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.

Dear Mrs. Valenti,

Thank you for stopping me today as I was walking Grandma to dinner. Thank you very much for expressing your concern for her sparse eating habits. I need to stay and watch her pick at her dinner? What a fantastic idea. She totally listens to me when I tell her to eat. Besides, watching old people eat is hilarious, and clearly I DON'T ALREADY DIE INSIDE ENOUGH EVERY TIME I SEE HER, which is often. When you shared your earth-shattering observation with me that she needs more care, it's not like I'd just spent ten minutes showing her where the flush-handle on the toilet was, and convincing her to REALLY wash her hands, not just get her fingertips wet. Nah, I was just hanging out on the assisted living floor, not paying attention, 'cause that's what I do for fun.

All the best,
Jenifer

~~~~~~
Feh. If I pumped any more SSRI's into my system, I'd be too numb to do improv, and then I think my life really would suck.

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.

Dear Blog,

How have you been? It's been, like, over a month since I've written -- I am SOOOOO sorry! There was just a lot of family and birthdays and travel craziness last month (or rather, Hans was traveling), and I haven't had as much in-depth analysis to give, so much as running from one thing to the next. We'll catch up soon.

Love,
Jen

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.

Girl Anachronism

I spent the whole weekend looking Victorian!

Hans and I went with friends of ours, the crew of the Independent Airship Nimbus (more on that later), to a Steampunk-themed sci-fi con in St. Louis this weekend. Steampunk is an aesthetic movement and sci-fi subculture stemming from the supposition, "What if steam power, not electricity, were the major force behind the technological advances of the past two centuries?" Anachronism is a major element, juxtaposing futuristic and historical imagery - for example, wood-and-copper robots or Art Nouveau architecture on a space station. Exposed gears and other mechanical elements are a common motif.

The historical period in question is, of course, the Industrial Revolution, which began with the introduction of the steam engine. Victorian England is a frequent source of inspiration for character and re-enactment, but the romance of neo-Victoriana is tempered by grit and science, and the gloom of Goth is replaced with geeky wit and a sense of play. Literary influences range from Mary Shelley to H. G. Wells and Jules Verne.

Friday night was low-key, as most of us had been awake all week preparing our costumes and room decor before driving across Missouri. We got settled in, missed the opening ceremony (oops), and went to Steak-and-Shake for dinner, an experience of multi-layered anachronism.

Those who didn't fall asleep right after dinner (like I did) had a Nerf war. Our crew's weapons were hardly recognizable as the plastic toys we purchased at Target, but looked more like something out of "Firefly."

I skipped Saturday afternoon's excursion to the Science Museum, to chat with a cross-genre author and catch up with an old friend, and of course, squeeze in a little reading and alone time. Here's a shot, though, of some of the crew against a perfect historical backdrop:
No, I don't know what Buffy is doing to Hans.

I'm hoping someone posts pictures somewhere of Saturday night's dance, and I'm in some of them, because no pictures of my rollerskating doll costume ended up on our camera. Yes, rollerskating. At the River Market Antique Mall in KC, we found a set of the old adjustable skates that slip on the bottom of regular shoes, and I got a pair of red fringe-tongued lace-up boots at the Goodwill in Lawrence. Hans painted the skates copper and riveted them to the soles of the boots. I didn't have time to add little details like gears, but they still looked cool and functioned perfectly for a long time. A couple hours into the dance, though, the rear rivets finally popped out of the rubber heels, probably because I was trying to pogo. Advice for dancing in rollerskates: keep the wheels on the ground. I would like to emphasize, though, that the only time I fell was one of the times Hans dipped me!

The rest of the night can be summed up with the following picture:

Jump Rope Rhyme

Ophelia, Ophelia,
You let Prince Hamlet feel ya!
Drowning in a shallow lake,
How many minutes does suicide take?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7...


Tee hee! Can't you see the babygoths chanting this at recess? Here's something you don't already know about me: for about a three-year period, second through fourth grades, I had the ability to jump Double Dutch. That's when two ropes are going across each other and you in opposite directions. It's kind of hard to do.

