Chicago 2009, Pt. 1 - the narrative

We just got back from the Chicago Improv Festival… and it was a great time! Though I personally was performing with Babelfish (along with Joe and Nathan), Julie, Nifer and Carl decided they’d like to have some fun at the festival as well. It was the four of us that made the trip up in the Prius.

We left at about 10:15pm last Thursday, directly following Roving Imp rehearsal. It had been one heck of a day, but we still managed to leave on time. Julie and I switched off turns behind the wheel every two hours, to make sure we didn’t get too fatigued… Friday was going to be another really huge day. It was a fun drive, and most of us managed to get at least two hours of sleep. When we arrived in Chicago mid-morning, we stopped in Lincoln Park to stretch the legs and enjoy the scenery. We walked and hung out along the shore of Lake Michigan for an hour, and then came inland for some frisbee. (If you don’t know, I’m a huge frisbee fan… I’ve played in four countries, on the rolling hills of England, in the courtyards of monasteries, city streets, and tons of other places… so relaxing and so fun!)

Our first appointment in Chicago wasn’t until 3pm, so we found our hotel, explored the city a little to make sure we knew exactly where train stops were, and had a lunch of stuffed pizza at a famous pizzaria. One piece apiece was plenty. Yummy, yes… but holy moly… the only way you could have more cheese would be to shower in it.

The workshops in Chicago were given by famous improv actors of note, but unfortunately, they were a little pricy. I was lucky enough to be able to arrange a private workshop for just Julie, Nifer and I… a highly targeted workshop on improv puppetry, a subject I’ve talked about here on the blog before. We’ve had terrible problems with it - problems which I suspect are now on their way out. Our workshop was with one of the actresses behind “Felt,” a longrunning puppet improv show in Chicago - and one of my personal favorite groups. (I don’t mention her name here since Felt’s actual actors are a pretty well-kept secret, as they don’t see themselves as being in the cast. The puppets themselves are the stars.)

She gave us a lot of great tips, showed us the construction of their stage, worked with our puppets a little, and gave us some insight into how Felt works. The three most valuable bits of advice she gave us were to have more human characters (as opposed to the crazy monsters that dominate our ensemble now), make our puppets have longer arms than they currently have, and to nearly destroy the cardboard in the puppets’ mouths, so that they are almost like a worn-in baseball glove. I’d always been sort of protective of the mouths, as I didn’t want to break my puppet. When I saw the results of the baseball glove effect, I was an instant convert, however. What was I so worried about anyway? It’s cardboard, for crying out loud, which is currently plentiful.

After a half hour nap, it was off to Donny’s Skybox for the evening’s shows. (For show reviews and insights, stay tuned for Part 2!) We got a little lost on the way, so were going to be late for the 8:00 show, until we arrived at the Skybox and found that the show began at 8:30. We saw four groups there, and then headed north, faced with two options: attend the after party at the Annoyance or catch up on sleeping at the hotel. I waffled for a large portion of the train ride… then decided to go to the party. Why not, right? I was still mostly coherent. Joe and Julie came too, and we hung out at the bar in the front of the Annoyance while we waited for the party to kick into full gear. We got to talking with a couple people from Boston, who were waiting to see the midnight festival show, happening in the same theater. It didn’t take me long to decide to see that show rather than stay for the party. Connections and networking are fine, but shows are better. We saw two groups in that show, and at the end, I realized that I was almost too tired to continue living. Julie and I managed to lumber, zombie-like, back to the hotel, where I slept the sleep of the dead.

I woke earlier than I really wanted to the next morning, although I didn’t necessarily want to spend my trip getting the right amount of sleep. Plenty of time to catch up on that later, right? Julie, Carl, Nifer and I got up, ate breakfast, and headed over to the beach (we were right next to the lake) for 90 minutes of walking on the beach and frisbee. The three of them headed off for a visit to Navy Pier while I went back to the Annoyance for a workshop that had been announced at the last minute: a workshop on directing technique given by Mick Napier (whose book I reviewed earlier in the history of this blog).

