of sugar that accompanies the medicine.

The logical extension of the feeling that I don't belong in the pieces I've played - nor would I fit in many other works around the community - can't help leading me to some uncomfortable implications, as well as certain actions that must be taken. Because the only time I think it would be appropriate to call myself a whore is when I'm doing something that deep inside I don't like.

~~~~~~
After all that, I hope you'll believe me when I tell you that I'm excited about playing in Coma Chameleon at the Imp! It's a bizarre, arty format that truly delights me. My first full show is next Friday, December 11 at 7:00 PM. I get a couple comps to the show, too, so let me know if I can hook you up.

I'm also thrilled to get back in the booth for Anomaly Orange, and I hope you'll make it out to see the show at the Imp on Saturday, December 12, also at 7:00 PM. The kids are playing a new format, "The Office," with special guest Jenna Fischer! Oh. Maybe not that part. But it's a solid, funny piece that I'm looking forward to watching.

Thankful.

Thank you, Hans, for alwaysalwaysalways being there for me, even when I'm crazy. Especially when I'm crazy.

Thank you, Mom, for the delicious chocolate torte, and the coffee, and for listening.

Thank you, Grandma Judy, for still laughing when I joke with you, and for letting me help even though it's hard after a lifetime of taking care of others, to be taken care of. And for sometimes reading my mind in that uncanny dementia way, because you've always known the thing to say to make me feel better.

Thank you, Susanna, for dropping our cold war when I really needed you, and nobody but my sister would do. I'm glad we're friends again.

Thank you, Dad and Valerie, for solid advice, ironic perspective, and fun times. I'll visit soon.

Thank you, all of my family, for your love. Thank you, David, Deanna, and Emily, for the way we've been able to work as a team in caring for Grandma.

Thank you, everyone who works at an elder-care facility. You are angels on this earth.

Thank you, Anomaly Orange, for being such a fun and familial troupe, for sticking it out through our growing pains, and for looking ahead with a sense of adventure. Thank you also to former Hypothetical Seven-ers with whom I was lucky enough to play.

Thank you, Roving Imps, for helping me stretch my wings and making me feel welcome!

Thank you to all the improvisers who entertain and inspire me.

Thank you to the knowledgeable and supportive improv teachers in this town. Really, what does Chicago have that we don't? (That's rhetorical; you don't have to answer it.)

Thank you, Lisa, for dragging me kicking and screaming back into opera production! Okay, there wasn't much kicking and screaming. Thank you, Kathleen, for giving me a chance after such a long hiatus from stage-managing anything with a script. Thank you, Shane, for the changeover calls - it really feels good to focus lights again!

Thank you, Shelly, for reminding me about the Pittsburg Library Sale, and for being my running-away-from-it-all destination for so long. Thank you for the books! And thank you for being the type of friend who can go a month or so without a phone call, because I tend to lose track of time.

Thank you, Julia, for landing back in my life, and for being the quintessential Chicago host!

Thank you, Pandora, for coming back to snuggle and purr. I was lost without you.

Thank you, Allegra, for somehow repairing your own endocrine system and sending your diabetes into remission. Good kitty.

Thank you, Mocha and Dylan, for the unpredictable entertainment you provide on a daily basis, and for keeping me safe from the pizza delivery person.

Thank you, people who care about the planet and act accordingly. I could do better at the "act accordingly" part... thank you for setting a good example.

Thank you, researchers, for looking for the cure to any number of horrible diseases from which I'd rather not die.

Thank you, everyone who doesn't go on shooting rampages, for not going on shooting rampages.

Thank you, artists, for holding the mirror.

Thank you, holders of public office who try to do what's right for our country and our communities. Thank you even to the ones I disagree with, when you do it from a sincere desire to do good. Thank you for not playing political games that turn citizens into pawns.

Thank you, religious people who promote love and tolerance. Thank you, irreligious people who promote love and tolerance.

Thank you, everyone willing to speak out against injustice and bigotry.

Thank you, friends who understand that every human has a few contradictions, maybe even hypocrisies, because it's a damn complex world.

Thank you, Leonard Cohen, for smudging the air with your song.

Thank you, everyone who adds beauty to this world in big or little ways.

Post-Festival-Season Personal Assessment

After a few more months of playing and navel-gazing, and the chance to participate in not one, but two local improv festivals, I'm getting a clearer sense of what I want for myself out of improv, and where I fit into the big picture.