Are You There, Del Close? It's Me, Jenifer.

I think I hit some kind of an improv milestone recently. A bad thing happened, but it may be indicative that I'm developing more trust in my own instincts:

Saturday, January 17:
I fucked someone over in a class scene today. I didn't mean to. I have felt fucked over in a scene, plenty of times: my idea got blown off, someone rolled onto stage like a bulldozer and wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise, my physicalization might as well have been invisible. Snaps me right into my head every time, if I managed to get out of it in the first place. And today I handed someone a huge denial. I can think of a lot of reasons that what I was doing wasn't wrong. But it was still a big fat denial - not only of the person and his idea, but of the discovery. Why couldn't what I came in with, and what I heard when I got there, BOTH be right?

On the other hand, now that I've been on both sides of a fucking-over, maybe fewer will happen, or (from the fucked-over side) I won't even read it as a fucking-over. It's never an intentional fucking-over. Nobody's doing something to me. Everyone's just doing. What happens to me onstage and how I handle it are my own responsibility.

I found some kind of a trigger during Improv Gym last week, too, and I am really grateful to Nathan. He put us in physical poses to start a scenic exercise, and all he did to me was push my shoulders back a little, and my chin up. About half a second into the scene, I reverted into a more withdrawn physicalization and a low-status character. By the time we got through everyone and discussed the exercise, I realized what I'd done.

Me: You gave me a high status pose.
Nathan: I did that on purpose.
Me: And I played against it.

The rest of the session, I barely recognized myself. My old friends doubt, fear, hesitation... I don't know where they went. I found boldness. I found emotions coming from somewhere real inside me, not just my brain saying "pretend to be angry, pretend to be overjoyed." I don't have some kind of perfect visualization that puts me there, but I think I was able to call that state back on Saturday, in class and in the Student Showcase at the Imp.

I also tried an experiment in that same Improv Gym. During the Great Kiss Debate, John said (I'll link to it later) that it's difficult to heighten from a kiss, which is why it would probably be the end of a scene. So I initiated a scene with a kiss, just to see what would happen. The first thing that happened is that my scene partner was not expecting to be kissed, and flinched. I've flinched from an unexpected kiss before, and just botched the scene. Scott incorporated the flinch into his character, and how his character felt about my character, and we ended up with a really cool, if somewhat sad, scene.

I'm noticing a lot of violent themes in my scenes, and I'm often the one who brings in the violence. Beatings, bloodletting, devouring my scene partner as a dinosaur. I die a lot, too. I can really milk a death scene. But as much as I enjoy playing a corpse (entire third beat of a French Braid scene!), I hope this is just a phase of discovery, and I am not destined for niche horror improv.

The Next H7 Show!

Bonus feature for blog readers: the poster thought process!

• Between all the troupes, we're still mostly west of Westport. How about westward expansion, invasion from the west, Old West, the Westport Wagon?
• Antique photos, bar maids, Fluffer Nutter as conjoined twins.
• Chat w/Patrick: Norman Rockwell family scene gone wrong.
• Sideshow family tree.
• Chat w/Alex: Use troupe logos.
• Logo/sideshow family tree.
• Diagrams. Schematics. Molecules.
• Kaboom. Poster in my head. Elements.
• Chicken wire.

Sophia Greenberg Adelman, 1911 - 2009

What I learned from Grandma Sophie was, strangely enough, spirituality. She put up a small Christmas tree every December, and she lit the menorah for Chanukah as well. We're a Jewish family. That's not to say that every member practices Jewish ritual, or believes the same things about G-d. From day to day, I don't necessarily believe in Anything. But in technical terms, maternal lineage, we're a Jewish family. Grandma Sophie was halfway famous for leaving the synagogue due to an argument with the Rabbi about Kosher dishes. She started taking her kids to the Unitarian church. Her favorite philosopher: Baruch Spinoza, one of the few historical Jewish excomunicatees, a pantheist. G-d was not a separate entity from the world; G-d was to be found in nature. Nature was one of the most important things to Grandma Sophie. Plants, birds, her cats and dogs. Her backyard seemed like a tropical, mystical world to me, with the pink tulip tree arching over a gate that led to a creek - which was down a steep eight-foot incline. The point is, it's really all the same... but whatever it is, it's still there and worth acknowledging in some fashion.

