Visibly Tight

I have so much catching up to do, and I can see that there is no way I'll be able to stay on top my blogging duties, which sucks because I know I'll want to look back on my day-by-day life here. But I literally don't have a moment to spare. Monday through Thursday, my days are wake up, grab a quick breakfast, hightail it over to class, do improv from 11-1:30, have a one hour lunch break when we bond and talk about improv, more improv 2:30-5:00, plan what shows we'll see and tear ourselves away from each other, shower off the sweaty theater mess, grab a quick dinner at home, hightail it to iO for shows until about midnight, go home and attempt to shake off the improv high and sleep. Rinse. Repeat.

It's glorious.

I'm exhausted.

Our Level One teacher
Lyndsay "Goosebumps" Hailey,
who we love

On Thursday, we found our team name, Visibly Tight. I don't remember the context, but one of our delightfully quirky British member, who goes by the name Fogg, said the phrase while dissecting a Harold. Our teacher, Lyndsay Hailey, took instant delight in the phrase, insisting we must take it as our team name or she would never speak to us again. We listen well to what Lyndsay says.

Since there is no possible way of doing this week justice, let me just say the most important and dazzling part: I love my team so very deeply. I love each and every person on my team. Beautifully, we come together from so many different places - Hawaii, London, Finland, San Francisco, Cincinnati - from so many walks of life, but we all share one mind and our deep, geeky love of improv.  In many ways, they are all people from my home planet. We speak the same language. Think the same thoughts. Over meals, we lean in together and guzzle massive quantities of improv philosophy, history and gossip along with our food. It's magic.

Scott, Senja, Stephanie running a Harold

I love the fact that we are all at, more or less, the same high level with our improv performance skills. I am not the only person who produces an improv show. There is years of experience between us, and we compliment and balance each other beautifully. Most of all, under Lyndsay's expert guidance, we trust each other and are without question there to serve each other. To exalt each other. To hold the net under each other.

Scott, James, David, Senja, Robert
July 12, 2012

I have a feeling we sped through a good chunk of the Level One curriculum early on in the week, and Lyndsay chucked some of it aside to best meet our needs. We ran Openings of Harolds over and over and over again. I loved it. Openings are weird, wooly, woo-woo performance pieces to watch, but I now understand their importance in the form in order to uncover the theme.

I swear I spattered geek juice all over Lyndsay the day she said we'd do an Invocation, one of the pagan rituals/improv exercises invented by Del Close. We invoked a locket. I loved it.

Obviously, I loved it all. Week One has been glorious and hard and exhausting, but I loved it. Around Wednesday, I hit a wall. We all did actually. Our work was pretty sucky as Lyndsay tried to teach us the Armando structure.

Here is a note I wrote to a friend last Wednesday:


Our group has been kicking ass so hard, it's no wonder we would stumble back a couple steps. I think we're just all tired. I know that I did some supremely shitty improv today, and I just about lost it in class when I was just absolutely blank going into a scene with something that the teacher was asking me to do. I actually had to stop the scene (terrible form!) and admit that I had nothing. But they couldn't have been more supportive. They literally all cheered my name, and then once the scene got started I felt incredibly taken care of and supported by the other actors. So though my work sucked, it was absolutely remarkable and pretty fucking magical that these people who I didn't know last week would have my back so thoroughly. It's like fucking bootcamp - except instead of tearing you down, our teacher builds us up and then builds us up some more. But like bootcamp, the bonds we're forming - particularly with my group who are extremely connected and bonding - is pretty profound. I'm so lucky to be a part of it, and I'm sure once I get back on the horse tomorrow, I'll be riding high.

Gotta run now. After lunch with Joe Bill, I swung by the house to do my laundry, and now I'm running out the door to meet my team for the Deltones show tonight at iO.

Annoyance Lore & Hippy Lunch at Kopi

Just back from a lunch date with Joe Bill. In a nod to my hippy-dom, we went to his friend Al Rose's crunchywonderful restaurant in Andersonville called Kopi. Turns out, Al ended up play music for early Annoyance shows. He sort of fell into the role of playing the opening for the first  Splatter Theater in their original production of Metraform or, as they call it, "Annoyance before it was Annoyance." I got to sit there as Joe and Al played "back in the day," remembering the craziness of the show, their youthful foolheartiness, the fact that they pushed on ahead because they were too young, overly confident and ignorant to know it couldn't be done. They just did it because they didn't yet know they couldn't.