I've heard a couple of people say "Every improviser is an attention whore." Bah, I say, to the idea that all improvisers are alike and have the same goals. This is about me and art and working together and discovery, and I still don't care if anyone watches. This, incidentally, is a very good reason to never put me in charge of publicity. And I'm not immune to disappointment in a low turnout, but it's more for the sake of the troupe as a whole, and realizing that I didn't do everything I could to get butts in the seats.

In both KCiF and ImpFest, I was exactly where I wanted to be. KCiF was a high-profile event that showcased people who have refined their craft and love performing for a crowd. Stage-managing, I didn't have to get out in front of a roomful of strangers, I just did what I do to help it go well for the people who do put themselves out there. I still got off on the show energy, still felt rewarded by the crowd response, because I knew I was part of the big picture. ImpFest was an intimate, performer-oriented event. Every night, a large portion of the audience was other performers. I got to play for the first time in front of some improvisers I really admire, and I don't think I made an ass of myself! But as much fun as I had playing onstage and watching other troupes, the high point for me was being in the booth for Brownies Don't Lie. There's a way I feel connected to a show I tech that isn't like being onstage, and isn't like being in the audience. It's like being part of the environment. I'm one with the theater and the show as a living entity. Thank you, Jill and Trish, for letting me be there with you!

So, I don't see myself striving to land in the top echelon of improv performers. I'm more comfortable in front of audiences now than a year ago, but it still doesn't feel like me. I still ask myself what the hell I'm doing, how I got here when I've never felt that my purpose in life is to personally entertain people. To create art, yes. To help others entertain and create art, yes. To speak directly to spectators, not really. Not in improv, anyway. Writing maybe, if I would ever get my shit together and approach it with dedication (did someone say New Year's Resolution, 2010?).

HOWEVER: performing goals and artistic-growth goals are not the same thing to me. I'm not personally satisfied by "eh, it was okay." I want to keep becoming a better improviser, and I don't believe that is inherently limited by a little dislike of crowds. (Neither does being a crowd-whore make one inherently talented: there are plenty of performers in the world who lip-sync to packed stadiums.) I'm the garage-band musician who rocks a house party now and then. I'm the painter who will never hang in a museum, but gives her friends exquisite figure studies and gorgeous street scenes. I know that shows are part of the package deal - if you'll allow me one more metaphor, a baseball player can't say "I'll play on your team, but only if nobody watches." So, I play the shows to stay with my teams, and to gauge my own growth by audience response, but they aren't my brass ring.


Bonus Rant: Daylight Savings Time is Bullshit!

Extra hour of sleep = nice, but only lasts one day. Farmers who need the extra light in the morning = mostly obsolete. Moving DST later in the year = a serious fucking-up of everyone's circadian rhythms. Two years ago, we went from dark-at-eight to dark-at-seven, and had more time to get used to it before the really short days. Now we're suddenly in the dark before six. This was a stupid, stupid move. We should be eliminating DST altogether, and sucking it up in the darker mornings with the rest of the world (and Arizona). Or adjust work schedules accordingly: don't want to drive to work in the dark? Work 9-6 instead of 8-5. Independent shopkeepers adjust their hours for summer and winter. Why should corporate schedules be so rigid that a whole nation has to pretend it has control over TIME? Who do we think we are?

Improv Boobs

Wait. No. This isn't about improv boobs. Improv boobs are funny, unnaturally large, unnaturally saggy, or unnaturally gravity-resistant. Improv boobs magically appear on players of either gender, and you can do anything to them without being creepy.

This is about real boobs, the ones attached to me, and the protocol of their onstage usage. It's about personal respect.

The boobs are my toys, and when I bring them onstage, I get to control them. I decide when they get to be played with, and by whom. My character might use them to offer comfort, or as a weapon. If your character discovers a reason to physically interact with them, you need to communicate that to me.

It's just like any dangerous physical move: slow it down and/or check in with eye contact first. Make sure I know where you're headed. I won't block you if it's what needs to happen (and if you aren't creepy and inappropriate offstage, which most people in KC improv thankfully are not)- and if I need to block, it'll be funny and the scene can keep going with minimal damage to the fourth wall. Don't sneak up on my boobs. Don't make a fast move from where I can't see you. And for fuck's sake, don't make mouth contact unless we're REALLY cool. There are, like, a dozen funny ways to get any point across without violating my personal boobs (and making me feel like vomiting for the next six weeks).

