The ImpFest Cometh

Just 48 hours from now, the first night of the Roving Imp’s very first festival will be done, and the audience and actors will hopefully be enjoying themselves at the after-party.

I am terrifically excited, and just a trifle nervous. We’ve never done this before. We don’t yet know what we should have remembered. My consolation is that when you boil down a festival, it’s basically just a concentrated version of all the activities we already do here at the Imp: classes and shows. The only difference is that there are more people involved, and it all happens in a shorter time frame.

I’ve tried to cover all my bases. I’ve structured the entire festival in a way that I would have always liked other festivals to be structured (each ensemble gets two chances to perform, and each performance lasts anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes, depending on the artistic needs of the piece… preordained schedules be damned), and I’ve tried to forsee possible problems. All I want is for everyone to have a great time, and if we’ve forgotten to dot an i, let’s hope t’s not an mportant one.

My biggest worry at this point is a great worry to have: a sellout on Friday and Saturday. I’ve tried to persuade everyone to purchase their tickets ahead of time to ensure they have a seat… but there are still literally about 30 people I’ve talked to that want a ticket but don’t yet have one. All I can do is know that I’ve tried my best. Sure, I’d love every single person that arrives to be able to strut right in and sit down, but when it comes down to it, we have 64 seats, and that’s it. If you’re number 65, we still love you, and we’ll see you at the party.

I’m excited to have Jill Bernard coming to our theater… and in a way it seems surreal. She’s someone I’ve talked with a few times, and to have her coming to our festival the same as she would come to Chicago or a zillion other festivals… seems weird. It doesn’t seem like we’re all that. Maybe we’re not… but we definitely put out some good improv, and having Jill here to deliver workshops and a show will really help inspire us to shoot even higher. Nearly every student at the Roving Imp Training Center is taking a workshop with Jill, which is really telling about their level of commitment to learning.

This time next week, it’ll be really interesting to see what insights I’ve gained. I’ve already learned a lot… festivals are complicated, sure, but not all that bad to plan if you’re at least a little organized. We’ll see if I still feel the same way next week!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 22:41 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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