Last night my improv group and I had our last show of the
year. This was our first year performing together, as a
group. Our group first formed last year, in mid-2009, after a
couple of false starts the preceding year; but our first
show wasn’t until February 21, 2010. We had a show each month
(except for November) for a total of 10 shows. Following are
my thoughts on my year of improv.
January
This month was spent prepping for our first show. We workshopped games, brainstormed show ideas and we continued to bond as a team. I was pretty nervous for our first show but also very excited. We would have had a show this month except for something
called the “super bowl”? Whatever.
February
Our first show as a new company. I remember that the theater was packed – it’s always more fun to do a show for a full house than an empty one. Lots of friends and family showed up to see our first show, which I always love.
I just re-watched this show not too long ago, on a DVD our director gave to us last month. Overall, I think it was a pretty good show. My little brother got pulled up on stage to do a Dinner at Joe’s game, wherein several members of my family were lampooned – this was fantastic. There were kinks here-and-there, especially near the end, but mostly it was a solid show, and everyone seemed to have a good time. We threw in some games that we created, and they were well received. I’m proud of myself and my team for putting together a really decent first show.
March
Memory…fuzzy…can’t…recall…details. I just checked my Twitter feed from that day and I said the show was a “success”. That’s…helpful, I suppose, but not really. This was our second show, and I guess it went well, apparently. I should start blogging about these things closer to the dates they happen….
Oh, look at that, I posted a game from this show to YouTube! Check it out:
April
Our 3-D show! Very exciting. Once again I gave myself positive-but-vague reviews on Twitter, so this is unhelpful. I do remember that my wife and daughter were at the show to cheer me on, and that was awesome!
May
We hosted the College Team this month (and later in the week they hosted us). I wasn’t in the Sunday show (16th), because I was in the College Team show (20th) instead. On the Sunday show, three College Team members played a Sunday Company-style show. I went to the show to watch. I thought it was pretty good, although I distinctly remember there being one game that was really awkward to watch (sorry, guys!). Twitter has nothing to say about this show, sadly.
The three of us that were not in the Sunday show practiced in my garage that week for our Thursday show against the College Team. The Thursday show was lots of fun – we lost the first half, so we didn’t get to play 5 Things (which I was bummed about), but we did get to introduce the Thursday crowd to a Sunday Company-exclusive game 10 Things or Less and eventually went on to
win the show! It was also cool to get to do a show in the “traditional” format of our theater again, since I hadn’t done one since I was taking workshops they previous year.
I should also point out the fact that my wife is awesome and didn’t mind me doing a show on our wedding anniversary!
June
The first of several theme-based shows – this one was Father’s Day-themed. My wife and daughter were out of town for this show, so all I remember was being bummed that I didn’t get to see them on Father’s Day. The show itself was fun. We twisted up some games to be more Father’s-Day-ish (10 Things or Less became Grandpa’s Attic, etc). I vaguely recall that there was a long-running game about drug addiction somewhere in that night which was…weird. Overall, I declared the show “fun”, so that’s good.
July
Star Wars show! This was our best show, in my opinion. We sold out (or came close) for the second time, and (on a personal note) I had lots of friends and family show up, and they all seemed to like the show, so that was great! I feel like this was one of my better shows, I was feeling pretty confident, and I was excited about what we were doing, since I’m a huge geek and got to show that off to an audience (even if I did mix up Geonosis for Kamino in Galaxy’s Worst).
Lots more tweaking of games – this time to be Star Wars-specific. We also did a long form game, montage, which was pretty awesome, you
can see that here:
The day before this show I did a side-gig, helping out a friend who needed someone for their four-person improv group. I actually got paid for improv, making me a professional comedian (possibly), go me! This was a big improv weekend for me.
August
Another themed show, this time we did a full-on Long Form show. I really liked this show, it was different. I’m more of a fan of short form, myself (although I like a mixture of both best). I feel like I learned a lot with learning some Long Form styles, and I definitely want to learn more. This is also the month when a friend of mine invited me to an (all-day) improv workshop. I felt very out of place at first (I’m not a part of their improv group), but I was very thankful that he invited me and really glad I went.
This show, sadly, is also where my improv self-confidence began to wane for a few months…. I don’t know if it was a factor of learning new things, being burnt out or just random anxiety (or some combination thereof), but the next few months were filled with a sense of “I suck at improv”.
September
We had some “pros” from the main stage of our theater come and perform with us for this show. It was a good show, although I didn’t feel that I did as well as I could have (see above). Mostly, I felt that I was lacking energy. I miss caffeine, sometimes, seriously.
Twitter indicates that I thought the show was “fun” (I need a thesaurus, apparently). It also indicates that I hurt my back during this show – a problem that would plague me for a month or two. I blame being tackled on stage while pretending to be a streaker.
October
Defying expectations, we did not do a Halloween themed show for October. Instead, we went for a straight-up improv show. I was quite happy about that, since it let me try to focus on getting back to basics. I felt like the show was pretty good, solid. But I continued my feeling that I wasn’t living up to my own expectations. Nothing bad, I just wasn’t getting better, like I want to.
Perhaps most telling of all: I didn’t even tweet about the show afterwards. Great Scott!
November
No show 🙁 But, we did get a bunch of newbies into the group. I was very nervous about this, at first, because I don’t always get along well with others, but it worked out well. The new kids seem to fit in well, and bring a nice bit of energy to the group, I feel they’ve rejuvenated us and breathed some new life into the group. Plus, there’s a lot better gender balance to the group, now, which I think is important. Still, we brought in 9 people to our 8 so now we’re out-numbered!
December
Last night we had our last show of the year – a Holiday themed show. I thought this was our second best show of the year (second only to the Star Wars show). I felt a lot better about my performance (both going in and after the show), which probably didn’t hurt! Our n00bs
performed a 12 Days of Christmas spoof before the show, which was a cool change of pace, and the veterans were (almost) all there to do
a regular show, replete with ugly sweaters and holiday-themed games.
Afterwards, we had an end-of-year/post-show party with everybody involved with our group (at least, the ones who were at
the show), and I was reminded yet again of how much fun improv-ers are. I genuinely enjoy their company, and I’m very thankful that I’ve been given this opportunity to get to know them all. And other sappy stuff.
Overall, it was a good year for improv. We had lots of (mostly good) shows with bookends of very solid shows on both ends (that’s redundant) and a smattering of really good ones in-between. I feel I’ve improved significantly as a performer, but I still have a long way to go[1].
[1] Hey, I made it through a whole post without any footnotes[2].
[2] Wait…damnit.