Being in a troupe or workshop together doesn't implicitly give you permission to maul my boobs. Even previous offstage joking concerning said boobs doesn't give you permission. The only long-term permission is a verbal discussion: "I trust you, and I'm cool with whatever physicality the scene calls for."

Finally, here's a tip for those in troupe leadership positions: if there's a boob violation between two of your players, and the one with the boobs is clearly not okay with it, don't brush her off with "You should have expected it," and then have a good laugh with the boob-mauler. That's like the judge who tells the rape victim, "You shouldn't have worn a short skirt."

Love Letter

To everyone involved in the Kansas City Improv Festival:

Thank you! It's been a long time since I've felt the energy of opening night, it's finally here, the culmination of months of work for the art we love, the moment the headaches were worth it, the we-knew-it-would-be-good-but-WOW! It's been a long time since I loved stage managing, and last night reminded me that the best part is helping a show run smoothly* with people who amaze and delight me. That's you, improvisers. That's you, Roving Imps, Those People and CounterClockwise. That's you, Dennis DuPont. That's you, Improv-Abilities. That's you, Jessica Robins. That's you, Pete Calderone. That's you, Tom Kessler, Bob Dusin, and everyone else who came to usher or help backstage. That's you, Sara Bossler, tech goddess of the Off Center Theater. That's you, everyone with whom I'll get to do it again tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday. Thank you for helping me find that thing I love so much, and missed more than I realized.

I'll have to save the rest of the gushing for a post-festival entry, because it's almost one, call is at five, and I have a few errands to run.

But have ya got six more minutes to share the happiness with me?



*Not making a show run smoothly, like I've said in the past. This is a new discovery for me. It's like a plant growing. All I have to do is gently guide it, stand by for the unexpected, and know where the first aid kit** is.

**Scott: take a flashlight next time you go exploring backstage.

Something I Learned in August

I have a long, lo-o-ong way to go before I'm the sort of improviser who can just walk onstage and be amazing. I'm not fishing, I'm not being down on myself - hear me out. It still takes me a lot of emotional preparation to get in front of an audience. That usually involves treating myself like a diva all day. I take time picking out my clothes, with attention to every detail. I stretch a lot. I try not to talk to people who stress me out. I even think about what and when I eat, as opposed to most days. And in general, I try to be calm. All day.

I also have much better shows on Saturday nights when I've gone to class in the afternoon. It's like two-and-a-half hours of warmup and burning out the suck. I'm a hell of a lot more focused on everything that makes good improv - emotion, relationships, listening, to name a few.

Anomaly Orange had three shows in August, and I had a class showcase at the Imp. Two of these went well for me, and they were the two where I (a) was able to go to class in the afternoon, and (b) was not running tech for Sketchy Thoughts. It was a fluke of scheduling that the month was bookended by Westport Coffeehouse shows that involved AO and Sketchy (and Kill The DJ, but Clay runs their tech). The first show, I don't think I sucked it super-hard onstage (Sketchy had tech the week before, so I went to class), but I made up for that in the booth. Screw-ups all over the place. In a scripted show, there's really no excuse. The second show, I mostly rocked the booth, but my improv before that was the weakest it's been in public in a long time. We'd been in tech all afternoon, with frantic last-minute adjustments. I don't think I even ate dinner - even if I'd had the time, my stomach was too knotty from the stress. I went onstage feeling unsteady and disconnected, and it absolutely showed.

I think what this indicates is that I use different mindsets for performing and tech, and I'm not at a place yet where I can shift easily between the two. So, from now until such time as I can get onstage without all-day prep, I will actively avoid having to do both on the same night.

For that matter, where has the past month gone?

Holy crap. I don't even know what has been going on for the past twenty-eight days. Oh, wait, I do.

First of all, there was some babysitting of my favorite toddler, Ronin. Several exhausting six-to-eight hour gigs. Oh, my, can that little girl shriek. Two-year-olds are totally bipolar. Everything's fine, then suddenly everything sucks and it's time to cry, and nothing will make it better. And then it's time to snuggle. It was fun overall, but also a good counter to my baby-related meltdown of the previous month.