She always said she'd watch over us after she died, just the way she believed that her father did, and later her husband, Grandpa Joe. If she would watch over my garden this summer, it might grow something (I'm not great with plants). She has quite a few people to watch over, of course, but even just a little bit would help.

Heaven has nothing to do with what happens to your soul. It's what you want the people you leave behind to think is happening to you.

Improv, Lately

Yes, I am avoiding other thoughts right now. The funeral is in twelve hours.


Improv Gym Workout Report

Okay, I was feeling a little out of my league. Not many beginners showed up to the first session, last Thursday. I got sucked up into the vortex of my head. I was tired, and a little stressed from things that have nothing to do with improv. Introductions, the kind where you go around in a circle telling who you are and something about yourself, make me panicky. I started feeling claustrophobic, too. I took some deep breaths during the break, and got it sort of shook off in time to be - and I really loved this - The Character Who Gets Killed Many Times. In the guise of a re-re-reanimated overbearing mother. Nathan and Tom were my sons, but Nathan was the sherriff, so he kept shooting me in the face. The beauty of it was, after the first time, I knew it was going to keep happening, and quick. The floor was nice and bouncy for falling, and did not leave bruises.


Rock Star Show

I want to talk about our little costume experiment. Yeah, yeah, no "costumes" in improv. Whatever. But I loved, loved, loved playing in a different skin. It was like a mask or a candy shell. And ka-pow, all of a sudden, I was not in my head. Finally! It was kind of like living through my body, not my mind. Maybe the boots did it. They made me feel lithe and springy. Yeah, kinda like a superhero. Or a supervillain.

An odd corollary to the idea that I might feel protected by a costume, and therefore freer to let the actions and ideas come through: I think I play better in a tank top. I've noticed it in rehearsals and classes before, but I wasn't convinced until this show. Sticking to the guidelines of decency, of course, but somehow when I'm less protected by my clothing, when I'm more vulnerable, I feel braver. Like "This is my skin, World. Gimme your best shot." I had a concern about the tattoos being a distraction, but they probably aren't. I've seen ink on other improvisers. I guess you don't notice it after a while.

I still have awkward pauses, especially at the top of a scene. I need to work on doing/saying something immediately, as well as using the edit moment to make the next choice and get into the scene without the deer-in-headlights thing. It also feels like I've developed some kind of edit-waddle, in an attempt to avoid the dreaded edit-stomp. Maybe I'm ducking because an edit is a self-conscious moment for me (slight pull to the head, but too quick to matter), right out there in front, interrupting what people are doing, not in the old scene, not yet in the new.


Warmup vs. Makeup

The eventual answer to this dilemma is that if I'm doing a show with costume and/or makeup, I do not have time to watch the previous show, because I need to be finished with the look before we start warmups, and it has to be done backstage in order not to ruin the initial impact. During warmups, I sacrificed my attention - I was in the same room, but I was spiking my hair and shadowing my eyes in front of a mirror. I listened for my turn, and only missed it once, but I should. have. been. focused. I wasn't holding up my section of the Group Mind. On the other hand, I think I gave a better individual performance as a result of having myself all put together. So: no compromise, my prep time just has to start earlier.


Group Smoke Ritual

This was a first! H7 has usually consisted of a majority of non-smokers. At intermission, Cerrome went out for a cigarette on the back porch of the Imp. Jess knows I carry cloves (a pack can last me weeks), and convinced me that as rock stars, we should be out smoking too. Tiffany popped along and said "I want one!" Then Joe and Zak, who carry their own smokes, came outside. Patrick, who is a smart kid, didn't want to stand out in the freezing cold to watch the rest of us smoke. Okay, it may not be the healthiest group-bonding thing, but it did reinforce our rock star attitudes for the second half!


