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.