The Smile Was Worth It

Couple of weeks ago, I took off four days of catering work and filled in for a girl on my L.A. Connection Comedy Theater team and did kids shows. We would go to 2 or 3 different YMCA centers and perform an improv show using the kids. I had a fun time doing them and it was nice to see kids laugh and have fun with us.

The owner of the theater is kind of a douche bag and gave us a bunch of wrong information, so for a couple of the days of shows we were given bad addresses and times so we looked like fools. But what can you do.

The best day was the last of them. There are 3 other actors besides myself who perform these shows. The leader of our group, The Hoya, came and told us that at this particular YMCA they had a deaf child in the audience and that he had an interpreter there who would sign to him so he could follow along. The Hoya told the teacher and the interpreter that she wanted to bring the child up to participate in a game with us so he could be included. The only game that he could really do is called "Fairy Tale". In that game we take about 6-7 kids from the audience and we stand in a line together. The Hoya is the narrator and she asks the audience to give her there two favorite fairy tales. Then she combines them to make a fun story. The narrator tells the story and speaks all of the dialogue for the actors and all we have to do is pantomime what she is saying and act out what she tells us too. It is mainly geared toward the younger children so they don't have to speak. She told the teacher and the interpreter that she could sign the story as she spoke and give the kids directions by sign language. Then she busts out and goes into advanced sign language. I was really impressed.

When it was time for the game, she pointed out the child and signed to him that she wanted him to come up and join the game. The child looked surprised and then pointed at his chest, just to make sure he was seeing her correctly. When she signed yes, he SPRINTED up to the front and joined us for the game. Then we played the game with the kids and the child had the best time out of all of them. He was smiling ear to ear and having a blast playing the footman in "Sleeping Beauty meets Shrek". When it was over, he ran smiling back to his chair and I almost started crying. I was so happy that I could be a part of bringing joy to a child who has had a difficult life and was probably not looking forward to having yet another show at the center that he could not participate in. I told The Hoya that I was proud of her and that she should be proud of herself. I also felt inadequate, because I would have had no way to reach that child if she wasn't there.

Then the next school we went to had a child with Down Syndrome in the audience. We brought him up to play "Fairy tale" also, and he played Shrek in the story. By the way, Shrek was the suggestion for almost all of their favorite fairy tales. He was great as Shrek, even going so far as to imitate the mannerisms of an ogre while he was out there. He too ran smiling back to his chair after the game was over.

I also taught 45 minutes of improv games to kids by myself after one of the shows. I had 1st and 2nd graders in my group. I didn't realize that was the grade that everyone decides to kick and punch each other cause these kids were going after each other like it was an Ultimate Fighting Championship Pay Per View. I had to sit a few kids out, and tell some others to go to the bathroom to get them away from me for a few minutes, but overall it was fun.

The money that I earned from doing these shows and teaching comes off of my monthly dues for the theater. We didn't get paid much, but it was worth it just to see the smiles.

Improv Update

Improv has be going extremely well lately.

At Improv Olympic, the team that I am on "Emperor Penguin" is starting to come together as a team and has been performing well.

I was having a difficult time with the team about a month ago because of little things that were bothering me. Mostly it was stuff like being late to rehearsal or warm-ups before the show, and not seeming to take an interest in the team. I had reached a point were I was about to stop caring about the team and just show up and do my best, when one of the guys on the team pulled me aside and we started talking. He mentioned to me that I was one of the people on the team who had been in improv the longest. I had been on a couple of teams in Chicago and had gone through the Second City program and that people looked up to me. He suggested that I start taking a more prominent leadership role and that people on the team would back me up 100%. So, I sent out an email a couple of days before a show suggesting that the whole team should be there no later than 30 minutes before the show so we could get a nice long warm-up in before we went on stage. Sure enough, everyone was there for warm-ups on time and it has carried through the past few weeks. We also don't have a coach at the moment and have been having to coach ourselves and I think that has solidified us as a team. Now we are working on one small goal each show so that we can build a foundation for ourselves as a complete and solid Improv Olympic team.