Armandothon

Tiffany is an animated monologist. Her mind goes everywhere, and she talks almost fast enough to keep up with it. Her speeches are pretty short - at that pace, three minutes would be sensory overload. So, with shorter monologues came shorter beats... five of them, with super high energy. It was fun, and funny, but it wore me out - somewhere in the fourth beat, I had a moment of "Blackout? Please?" Made it to the end, though, which came in at 34 minutes. I'll have some of it up on the Youtube soon.


Anarchy in the H7!

We have been directorless for a month. We grew artistically when we had a director, but I think now we can grow without one. We're taking turns running rehearsals, focusing on our different strengths, accepting different styles of in-chargeness (the word "leadership" seems so stuffy!), having different purposes for rehearsals at different times (i.e. in-depth work vs. upcoming show prep). Our resident revolutionary, Patrick, made this observation: "I'd like improv practice to occur as the co-existence of equals, each leading and following when appropriate. This has never worked in my experience, but I think it could. It would take EVERYONE acting as responsible as the classical 'leader/director' and also not having any ego issues." Perhaps we can work toward such a point; the possibility intrigues me.

And now, a special guest: Death...

My other grandmother, Grandma Sophie, is finally nearing the end. She's 97, and the last few years have been painful for her... when she's been conscious or lucid enough to realize it. She's been in a nursing home for - has it been three years? Not a retirement apartment or assisted living, but the real thing. The only-a-matter-of-time ward. She stayed in her house until there was no longer a choice in the matter: falls, injuries, my mother visiting twice a day to make sure Grandma was taking her medication... which she often wasn't.

She isn't dying of anything. Her body is breaking down from the inside.

She's wished for this for a long time. Maybe since Grandpa Joe died, in 1991. Until she moved out of her house, she never stopped talking about him, or for that matter, to him. I'm not so sure he didn't answer her.

It's a matter of days now. Maybe a week. I'm trying not to think about all the family rituals that will have to be performed.

Oh, god. Performed. Improv. I have to go sew a skirt. I'll get back to posting soon; there were other things I meant to write.

Upcoming Improv Shows (Mine)

Hypothetical 7 Rocks Your World!
Saturday, January 10, 9:00 PM
Roving Imp Theater, 115 Oak Street, Bonner Springs KS
Tickets $7*, ages 16+

We slip into our rock-star alter egos for the first show of 2009. Makeup, miniskirts, needle tracks... you don't wanna miss it!

*one admission price also covers a 7pm show by the Imp's house troupe Biblioclast if you want to make a night of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Imp Class Showcase / The Harold
Saturday, January 24, 7:00 PM
Roving Imp Theater, 115 Oak Street, Bonner Springs KS
Tickets $5, all ages

John Robison's students - a multi-level bunch of improvisers from all over the KC area - perform short games in the first half, and the classic longform "The Harold" in the second half.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ELEMENTS OF IMPROV, featuring Fluffer Nutter, Those People and the Hypothetical 7
Saturday, February 7, 8:00 PM
Westport Coffeehouse Theater, 4010 Pennsylvania, KCMO
Tickets $8, ages 16+

A bite of the sticky sandwich Fluffer Nutter (Jessica Robins and Nifer Honeycutt), the KC debut of the hottest new thing in Lawrence, Those People, and the H7's return to Westport after a year on the road. I'm workin' the booth magic for this one - can't hardly wait!

The Year of Living Honestly

I have something to tell you.

It's not that I've been lying all this time. I consider myself a pretty honest person, with good intentions and friendly relationships. Nobody's always perfectly truthful, are they? I mean, part of being a nice human being is to spare people's feelings, or deny one's own needs for others' sake.

And I don't tell big lies... but when one gets in the habit of casual omissions and little twists on the truth, how hard would it be to find oneself caught in a humongous fallacy? What do I gain by painting a pretty picture if it's a total Weekly World News fake?

