this weekend was good and crazy and sometimes crazy-good.
Friday night's Punch Out was a good time and it was fun to be onstage as HUGE again even if i was the only person in the group that hadn't already been improvising all night and was stiff and it showed. The membership of HUGE seems to be set up to guarantee that we get together and perform only rarely but we need to step that up as we prepare to head to the Chicago Improv Festival to represent.
Chicago? Yes, HUGE is in the Chicago Improv Festival this year and if we had a regular outlet or coalesced as a group more often you'd hear about it more, I think.
Anyway, the set was fun and I think it was very much the HUGE style but felt rusty, like a bunch of people that are never all in the same place at the same time. 123 Improv had the same issue in their set but managed to turn it into the cornerstone of their form and it was pretty damn fun for the handful of people that were in attendance.
Punch Out has become the super-fun show that fills me with doubts about what I've decided to devote lots of time and energy (and probably money) to in my near future, even though it's also full of really encouraging moments and really solid performances it's hard not to get weighed down by the difficulty in drawing a gi-normous crowd on a Friday night.
On one hand we've been spoiled at IAGG into forgetting that shows don't normally start out with close to a hundred people in attendance and have to grow into a regular thing for audiences to find. On the other hand I know we're running a show with essentially a staff and marketing crew of almost none, and the people that are in charge of promoting the show are also up to their eyes doing other shows so I have to take credit for setting up a show for a tough road to less-than-overwhelming success.
I can tell myself these things all I want, I'm still spoiled by IAGG and performing in front of 25 people feels weird. Boo Hoo.
This Friday MITCH takes on (what could be the final performance of) Sir Laffs A Lot
11pm | $10 | Brave New Workshop - Proceeds go to the Twin Cities Improv Festival
the IAGG Anniversary show is upon us. Holy Shit.
Why did I not remind myself to freak out about this sooner?!
I love this show every year just for the strangeness of it all - typically what happens is Five Man Job does a normal set and everyone else some something really insane for the occasion and the whole thing feels somehow more like playtime than the rest of the year. It's nice to get up and really enjoy the thing that is spoiling us as performers the rest of the year.
Seriously, if you want any chance of getting a seat for the show you need to get there early. Our audience usually arrives en masse five minutes to show time every week (from the very first show on, they're amazingly consistent) but this show is going to be big and we'll end up squeezing everyone we can into the room (often on the anniversary show we pack the hallways and even have people watching through the doorway in the lobby) and then turning people away with apologies. I really would like it if everyone that showed up could get in but we all know that isn't possible.
I will stammer on and on about this during plug-time at the show Sunday but this thing we have in the Twin Cities is pretty remarkable and I'm going to spend the week stressing about how best to say thank you for it and for 6 really incredible years.
alright - time to do my "job"
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