I think only a few people remember the Great Improv Chicago Website Hoax of 1998. At the time there were four websites that served the Chicago Improv community by updating semi-regularly. The Second City website had just been redesigned and taken over by Mike Ross, the much-lamented Impravda was run by Playground impresario Rob Kozlowski, the Argos Agency was fairly new at the time, and there was Chicago Improv run by Tammy Manning. The Annoyance website was the home of the fantastic Mick Napier journal (and I recommend you read that if you have not done so already,) but wasn't being update regularly. Mike contacted me and Rob discussed pulling an April's Fools joke. Mike designed a little animation of a tornado spinning with the logo "You have been hit.... By Hurricane Viola." The Second City website, the popular Impravda and the Argos Agency website were all "hit" by the Hurricane. E-mails came in to all three sites telling us we were hacked and pranked. That was a long time ago.
I love how the www.improvreview.com April Fools prank (the season finale of SNL to be improvised by Drew Carey and cast) was picked up by a bunch of major media groups. As Nelson would say, "Ha-ha!"
Last Wednesday was the last showing of "PantsHappy2: Electric Pantaloons." The title, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the show. John and I came up with a wacky sit-com back in college where we would play identical twins living together in the same apartment. That would be the only thing that would be the same each episode. Every episode would be completely different from the next. Anyway, the Pantsing was very good that night; crisp and fun for us and, (hopefully) the audience.
We had a good crowd and we noticed the high amount of attractive young women in the audience (in particular a drunk, loud table from Loyola up front. These three gals keep yakking after the show started until Pat just kinda crouched down and began delivering his monologue directly to them. They paid attention after that and were very nice after the show. God bless the scoop-neck and the turtleneck, says I.) This led to the whole "comedians never get any rap" or perhaps more specifically, IMPROVISERS never get any rap. Why is that? I'm no expert. My entire romantic life can be summed up in this brief exchange from "Seinfeld":
JERRY: I don't want to go out with one of your friends. I foresee messiness.
ELAINE: Oh, yeah, you're much better off sitting here in your underwear at 2am reading comic books and eating cold spaghetti.
And Lights.
Wheels are in motion for "Thriller Theater 4." More on that as events warrant.
"Dinner for Six" ends this Friday. It was a very good run with some excellent reviews. Come on by and get a cookie. Come for the cookies, stay for the comedy.
I recently had to videotape myself doing some character monologs and the dubbing game for an audition for an upcoming improvised television show. It really validated my belief that I stink at that stuff. I don't have any characters and I don't really plan on working on some either. By characters, I mean a set personality (and backstory) that one plugs into various improvised situations. You know, like "Frankie" my tough-but-collects-hummels-Brooklyn character. I work on his accent and posture and then I wait to plug him into a scene during an improv show.
I admire Noel Dineen. He did a Schwa show once and created a character named "Kooch" that literally stole the show (and a fellow improviser). By the end of the show, audience members were yelling "Kooooooch!!" Several people have asked him to repeat the character or write it down or do something else with it. His usual response? "I can't bring him back. It was improvised, eh?" (alright, I added that "eh?" part) I agree with Noel on that score; it's improvised, the entire piece. Why shouldn't each individual character be completely organic as well? That's just my opinion, what the Hell do I know?
Wonder Woman is finally becoming a good comic book again! Thank Gaea for George Perez! Oh, like you care.
This session of classes at ImprovOlympic is wrapping up and the teacher evaluations are coming back. I'm eager to see what my students think of me (it's about 40 people split in two classes.) Through the Playground Master's series I'll be teaching an elective on two-person scenes (ala Dinner for Six). That'll be fun. I'm also getting ready to do an elective on show production. That'll be interesting... everything from choosing a project and casting it to dealing with the press and renting a space.
I'm hosting/moderating a panel discussion of Del Close and long-form improvisation on Monday, April 9th. It'll be at the ImprovOlympic at 10:30 (after the Armando:Mosaic show). There will be a Q&A session afterwards. It'll be fun and informative to learn about Del from Charna Halpern, Mick Napier, Noah Gregoropolous, Miles Stroth, and Jeff Griggs. Come and learn with us, won't you? It's free.
END OF LINE
April 13, 2001
"Daddy, would you like some sausage?" See, I don't like Tom Green. Never did. Never liked that show, never liked his appearances on other TV shows or movies, but that damn clip gets stuck in my head and makes me laugh. Oh, Mr. Barrymore.
The Del night at IO was good. I was so nervous. I read this bio of Del and then I introduced the panelists. I had placed Del's ashes backstage and had Dennis Price ready to go. The plan was for me to introduce the panelists and then intro "Del." I was so nervous that I forgot "Del" and Dennis until about halfway through the talk. Sorry, Mr. Price. Most of it went much better than I thought it would. I think some people learned some things about Del and his thought process/philosophy that they may not have known before. I know I did. I wish we had more time to get to some more audience questions, but we were topping out at about an hour there. We could probably have gone several hours, but that's asking alot for late Monday night, I think. I had planned to do the next one in November, but I'm thinking maybe in August when some of the New York people are in town.
"Dinner for Six" had a nice finale. It was a good show with a very good audience last Friday. Just about eight months of one improv show with a tight eight member cast. Nice run.
My picks: Tina or Elisabeth, the final two.
The Improv Issue of PerformInk came out. I wrote a wee article that was basically a news round-up of the various improv-related theaters in Chicago. The article "Message Board Rage: The Net Effects of Improvisers OnLine" really cheesed me off. It really doesn't cover Chicago improv and websites. I wrote a letter to the editor about it. I've never done that before. Even collecting comic books for several years, I have never written a letter to the editor before. They used to print letters; I don't know if they will again. Maybe I'll reprint it here.
Looks like PantsHappy will be travelling to New York for the UCB fest out there. It'll be good to go back to NYC. I miss it. The family, the friends, oh, and the food. Goddamn, the good food. I really want to see some of the UCB shows and Harold shows out there. There's an improvised superhero show that I'm really interested in seeing. An improvised comic book was the very first show I directed in Chicago about 5 years ago and I'm interested in how they're doing it. Probably better than I did at first. The incredibly talented and incredibly beautiful Amy Starks was in that first version. She's in "Faces in the Crowd" (a Peter Gwinn joint at the Playground) and she's great. The second version, the one that played at the WizardWorld comic convention, was very good. We met Sergio Aragones!
"I stayed in Chicago to be an improviser, not to get into Second City. My idea of success is doing what you want to be doing with people you want to work with."- Susan Messing, in PerformInk.
"Because he's myy butler!" - from the pilot "Jerry!"