The last two shows have been really good. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I was in a scene during the last show that just KILLED. It was a simple scene where a one-eyed guy picked me up hitchhiking. Then we just started talking and it was so interesting and funny that the team let us stay out there a little longer than a scene usually goes. I felt really good about my performance and the performance of the team and am looking forward to continuing to grow together.

At the L.A. Connection Comedy theater that I have been performing at for the past 6 months, things are going well also. The owner finally got off of his ass and started doing something about getting crowds. A company contacted him and he sells them tickets at a reduced rate and then they turn around and sell them at the colleges around L.A., of which there are a lot of them.

The past couple of weeks we have had shows where the audience is close to 40 people, which may not seem like a lot, but when you are used to performing to 4 people, it makes a HUGE difference. Plus, I think my group is pretty good and we put on a good show and the crowds have really seemed to like us.

I feel very positive right now with improv. Which is nice because not much else is happening career-wise. But that will change also.

Curb MY Enthusiasm

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a free improv seminar taught by Jeff Garlin. He is the Executive Producer of Curb Your Enthusiasm and plays, Jeff, who is Larry David's Manager.

I thought it would be fun and informative to take his class since the show is improv based and really, really funny.

The class started at 3pm, so I was in my seat at 2:50, ready to learn. There was one other guy sitting in the row ahead of me. We said hello to each other and then went into our own worlds, probably dreaming of Jeff picking us to be on his show.

3pm hits and no one else is there but us two. 3:05 and still no one. The guy ahead of me laughs and says,

"I forgot. Actors."

Which I thought was funny because it is true. I don't know how people expect to make it in this tough business when they can't even handle the simple things like showing up on time.

So around 3:10 people filter through the door and at 3:15 Jeff Garlin walks in and starts the class.

He tells us that he is going to teach us what he knows, and how to audition for Curb Your Enthusiasm using improv. Most of the day he hands out slips of paper that has a couple of sentences on it describing the characters or situation you will improvise. Then you went up and did the scene and he critiqued you and gave suggestions to everyone about how to audition better.

I thought it was really interesting when he told us that when people come into audition for CYE, they audition with the real actors from the show, and not just casting directors.

I went up a couple of times and he seemed to like what I did because he didn't have much criticism for me. Towards the end of class he was going to have us improvise situations from this movie that he just wrote and directed. He set up the scene and then it happened. He pointed right at me and said,

"I want you to do this, and you to do this", and he pointed at another woman that I thought had done a good job.

I thought that was really, really cool. He hadn't done that before and didn't do that after, so I felt proud that I had made an impression on him.

We do the scene and then more people do the scene and then class ended.

I walked up to Jeff who was getting his stuff together on a set of stairs that goes up to the balcony section of the theater, and told him thank you. I did so by raising my right arm and kind of giving him a little wave. He said that it was his pleasure and I brought my hand down and hit the tip of my elbow on the metal banister. HARD. It made a loud hollow noise and I just walked out quickly. Not sure if Jeff saw that, but I was pretty sure that I had destroyed any good impression that he might have had of me.

I walked out into the lobby and paused to rub my elbow because it hurt bad.

But not bad enough to ruin that day.

Retail Hell

Most people at one time or another has worked in the retail sector. Either during high school, college, or in between jobs, so everyone has a working idea of how shitty it is to work that type of job. I thought that my days of working retail were far in my past. I was wrong.

Recently, my catering company sent me to work two days at Warner Brother’s Studio, for a job described as “coffee service”. When they found out that I had zero experience making coffee, they stuck me in the Warner Brother’s store. The store is just a big merchandise rip-off that the tourists go to after the tour of the studio. It’s full of t-shirts, mugs, key chains, posters, and everything in between that has either television shows or movies that WB makes.

To make matters worse, the boss was an incredible anal man named Robert, or Anal Bob as I referred to him. He would walk around the store and point out every t-shirt that wasn’t folded properly, every mug whose handle was not pointed out in the right direction and every person that we had not greeted properly upon them entering the store. I could care less about everything there, but I wanted to do a good job so I jumped right in.