I'm not going to scrutinize '08 and earlier, post some kind of confession or lie-detect-o-meter. There's no point in that. I'm not planning to blog my every thought, but there will be some topics I spend more time dealing with than previously... or dealing with, period.

I just want - no, I need to ask myself more this year than in the past: How do I REALLY feel? It's myself I need to be more honest with. When I'm not, it usually lands me in some kind of unpleasantness. I'm sometimes afraid that my honesty will lead to a bad situation... but if it's going to go badly either way, I suppose I have nothing to lose, and may be pleasantly surprised.

I might end up coming across as a bitch at times. On the other hand, if I'm honest earlier rather than later, I might avoid certain instances of bitchiness. Bottling isn't good for anybody. I've known this for twenty-plus years. Why is it so hard to remember?

When I'm in a bad mood, I'm not going to pretend everything's fine. It's better that people around me are forewarned of my category-five emotional hurricanes. I might be less likely to take shit out on people who don't deserve it.

If my feelings are hurt, I'm going to say so, to the person who hurt them, even if I already know that no harm was meant. I can't rationalize it away when my blood runs cold like that. I just start carrying around resentment, and sometimes driving myself away from a friend. Maybe with honesty and time, my feelings will become less easily hurt. (That's not to say I won't give myself a chance to cool down. Honesty doesn't have to be immediate. It just shouldn't be put off too long.)

I'm not going to pretend to agree with opinions when I don't, because they're just that. Opinions. Artistic, philosophical, perfectly mundane - what's so hard about disagreeing? It's not like I have to get into a heated argument. And if someone would like me less for my taste in movies, or my views on what should be legal that isn't, why should I care that they like me at all? Being liked isn't the most important thing in the world.

OH, and I could be more honest about positive feelings, too! I do have them now and then. If I think someone is amazing, why shouldn't I tell them so? If I appreciate someone's friendship or kind words, it's ridiculous to think they wouldn't care to know that. Hell, if the sun is out and my head doesn't hurt, that's reason enough to smile for a few minutes. If I don't remember the positive side of having feelings, none of the rest is worthwhile.

*Sigh of relief* I'm so glad that's off my chest.

It's 2009.

Yippee.

Go away.

Go, Speed Racer, Go!

Improv. It's going SO much better. It's getting easier to tweak myself into characters. Hesitations are getting shorter. Emotional connections with scene partners are getting more emotional and more connected. I'm still making plenty of mistakes, but I'm also taking more risks.

I found an unexpected source of energy yesterday. It kept me in all-systems-go for the duration of class in the afternoon, and despite the fact that I had to stop moving a couple times (like to eat dinner and watch Red Rubber Ball), carried through to H7's 9:00 show. There's just one problem: it's illegal and dangerous.

I was running late before class. It usually takes at least half an hour to get from my house to the Roving Imp. I made it in fifteen minutes. If you cross train tracks at 70 mph, you barely feel them. The PT Cruiser handles great in the 90-100 mph range. I'd never broken the century mark before! Nobody in front of me on the road... YEAH! Heart pounding, watching for deer, grinning like a mad-lady, knowing that if I were to get pulled over I'd probably laugh my ass off. Ready to make the call, "John, I'll be in class as soon as I'm done getting a speeding ticket." Didn't have to. No cops. I wanna do it again.

We have small, small audiences at the Imp. Tiny audiences. And in January, when Second Saturdays start in Westport, there's no chance in hell anyone will make the drive from KC. I'm kinda bummed, too, about missing all those shows for the rest of forever. At least I can see Tantrum on Second Fridays.

I can't begin to say how good it felt to be back in the booth at the Sketchy Thoughts show. I love being part of a show, part of a group, but having my own thing to do. I love doing what I know I'm good at - growing as an improviser is great and all, but hitting those cues makes me feel like I'm on fire, in-fucking-vincible. I'm not going to quit playing onstage with H7 - Hans is handling the booth for us, and getting pretty sharp at it. But if any other troupes need a hand with tech, and my schedule is clear, I'd love to make light and sound happen for you. You know how to find me.