I had an AWFUL improv class today where I faded at the end because I skipped breakfast.
Bad student! Bad!
It’s something I need to work on in general, but especially when it comes to making sure I have full energy for performances and classes. This particular class is getting pretty high octane, so I need to make sure I keep up.
Today we did all kinds of cool stuff, and I had a good time, and did some cool stuff, and maybe the next class I won’t be as cool.
Is this a new level for me? Did I do a breakthrough? Or am I just coming back to where I was before I decided performing was out for a while and directing was in?
Eh. I now know just to enjoy what is happening and not to obsess over trivial emotional self-blackmail like this. Wish I’d figured that out years ago.
I returned to studying with Kate Ashby on Saturday the 10th.
Mostly familiar faces, with a few new ones. It looks like we are moving into some interesting intermediate group work, around sensing focus and performing for the group, not for yourself.
It will be a challenge for me, as I am a sugar-cured ham from way back, but it’s a challenge I embrace willingly.
Besides, it’s always a joy training with Kate.
I am also looking forward to working with mostly the same group and see how that adds to the dynamic. I’ve certainly done level-based classes elsewhere, but this is the most consistent turnout of people carrying on I’ve ever seen.
Today we had a wrapup session for our Improv Bootcamp. It was a really beautiful thing to participate in, and we all left feeling energized and looking forward to potentially getting back together in the fall.
This was one of the most amazing training sessions I’ve ever been in, and one of the most amazing groups to meld and play with. Kate Ashby mentioned that in Europe, performing groups work together for much longer than they do here, and the level of comfortability with each other that develops is really great. I look forward to that.
People who know me well know I was involved in the opening of the Bad Dog. And now at the end of the month, it will be closing down. The physical space, anyway. As they point out, their community will live on.
I’ve been involved with the people who helped to get the Bad Dog open. They were a semi-nomadic tribe back then, and being a semi-nomadic tribe is annoying, but not impossible.
Classes would be in one location for a fair amount of time. Performance spaces tended to be wherever the artistic group could find affordable space. I think the best time I had back in the day was when I was doing That Friday Show at the Village Playhouse. Not only was the group fun to play with, but near the end of the run there, they were bringing in guest teachers to do a small workshop at the end, after the audience had gone home.
But, for multiple reasons, at one point I’d had enough of the improv, and I left to go do scripted acting. There sometimes comes a time when the pain to reward ratio in an environment gets too high, prompting you to move on, and I’d reached mine at that point in time.
Over the years, though, I would check into improv once in a while. See some shows. Take a class here and there. I didn’t want to do it full-time, but I didn’t want to entirely abandon it. Something about it called to some part of my performing soul.
Then, last fall, I took a level 400 improv class at the Bad Dog and really hit it off with the class members. It really felt like it did when I first started doing improv, a long time ago, before cliques and other BS moved in. Playing at the craft, having fun, respecting each other.
And then the news this month that the Bad Dog was closing.
The people from that class have started a group, and I am continuing to participate in it. We again are semi-nomadic, but the Bad Dog community lives on outside of a physical space. And that is what will bring the Bad Dog back to life, that unquenchable community spirit.
The Bad Dog isn’t closing. It’s taking a short break, but the show will go on.
Ok, the official word is that they can’t afford the rent, so they are going to look for a new space. Phew! I was worried there. Now I’m less worried.
I was shocked to see that there was a “For Lease” sign up in the front window of the Bad Dog theatre last night.
Although I left there a long time ago, I still love what it represents, and don’t want to see an east end theatre close up.
I’m not sure why the landlord is terminating their lease, but in terms of the area, it’s gotten fairly high class over the years, and it might just be a case that he thinks he can extract more rent from a different tenant.
I’ll have to see what I can do to help them (assuming they are looking for a new space).
Not much on the old performing front. Improv class was fun, but it’s only going one more week. The next big thing coming up is a community theatre audition in July.
Then I have to decide whether I want to keep going with the improv. It’s actually been a lot of fun, but this is in a safe classroom environment. Not sure how much I would love it in the wild.
But I think I’ll hate myself if I at least don’t try.
I have a real dislike of ten thousand cast member shows. But still, I do need to get some performing time in and this is a low barrier way to do it.
Just have to be super assertive about claiming your stage time. I think this is why I like scripted acting better, your stage time is predefined and you get to have as much fun without wondering if someone is going to clap you out or the technical improviser is going to lower the lights on you.
The Williamson Playboys are one of the few acts in town I would be a fan for everywhere. A groupie, even. If it was permitted, I would be in the front row of all their shows going “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!†Maybe I wouldn’t wear a skirt. But surely a kilt is a manly device.
There were are other acts in the two nights of the special reunion shows. Filled with a plethora of other top notch comics. But I only had eyes for The Williamson Playboys. (Man, if they ever read this, they are going to be seriously creeped out.)
And I had my laptop with me at the start of the show. Because I visit mom sometimes, and because I need to write there to keep my mind occupied. And I started putting my thoughts together during the show.
I shut it down once the show proper started. And then tried to start writing again after the show was over, when we all headed to the Black Swan for a clebratory party thereafter. And got bit by my wonky keyboard on my laptop. So I was forced to be socialble, oh no.
Talked to some people I knew. I am pretty awful at big parties, especially when 90% of the people at the party are half my age. But it was good to catch up with some of the older people at the party.
I mean, the sexy mature people there, just like me!
And as the evening wound to a close, a certain peace came over me. Yes, there had been a lot of pain involved with improv during those six years and a bit, but there were also a fair share of good times as well. It did help me come out of my performing shell quite a bit, and my personal one as well. Further adventures in clown would complete the journey, but that’s another story for another day.
There was a lot of personal anger from me after I left the place. A lot of childish anger, but some a bit better directed towards certain individuals. But now, this certain peace I found is permanent. You can’t let everything in the performing arts affect you. Or else you must go antic mad.
Phew, this was difficult to write, but I’m glad I did it. Now to see what comes next.