He knows what he’s doing, and he’s spent time actually quantifying qualities which I’ve always kind of considered to be intangible. I’ve personally been directing shows for 15 years or so, and I had a fantastic high school director that gave me a great example to follow, so the amount of actual new, helpful information I gleaned was small but important, especially in the arena of coping with improvisers with bad or destructive habits. Many of the questions coming from the other directors in the room floored me… I remember thinking that I’d probably have trouble trusting these directors as well, and I wasn’t really surprised that they were having problems with their troupes. But then again, we’ve all got to start somewhere, right? Good directors aren’t usually born.

The workshop also gave me a new confidence. Knowing that the techniques the Great Mick Napier uses aren’t all that different from the techniques that John Robison of the Small Potatoes also uses… well that’s cool. Coming back, I have a renewed sense of clarity, and those improvisers I work with that have issues… I feel like I have the tools to mitigate those problems.

Afterwards, Mr. Napier casually tossed out a quiet and unassuming invitation to the crowd that he had reserved a table at his favorite gay restaurant/bar, and whomever wanted could join him. To my surprise, only about eight people decided to join him. I did… how could I pass it up? Out of the nine people there, five of them were theater owners, which was cool for me. Being a regular man, Mick sat at the other end of the table and talked quietly with the folks down there while casually watching some sporting event. I was a bit disappointed to not get to talk to him more, but still had a wonderful time talking to folks from New York, Chicago and Austin down at my side of the table - all three are big cities for improv, and it was great to get to hear about the scene there. You know something - most of those theaters aren’t doing things much differently than we’re doing here in Bonner Springs.

Toward the end of the meal, Mick switched sides and sat at our end of the table to talk to us for awhile. At that point, a strange realization came upon me. What do I have to say that would be interesting to Mick Napier? I’ve read his book, heard stories about him, visited his theater… it’s an imbalanced relationship right from the start. I ended up talking a little about my theater, a little about his book, and (prodded along by the guy from Chicago), a little about some of my own improv theory that was partially influenced by Mick’s book. All in all, I just hope I didn’t come off looking like a jackass.

My show was that night. All along, I had been saying that whatever shows were playing at the Annoyance that night, I’d see. I just feel a little more at ease playing in a room if I have a little history with it. As we sat in the bar before the shows, Mick Napier recognized me and waved, then came over to our table, and I introduced him to the other three. He was a charming host, giving us a little artwork tour of his lobby.

Before our set, I was relaxed, excited, and ready to go. It was the most normal I’ve felt in any Chicago show I’ve done to date. Ostensibly, my role in the Godot format is to come on with odd and interesting characters inspired by the conversation between Joe and Nathan. This time, however, there was no need. Joe was crazy. He played a lot with the door and window on the stage, and at one point got stuck underneath the audience. He was a robotic fan, did cartwheels, and was artwork. As you might imagine, with a bundle of energy like that, Nathan and I were the straightmen for Joe, which kept the energy balanced and scenes grounded. Having that sort of crazy energy on stage isn’t too common, and it’s fun to play with, even if playing with it often consisted of Nathan and I standing there, watching Joe bounce off the walls, and commenting how strange life could be, and gently poking fun at his behavior. It’s a role I haven’t gotten to take with this format yet, and it was fun to do. I think it went well. People seemed to laugh a lot. Overall, I was happy with the show and with my performance.

I got to hang out at the Annoyance bar afterward, and talked a lot with Nathan and his girlfriend Tara, their friend, the wife of a Mustache Ranger (who thought maybe I was a little bit gay), and Corey Rittmaster, a super talented performer originally from KC that now lives in Chicago. He performed a show at the Roving Imp last summer, and was amazing. I was really excited to hear that he wants to come do another show at the Imp this year… how cool would that be?

Sunday we checked out of our hotel and had breakfast at one of my very favorite vegetarian restaurants - The Handlebar - with my sister-in-law, also a talented actor (who actually started me back on the path to opening a theater, way back when), before we headed over to the Gorilla Tango Theater for the apprentice showcase, where Improv-Abilities performed during last year’s festival. Again… show analysis coming soon.

We packed so very much into these two and a half days. Exhausting and amazing, and it gave me a lot to think about, and some new formats were inspired. I’m glad we went. Let’s see if we can get in again next year, eh?

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 09:38 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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