Lots of family time, as well, mostly centered around the Nursing Home Tango. It's like playing goddamn musical chairs. You try to stay a step ahead, but it's impossible. We moved Grandma to a different location, one that specializes in Alzheimer's and other memory loss. It's... it's just weird. It takes a lot of emotional energy to be there.

At times it's a lot like improv. More and more often, it's pointless to deny Grandma's reality as she perceives it. The important thing, what really reaches her, is an emotional response. That's how to keep interacting, rather than going in circles about way too many factual discrepancies to list. An improv tool I've really noticed myself applying with Grandma (not even on purpose) is to respond to the very last thing she said. I like that tool in scenes. In this case, whatever was said thirty seconds ago has already been forgotten. The important thing, onstage and *cliché alert* in life, is the thing that's happening right now.

When Grandma was at the Atriums, several of the staff and a couple family friends told me I'm good with old people, and should work in geriatric care. No way in hell. I haven't got that kind of lifeforce. I'd slit my own throat after a week.

And then there have been shows. Westport. Lawrence. Westport again at the end of this month. Anomaly Orange has been busy. Note: I did not say I have personally been busy as hell with Anomaly Orange stuff. A little busy, but everyone in the troupe has been picking up more offstage tasks. Especially Brandon, who did an outstanding job putting together the Lawrence show. I'm learning to let go of a significant portion the responsibility. Turns out, it is not easy, but I ultimately have more fun, which makes it a nice diversion from all of the above, instead of one more thing to drive me fucking batshit crazy.

Ooh. Yeah. Still a little edgy.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

May I take just a few minutes of your time to tell you about a character I played, who I never thought I'd choose, and I never thought I'd enjoy? Of course I may.

Last Saturday in improv class, John gave each of us a personalized challenge for the French Braid we were about to practice. If you aren't familiar with improv (yeah, like I have any non-improviser readers...?), a French Braid plays three separate scenes in rotation, and with some luck, they often have a blatant or subtle connection by the end of the whole piece. Each scene is visited three times: 1a, 2a, 3a. 1b, 2b, 3b. 1c, 2c, 3c.

My assignment was to play a character who was bold, strong, in-charge, and male. I'm not going to speculate right now on why that character needed to be a man - especially as I've been drafting an in-depth reflection on gender in improv. The point is: as soon as I knew who this character was, he completely ran away with me.

I found myself onstage in 3a, with two other players who were beginning a support-group type of meeting. One of them had been given the challenge of creating physical oddity, so his character had a spinal disorder. I decided to play for contrast: inability to move my spine at all would certainly keep me in an upright pose that lets boldness come through. I'd missed the chance to be that scene's in-charge person, so I was someone who had been in charge earlier in life, and wasn't especially happy about not being in charge now. That meant I was old. And injured. And male. And at a support group.

Then I knew: my character was a Vietnam veteran. He had seen all kinds of shit, was angry at the VA, had been getting screwed for years. Finally those bastards sent him to a support group, with a bunch of hippie feelgood crap and ungrateful punks who had never seen the face of Death. I didn't reveal much at first in 3a - all of that dawned on me while the "group leader" spouted the hippie feelgood crap, and I simmered and grumbled to a barely coherent outburst at the end of the scene. (At least, I think that's about what happened.)

Scene 3b was my flashback. I didn't know that's what it would be, but I threw myself to the floor as soon as the stage was mostly clear from the organic edit, and whisper-shouted "Charlie, two o'clock!" My buddy next to me was going to get us killed because he kept popping up and making noise, and I did the only thing I could: pulled him to the floor, hissing "Get DOWN, motherfucker!" Until that point, I thought I'd pulled off a time jump, and the scene was taking place in a combat zone.

Then Jonah, my bless-his-heart teenage scene partner, popped up again, and asked "Who's Charlie?" Then someone walked on... asking for my vote, I think... and I shot him. "You can't just shoot people!" or something close to that, from Jonah. And I said, "It's my flashback, and I'll shoot whoever I want to!" So I shot everyone else who came onstage (all for non-combat reasons). And it felt like it worked.