T-Shirts

All of the t-shirts had to be folded in exactly the same manor so that whatever word was showing on the fold, was showing on all of the t-shirts in exactly the same manor. And when I say exactly, I mean EXACTLY. I can’t tell you how many shirts I folded because the “s” on a “Friends” t-shirt didn’t match up with the others. One time he took me aside and made me re-fold about 30 shirts that had the WB crest over the right chest because they were all not uniformed. So 30 minutes later, I had folded all of the shirts, they were looking good, and I was pleased. Until I turned around 30 seconds later and saw a woman who must have had NO idea what her size was because she picked up 28 of the 30 shirts and unfolded them to put them on her to see if they fit. Then she didn’t even buy one. She threw them all in a pile and walked away. I wanted to strangle her with a shirt, but I calmly walked over and re-folded them AGAIN. I figured out that if you are doing something to a pile of t-shirts or mugs, then people automatically are drawn to them and as soon as you are done, they mess them up. But I didn’t always have to fold t-shirts, I was put in charge of printing pictures for a while.

Pictures

On one of the parts of the WB tour, people stand in front of a green screen and look up at something scary. Then by the magic of special effects, they can pick up a free picture at the end of the tour that has the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard movie jumping over them. You would have thought that this was a picture of God himself the way people would carry on about them. The tours are pretty big, and sometimes it would take a while for the pictures to be sent to the server for the gift shop. Let me tell you, if you don’t have that picture ready for the family from Milwaukee, WI as soon as they walk up, they are NOT happy about it. One woman was so scared that we had lost her family’s picture. She kept going on and on about it being missing and didn’t even say thank you when I found it and printed it off for her, because she wanted another free one and we can only give one free per group. The other copies cost $4.99, which didn’t please her even though she had just plunked down $25 for a t-shirt that simple said “ER”. One man was so taken by his picture that he kept asking for more stuff. Thankfully he was not talking to me. Here is a portion of the exchange.

Man: This picture is really great. Any way you could email me a copy?

Worker: I’m sorry sir; we don’t have the ability to email the pictures.

Man: Huh? That’s weird because I know a lot about computers and it doesn’t
Seem that hard to email it.

Worker: We have an independent server and it only hooks the computers here
there is no outside internet service.

Man: Hmmm. Could you put it on a disc for me?

Worker: Sorry sir, we don’t have that ability either, but you could buy
another copy if you would like.

Man: Noooo. I just think that it would be really easy to give people a
disc or an email. I am really good with computers so it would be no
problem for me to get it.

Worker: I’m sorry to disappoint you sir.

Man: What about different backgrounds? Any chance you have anything else?

Worker: Well, we change the background depending on what movie or TV show is
Popular at the time, but we don’t have the other backgrounds now.

Man: Wow! I know a lot about computers and it would be neat to see this
With a different background and it doesn’t seem that hard to me.

Worker: Well, they are thinking or maybe having that option in the future.

Man: Really?! When?

Worker: I don’t’ know.

Man: Any chance it would be in the next week, we leave then?

Worker: No.

Man: If I gave you my email address, could someone could let me know
When that happens, cause I know a lot about computers and it would be
No problem for me to have this sent to me with different backgrounds.

Worker: I don’t know when that would be sir?

Man: Let me give you my email address and you can let me know when that
Happens.

Worker: Okay, sir. I would be happy to do that.

Man: That’s great, cause I know a lot about computers and I would love for
this to be a Christmas card.

By the third time he said he was “good with computers” I wanted to scream at him to just make the picture himself. I know people who can put your face on Captain Kirk’s body in about 10 seconds, but apparently this supercomputer guy could figure that out. Thankfully I didn’t have to work the pictures all day, we took shifts.

Loose Keys

I was working with a woman from my company that I am friends with. Her name is Eva and she is from Austria. I went up to her during the second day and asked her if there were a lot of loose keys floating around Europe. She asked me why and I told her that every European tourist that comes in buys at least 5 key chains. She told me that they are cheap gifts to bring back to people. The cheapest key chain that we had was $5, which if it was me, I would not buy a “Gilmore Girls” key chain if it was $5. But I am not very European.

So that was a re-cap of my two days of retail hell.