I especially loved the story about the intermission-type act that they threw in there to allow them to change costumes. It was a "puppet" show called Meat Puppets featuring a pork chop and a hot dog. Oh, and by the way if Joe's memory is correct, the pork chop was played by David Pasquesi and the hot dog by Tim Meadows.

                                                       Al talked about this gig with us.

The Day I've Been Visualizing for Years

By the time I got to iO for the first day of the summer intensive, the cabaret was already packed. I wasn't late; I think the other students were merely enthusiastic and nervous. As was I. We gather, do some paperwork, and get a little intro and pizza, which of course I can't eat. In the paperwork, I see that I'm in section six (whoever they are). For the entire intensive, we stay with our groups. And each week (corresponding to five advancing levels) a different teacher works with us. I don't recognize any of the names of my teachers, which concerns me somewhat. It just means I won't be getting any of the "superstars." Fine. I'm just thinking about my team, and I can hardly focus on a face in the crowd because it makes me too scared to think about which ones will be the most important people in my life for the next five weeks.

After a long delay, the joker in the booth starts playing some sort of royal march (or perhaps it was the theme to Masterpiece Theater.) And Charna Halpern owns the stage. Literally and figuratively. The teachers are lined up behind her, and as she hops up on stage, she goes down the line, punching each one in turn. Then she turns to us, her eager and presumably adoring audience, holds up her middle finger on each hand in a salute, and playfully yells, "Fuck you!" And then she says with obvious pride, "Welcome to my home." This, ladies and gentlemen, is Charna Halpern.

She is smiling, though flustered, as she explains that she has just moved one significant step closer to owning a new home for iO, a bigger theatre that they will move into in a year. We are privy to the grand announcement first! She introduces herself as the "only, living longform creator," which makes me wonder how David Shepherd would feel about that, not to mention Keith Johnstone. She gives a brief introduction to iO and their philosophy, echoing what David Pasquesi told me in our interview,  "We take our scenes nice and slow. One line at a time. We listen between the lines." There is some skittering in the audience, and Charna calls out to her dogs. She has four though only two are at the theater with her that day. The dogs have their own theme song too as they join her on stage.

Dame Charna Halpern
and the backend of one of her dogs

Finally, we are dismissed to meet our sections. Each section is meant to have 16 people. We have 15, and I shyly peek at them as we bake outside the theater waiting for our teacher to take us to our off-site classroom.  It's an eclectic bunch in ages and appearance. They all look pretty cool. But can they improvise?

"This will undoubtably change your life," our first week teacher, Lyndsay Hailey promises in her introduction. She seems very cool with a vibrant energy of positive enthusiasm that puts me at ease in her hands. She is a gentle, strong force that guides us forward during our time together.

We circle up on the floor. Going into the intensive, my biggest worry was that I wouldn't get a good team, people at my level. I was worried that too much of my precious time in Chicago would be wasted watching new improvisers stumble their way through scenes. (Bitchy, I know. But the truth nonetheless.) The class team is important at the intensive. Like boot camp or even just regular summer camp, we are meant to bond strongly with these people, establish unbreakable trust, and genuinely get pleasure from each other. I notice that there are three other women on the team, a willowly blond from Finland, a young actress from NYC, and a dark-haired improviser, newly arrived in Chicago, who looks just like the "This one time, at band camp..." girl from the American Pie movie. For some reason I'm unperturbed by the gender imbalance. The guys look kind and open, and something in my brain says, "Good. This will be a good chance for you to stretch and learn to play better with men." After we do the first exercise in which we share our most embarrassing moment stories (just imagine stories with lots of poop, pee, vomit and menstrual blood), I'm pretty psyched to discover that I genuinely like these people. They are each one of them Good Folk, kind-hearted people who I could be friends with. Phew. But can they improvise?

Finally, we're up on our feet. We launch into learning how to do the "Opening" of a Harold, which is an organic group mindmeld - pretty experimental theatery looking - as we work together to spontaneously create a soundscape and a human "machine" that will reveal the theme of our show. Afterwards we do a few scenes, cycling through the group. I become increasingly ebullient to discover that all these people are GREAT improvisers who know their shit. HOORAY!!!!! Aside from our weakest link, an older man named John, every single person clearly has studied and performed a great deal of improv. In fact, miraculously enough, they all seemed to be at the exact same evolutionary stage in their improv as I am with mine. (Insert the triumphant music and happy dancing here.)