Except for one thing: I don't know a thing about guns. I didn't even think about the details of the gun. I realized at the edit that I'd used the only gun I've ever used, and it's made of fingers. Dammit. Now I have to learn something about gun handling, beyond the basic pistol. I should probably also pick up a little military jargon, maybe watch Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket. I really like seeing military characters played with detailed jargon - Guy Maggio is amazing at that. I imagine Ed Doris would be, too... don't know of other improvisers who are vets. If I'm going to revisit this soldier/veteran - I don't want him to become stock or fallback, but I really lost myself playing him - I want to do him justice.

Huh?

Improv practice was the last place I wanted to be this evening. I was annoyed all day at having to go. Not that I had anything better to do - I just really didn't feel like being around anyone, or pretending to have fun when it was obvious that I wouldn't (didn't even want to) have fun. I even had a little anxiety attack in the afternoon because of that and something else I didn't want to do, and other things that have been left undone - yes, even blogging.

So how the hell did I end up doing better improv tonight than I've done in, like, weeks? Jess said I seemed to be working out some angst, and Denton was impressed that none of my characters reverted to that Shrinking Violet bit to which I'm so attached.

Sunday was my one-year-onstage anniversary. I told myself I'd reflect after a year on whether I like performing, or would rather go back to tech. I... kind of like it. I like the people I play with, and they like performing, and I can handle it, so I guess it's okay. I love the creative experience; I've just never had much of a craving for an audience. Plus, my life seems to have more emphasis on tragedy than comedy. It's just how I am. I like my operas with a body count.

Art snob.

The group creative experience is a different animal than what I'd always been used to: solitary arts like writing and drawing, or finding a separate function from the rest of the group, like stage managing. I took piano lessons, but I was never in a band. I was never even on a sports team (nor did I want to be). Sometimes, it turns out, I like feeling like part of a whole, and it doesn't threaten my individuality to say so. It's also been harder to let my emotions come through in a character than I expected it would be. I've never thought of myself as a private person - I'll talk about anything and everything - but I also like to come across as being able to handle anything and everything, and not letting shit affect me. What's really funny is that I sometimes can make myself believe that it doesn't.

Ohhh. 2+2=4.

I finally got the Westport show pictures off my camera... then I started to write a blog, saved it as a draft, and forgot about it. Anyway, a bunch of pictures should be up in the next few days, on the troupe website, www.AnomalyOrange.com. I'm not remotely an awesome web designer, but I am a good artist who kind of knows a little Photoshop and Dreamweaver. The website, for me, is as much a learning process as the improv itself. I'm just having fun making it look pretty while it does basic functions, and when I need it to do something else, I have to figure out how.

Anyway, here's my favorite shot, in which we get ready to pose for a picture before the show. Left to right: Brandon, Clay, Jess, me, Tom, Zak, and Joe.

The Night Before Prom

Anomaly Orange's first show is tomorrow night, and I don't mind telling you: I'm nervous as fuck. I'm not saying that to get any "you'll be fine" type of response - I'm just digging the anticipation. Like, holy crap, the show is tomorrow night. People are coming to see it. It's in the Pitch (print version available Thursday). Oh My Goddess, it's in the freaking Pitch.

The write-up makes us sound pretty ambitious. The bar is definitely set high with the note that we're doing the same format as Tantrum, one of the top troupes in town. So a couple details got mixed up somewhere between press release and final product, like the show name... but the date, time, place, and price are right, and at least the RB's got mentioned at the tail end.

Rehearsal last night was the first time I saw the Rubber Biscuits, and there's something beyond just the scene mechanics that I like about them. I think it's how they relate to each other onstage, their bond seems really strong. Clay rehearsed with us last night, too. His monologues are fun to play with, full of texture and people and odd little actions.

Denton Turley has been working with us as a coach, and after notes, talking about a different experience, he gave a timeline of show production v. show readiness. He said "After you've been rehearsing about two months, you put up your first show. After you've worked together for a year, you'll be ready to do your first show. And after another year, you'll be good."

I'm not afraid of a few weird moments. I know they're going to happen. And then they'll be over, and there'll be more awesome. It'll be fun! I'm a little afraid I'll forget to not say "fuck" in front of the children.

