caitorade At the UCB Training center right now, an improviser is interviewing to become part of a practice group. Let’s push back against this, agree?
(…)
I think those of us who are already “plugged in” take for granted how hard it is for someone new to the scene to get a group together. If I want to, I’m spoiled for choice, but it took some time to get here. Most of the people I started practicing with were not classmates. You would likely never have heard of me if I hadn’t been a regular at Improdome. I never would have been a regular if I didn’t used to live so close to the PIT; I had a day job.
If “interviewing” isn’t acceptable, what’s the right way to do it? Sitting in for a practice is great, if you can afford to spend the time and money. What’s wrong with wanting to talk to the person first, to get an idea if you get along or not?
I know it’s just Twitter, where the goal is to fit as much snark as you can in 140 characters or fewer. But it’s unfair pass judgment on interviewing, or any idea, if you don’t have a better idea to offer.
I think the implication is that the way teams generally get together (meeting in class, at jam sessions, around the theaters, etc.) is the better idea, because although it does take effort, it works just fine. There are (depending on personal opinion) plenty of improv teams or way too many improv teams formed in the city every month. Anyhow, I’m skeptical that a formal interview is going to tell you a tenth of what five minutes of watching someone onstage at a mixer will.
… happened at the same time tonight! At the UCB 3-on-3 Improv Tournament, Ben Whitehouse stabbed me in the stomach while I was sitting in the audience. I “died,” and then he said “I KILLED BENJAMIN APPLE,” so I threw myself on the stage floor to be the corpse he was talking about. I lay there for the remainder of Boy Wonder’s truly awesome monoscene, then jumped up and went back to my seat.
Ever since I started doing improv, I’ve had a horrible, paranoid fear that I’d suddenly jump up on stage in the middle of someone else’s show to support someone’s game move. Then tonight they made me do it. Ah, almost made me. Anyhow, afterward they said they were glad I did it and wanted me to do it even earlier. Jerks, aggravating my paranoias like that.
The first 3-on-3 quarterfinal show was great. I was thrilled that the three teams I voted for (Boy Wonder, C, C & E, and the Wild Card Team [featuring Rob Stern]) were the winning teams! I can’t wait to compete next week as part of Gladstone with Don Fanelli and Joey Burns.
I was very surprised not to be bothered by a single police officer. I made sure I wasn’t actually in any roadways, which seems to be the main thing that’ll get you in trouble, but I’ve been bothered so many other times for doing legal things that I thought for sure it would happen when I did something kind of dangerous that most people think is illegal.
I got tired really fast. My right arm and hand mostly, but also my feet/legs.
Starting on Thursday, I noticed that after staring at oncoming traffic for a while and then looking elsewhere, there was a weird optical effect where everything looked like it was slowly melting to the left.
I’d read that it was important to have a good sign, so I used stencils to get mine as neat-looking as possible, but I felt weird about having a totally perfect hitchhiking sign, because it seemed bogus. The whole process felt bogus, but something about my sign being made of poster board that I’d purchased at Blick instead of cardboard that I’d scavenged made it feel extra bogus.
I bought a pocket knife to take with me after people kept making comments about how dangerous hitchhiking was and how I should take protection. I really like the knife but feel silly about purchasing things I didn’t get to use in any sense.
People (friends) had a hard time understanding why I was doing what I was doing. I had to keep saying things like, “That’s the point!” That’s not their fault, it just means my website doesn’t communicate my deal clearly enough. I’ll work on it.
Three years in NYC and Philly still feels like home. It’s weird to have that feeling upon arriving at a place and then have it again when you get back to the other place.
I laughed hard during the first half, got bored with the lackluster heightening in the second half, and really loved the final image. For the whole movie the kids’ problems seem smaller and easier than the adults’ problems, which is how life works. Towards the end their only story arc (the $20/pot/radio thing) is coming to a clean, satisfying resolution. You already know the father is screwed, but you’re not really worried about the kids. In the back of your mind you know kids turn into adults and hit their own mid-life crises, but that doesn’t seem like a real thing yet. Then in the schoolyard with the tornado approaching they face death and Realize Everything Too Soon, and in the audience you Realize with them the universality and immediacy of this situation. In the background the Hebrew teacher is fumbling with the keys! He can educate them, but he can’t save them.
This is a new thing I’m doing, starting Monday. Explanation here. Will Storie said “The project itself sounds like an example of the challenge,” i.e. I will probably fail at it. He’s right - normally I’m far too easily distracted to keep up on a project like this, and it isn’t very well thought-out. We’ll see. I’m excited.
I’m thinking of trying to hitchhike from Manhattan to Maine for Week 1. If you have ideas: theoddsareagainstme@tumblr.com.
For my birthday my brother wrote me this Encyclopedia Brown parody (Google Docs link). Like we usually do, he had me read it aloud. At the end of page 10 I had to stop and laugh for a long time. When I finished Mugs’s description he stopped me and asked how I thought the case was solved, and I said “Either all of those things or none of them.”
People should make each other’s presents more! For his birthday last year I gave Jonathan framed portraits of Calvin and Hobbes that I’d drawn. He gave me a copy of Salinger’s uncollected stories (including Hapworth 16) he’d gotten bound. A few years ago my mom started writing and illustrating storybooks for us as presents. I mean, once were grown, she started doing this. They’re hilarious.
I was born at 4:30 p.m., which I always liked as a kid because it’s when Batman: The Animated Series came on. I guess technically/legally I’m already 27, which is great because I really like this number, and because I’ve been accidentally thinking I was 27 for a while now.