By the end of the class at 5pm, I am walking on air. My dreams have been answered, and I'm eager to dive back into more improv with these new friends. After a brief time at home to shower and bolt down some food, most of us meet up that evening at iO for the all-star cast who do The Armando show, which is red hot that night in front of the eager, packed house of mostly students. I mean, they killed it. I can hardly sleep that night at all because my body is pulsing with improv joy.

First Day of Comedy School: A Preview

It's 11:45pm and I really have to go to sleep, but I just want to go on record as saying that today was AMAZING! I'm sure there may be frustrating and hard days to come, but today wasn't one of them. It was 100% terrific. I am on cloud nine.

My major stress was that I wouldn't get a good group, and - boy oh boy! - I had nothing to worry about. My group is the BEST. And I'm pretty sure we'll all thinking the same thing, but no one will say it out loud: Our group is better than any of the others. Perfect match for me. Pretty much exactly the same experience level. Almost everyone is a huge improv geek. Extremely eclectic and global. And, as far as I can tell, hardly an asshole in the bunch.

Ph-fucking-ew! That's a relief.

More details to come...

Day One - Sunday

I'm mostly all settled in here in my spacious though hot-as-a-motherfucker suite in a dusty, old, male-inhabited, haphazardly-furnished Victorian home a few blocks from Wrigley Field. It's a great location, but - again - hot as a motherfucker. There is a window AC that doesn't do dick. If I position and angle the large fan just right, sleeping is possible though. Hey Julie, I did not hear one Barred owl last night! But I did hear the constant waves of cars and motorcycles interrupted occasionally by the sound of people surely getting their fingers blasted off by fireworks. Ah, city life.

The view from my cab yesterday

A weird things is I've been here for one afternoon and evening and have yet to meet my landlord or any of the other men living in this house. I'm afraid to go take a shower because I don't want to be wearing a robe during our first meeting. No worries. I'll skitter out eventually - must remember to close the window in the bathroom lest the next door neighbors get an eyeful. Ah, city life.

I've come to think of my landlord, with whom I have spoken on the phone several times, as "James, James Bond" mainly because that's how he says his name EVERY time. Like if I introduced myself as "Pam, Pam Victor." As far as I can tell by examining his home, that is literally the only quality he shares with James Bond or any other sexy metrosexual spy. If I had to guess, I would say that his wife either left him or passed away at some point during the mid-70s, and he has not touched the house - in some cases, even to clean - since her death. Yes, let's just say she tragically passed away, probably from breast cancer, in 1977, leaving behind two daughters and possibly one son. She was a good woman, I have no doubt. A thin film of nutritional yeast still coats her carrot juicer, testament to her futile efforts of perfect health. Poor James James Bond never fully recovered from her passing though he has applied his life to the purpose of good in her honor. All his energy over the last 35  years has been taken up raising his daughters (and possible son) and providing handicap-accessible rowing experiences to those in need of such things. Thus, he has had not one spare instant to update any kitchen appliances, plates, silverware, furniture (poor man didn't even have time to shop for new furniture or forks...or apparently a new sponge...in the last 35 years!), or even clear off a counter. I have discovered all his history in his absence. Poor James James Bond.

Last night, my Roeper friend Amy drove me around the neighborhood in a little tour, then we went out to eat yummy Japanese (I mean, not Zen-good, but still good), and finally she was gracious enough to take me to Trader Joe's to stock my pantry. I have almond butter and rice cakes. I will be fine. Amy took a quick tour of the house and my room, and she's all fired up to bring me the necessary extra fans, extension cords and maybe even a bike to lend me for my visit. She even offered to bring me to her house once a week so I can do laundry if there isn't one in this house. (I have yet to find it, but that doesn't mean it's not here.) So I feel very taken care of by Amy, which is nice.

I still do feel like Mary Tyler Moore, living the independent woman's life - ah, city life! If I had been wearing a beret when the cab pulled up at the house yesterday, I sure-as-shit would have thrown it. (Then left it in the street where it fell because who the hell could pull off a beret besides Pablo Picasso?)