~~~
In non-improv related stuff... uh, I'm not pregnant.

Presenting... Anomaly Orange!

This is it! This is the new improv troupe! That's the poster for our first show! Check out the website too, at www.AnomalyOrange.com.

Okay, gotta go. Have a great day!

Up All Night

The song of birds reminds me that I should have been asleep by now*. My schedule is creeping forward again. If I were a planet, I'd have one of those wacky orbits that takes astronomers centuries to detect the pattern.

Great. Now I want to watch Pi.

Improv ouch: pimping yourself into a roomful of folio edition Shakespeare, and blanking on a single damn quote. Stammering out some iambic pentameter that gets your eye poked out. With an appendage. Thank Dionysus for my creative, on-the-ball classmates who made the scene into awesome!

Improv happy: getting to be part of a beautiful French Braid scene with Guy and Martha Maggio. Emotional depth and breadth, interesting twists without invention, honest realistic relationships, and a punchline timed with a sharpshooter's accuracy.

More improv happy: Anomaly Orange is off to a running start, and preparing for our first two shows. We'll be at the Westport Coffeehouse on May 28 (Thursday, 7pm, all ages, $5) and the Roving Imp on June 13 (Saturday, time-n-price yet TBD). Official announcements, invites, and pretty posters coming soon! Can! Not! Wait!

Employment happy: So, you know, I'm mostly unemployed. I sell an occasional book online, babysit now and then, volunteer when I can, and remain available to help family and friends. I figure I contribute to the whole economic situation by not taking up a job someone else needs more, since we are able to get by on Hans' salary. But, a person gets to feeling a little useless and closed off and like a 1950's housewife (only less good at cleaning). Well, some seven years after giving up paid theatre work and answering to the arts-man, a series of connections led me back. I'm on the call list for changeovers at the American Heartland, yay! And I still remember how to focus a lighting instrument, yay! It will be occasional, not full-time nor even part-time. But the pay will cover the gas to get there (yeah, I don't even know how much it pays), and it's fun. I'd forgotten how perfectly at home I feel on a catwalk thirty feet above a stage!

Guitar happy: After about five years of messing around on the guitar, I finally had the chance to take a few lessons this spring. It's made a huge difference... or, in Hans' words, it no longer sounds like I'm torturing animals. I can finally hold a pick the right way. I'm playing scales and arpeggios, and can actually tell that my fingers are getting stronger and faster. I can play chords that used to hurt, like B minor. I'm getting fingertip calluses!

I wish someone in my life had taken the time, some thirty years ago, to explain to me the concept of muscle memory. I always had a pretty reliable brain for learning how something was done, but I thought once my brain knew, my fingers (in piano) or my feet (in dance) should be able to follow. And I never became amazing at anything with a physical component. It might be too late at this point in my life to ever be an amazing guitarist or improviser (and I can deal - I do these for fun and I bring my own skill set), but now that I can accept practice and patience as part of the learning curve, the process is much less frustrating.



*"Now" at the time of writing was about six in the morning. I fell asleep before finishing the post.

You Say I'm a Bitch Like It's a Bad Thing...

When I started stage managing and production-assisting at the Lyric, I got adopted by my two big sisters, Flawn Barber and Lisa Anderson Bongers. I was twenty-five, and they called me "The Baby" (they're five-foot-ten and five-foot-twelve, respectively, and had lots of fun high-fiving over my head). I made rookie mistakes, tons of them, but I fixed the mistakes and learned.

In stage management - any management, from what I hear - you can't give everyone what they want all the time. If you see a behavior that's hurting the organization and/or the production, you have to do something about it. Being nice and accommodating, excusing the behavior, deferring to (for example) a heavenly vocal talent that happens to belong to a total scrote-bag... all of it only compounds the problem. And when you do something about a problem, someone's going to think you're a Bitch, because someone isn't going to get to do whatever the hell they want anymore.

Flawn and Lisa, though never bitchy, were The Bitch when it had to be done, and we all drank a lot of wine on those nights, because nobody ever wants to be The Bitch. For a naturally nice person, it's a little traumatic. And I knew I'd grown up, and learned to stand up for myself and work for the good of the production, when they started calling me "Baby Bitch." It was a badge of honor.

There were a couple instances when I tipped the scale a little too far, and threw what could only be called a Crazy Screaming Bitch Fit. In public. At the workplace. Not the proudest moments of my life. That sort of thing doesn't say "respect my authoritah." It does indicate that things have gone too far, and something should have been changed before that point. And eventually, I found balance (which, technically, must be found at every moment, but I don't want to get into metaphysics just now).

Fast-forward to 2009. Baby Bitch is a baby improviser, in a troupe with nobody in charge. I don't want to be in charge - I'd rather focus on learning the craft and having fun (which is an important part of the learning, too). It's not fun to be in charge. The worst thing about stage managing was having to be The Bitch when everyone else was having fun. "Sshhhh!" "You missed your costume fitting." "Please don't eat the props until we've gotten through the scene they're in." "When you peek through the curtain, the audience can see you. I know you're the lead tenor, and they're here to see you, but right now you're in a cell waiting for the guillotine."

Side note here: 9:KCiF will probably be the most fun I've ever had as a stage manager, and I can't wait! The best thing about stage managing is that you get to make a show run smoothly for amazing people.

Anyway... nobody in charge. Not fun to be in charge. Then some problem starts, nobody deals with it, and it reaches a point that makes everything else less fun. I wasn't the only one to recognize it. So, The Bitch paid the troupe a visit this week. She'll probably hover nearby for a while to gently point out problems at an earlier stage next time, so they can be fixed and we can move on to the fun.

I miss Flawn and Lisa, and I want some wine.

It's a sign.

Taken at the KC Renaissance Festival, at the SpherePlay contact juggling booth, on a rainy day in October 2008.

Seven and the Ragged Tiger

Quick, who's the band?

It was Duran Duran, and that's the name of the last studio album they released, in 1983, before taking a twenty-year break. There were only five guys in the band, but (as explained by Simon LeBon), adding their two managers made it seven. The ragged tiger was a metaphor for success.

Saturday night, before the final blackout, the Hypothetical Seven were briefly seven again. Two of the founding players, Matthew Reiss and Dan Spurgin, came out to Bonner Springs for the show, and were kind enough to join us onstage for our last game, 189. Matthew used to host the shows, so Joe asked him to get the ask-for, and when I heard his stage voice for the first time in nearly two years, I got a little teary inside, in a warm, long-lost way.

It didn't make me think we should keep being the Hypothetical Seven. In fact, I feel that much stronger that we're doing the right thing. In anything but a one-liner (or other fairly superficial) game, you really couldn't throw a few H7's from the 1990's onstage with the current bunch and come out with anything but mud - whereas before Matt and Dan left, there was enough continuity in style that some players would come back after a few months off or even a couple years.

Heh... H7 also used to play a clean show. Nothing wrong with that. It means you can invite more people (like kids) without fear of offending or traumatizing them. It means you don't go for the easy gag, you can make the funny without resorting to lowest-common-denominator blah-blah. But, man, oh man, was the show raunchy. There may have been more f-bombs dropped in that hour-forty-five than in the entire previous fifteen years of the troupe's existence. Our "Musical Improv" game ("Day in the Life" plus guitar) revolved largely around the toileting habits of Dan's new baby. We had an especially good round of "I Like My Men/Women," and by good, I mean rrrowwwrr.

It wasn't just a blue show, though. It was a good show. The energy almost crackled out loud, we were so on. We had our best turnout in a while, too: enough people to make the Imp look reasonably full, and they were really into it. Our first half was a marathon of twelve-count-'em-twelve games, all of them longtime H7 favorites that we had to play one last time. Then we played Hypertext for the longform, with a one-liners encore. It. Was. Exhausting. The audience edits Hypertext, and they kept us moving!

I'm pretty sure I stayed out of my head most of the show, and by the end of it I felt almost drunk with happiness. The good kind of drunk. I was too happy to sleep, like my smile was keeping me awake, and I was really trying to sleep because we had a tech rehearsal for Sketchy Thoughts at ten-freaking-ay-em Sunday morning. Yay, coffee, and thanks for the donuts, Nick!

So, what does the future hold? Maybe a reunion of original H7'ers, for one thing, which I hope I'll get to tech if it happens. I love those guys (and occasional gals). I'm getting my sketch fix with Sketchy Thoughts - please come see the show next Saturday! - and I'm even writing something for the following show. As for the small bunch of us now improvising without a name, we're keeping the June 13 booking at the Imp, and we can't tell you what we're doing. It's a surprise.

Requiem for a Legacy

Look, I've had a lot of death-y things happening lately. Grandma Sophie passed away in January. Last week I found my cat unconscious in insulin shock, and I thought it was the end (she made a miraculous recovery at the vet's, and her diabetes may have gone into remission). I spun myself out on the highway the other day, my own damn fault.

And then there's the impending end of the Hypothetical 7.

I don't want to write this. I don't want to explain. Jess has already explained, and did a good job of it. Go read her blog instead.

A photo in the Facebook group album spurred a discussion a few weeks ago between a few original H7 members from the 1990's, about a reunion show. I think that would be amazing -- a hell of a complicated feat to pull off, as they're spread about the country, but amazing. But something in the tone of the discussion made me feel like I was at my own wake, hearing people talk about how much they missed me, only I wasn't dead, I was just horribly paralyzed and couldn't tell them not to bury me alive.

What's the point in sustaining a legacy, when the people you do it for bury you alive?

But they're right. The true character of the Hypothetical 7 was lost when the last two founding members left in the summer of 2007. The remaining players made a great effort, but struggled with relative inexperience, teaching newbies (from a relatively inexperienced position), adapting to a changing artistic environment in the improv world, geographical relocation, loss of the audiences who came to see specific players...

And why stick with a name if that fifteen-year history doesn't do jack for your box office? I suspect that a couple years of that legacy actually hurt our reputation. Like when this shit resurfaced... Whoever Alan was writing about, that is NOT us, not now. We aren't even the same troupe (though we're mostly the same individuals) that played a so-so set at 8:KCiF.

Oh, we aren't trying to fool anyone. We aren't putting on false mustaches and accents: "Ze Hypot'etical quoi? I do not know zis Zeven of vhich you zpeak!" On the contrary, we're stripping it down to the real us, a few people who love playing together, and have a lot to learn, and can put on a good show when we aren't trying to wear someone else's skin. H7 brought us together. From here, we go forward.