Welcome to where time stand still, No one leaves and no one will

Holy crap, it's Friday blog - my office has declared today "Heavy Metal Friday" and my iPod has been taken from me and is cranking out all sorts of music I either forgot I own and in many cases am ashamed I still carry around. Today is going to be fun.

the boys performed in the circus last night and had a wonderful time doing so, I think when we left they were still stunned by the whirlwind nature of it all. We had to drop them off with the handler of the small kids and run back out, they were taken backstage (which they thought was pretty cool) and were the first ones on, their routine ends with a procession out to the lobby where they are scooped up by their grinning parents and out the door to go home (even the kids in the show can't stay to watch without buying a ticket...stupid non-profits) and it's over until they come back tonight to do it again.

It might be too early to tell them to get used to it, the best the can hope for if they make a life of this would be getting dropped off in a limo, hurried backstage by handlers, shuttled onstage to do their thing and then back to the limo to head to another city to do it all again the next night. When you put it like that it sounds less fun. They're definitely too young for me to mention the hookers and blow in between all those stops, and I'm not sure that circus performers get either so they'll still have some surprises to look forward to.

they're on again tonight and then dad has to hustle off to Punch Out to euthanize 123 Improv!!
11 PM | $10 | Brave New Workshop
all proceeds go to the Twin Cities Improv Festival.

TCIF Merch available starting tonight! Another nifty way to funnel your cash into the improv festival.
t-shirts: $15

On the improv front things are strange - the IAGG 6th Anniversary show is almost upon us and somehow keeps sneaking up on me, usually it's something I stress about and try and make a big deal of (to me anyway) but the TCIF and generally become the thing I focus all my stress on so the IAGG 6 year show on the 18th will just be a really fun show in celebration of a really strong run of incredible shows and hopefully I won't ramble and stammer through my part. but I will, we all know I will.

the TCIF is getting a bunch more attention, which is cool. Last year I feel like we had to prove our validity somehow, to audiences and even more to performers in order to sell them on the idea of traveling all the way across the country to be part of an event for an improv community they know nothing about and never hear from. I think we did a pretty damn incredible job if I say so myself and people onstage and off all left impressed with and little more aware of what we have here.

This year we've got people coming from all over the country just to watch the shows, I've heard from people at little improv theaters here and there and performers from pretty impressive distances that just want to take a workshop or check it out, which makes me proud as hell and really eager to show off our city and our performers again. We rule.

Still, no Stagebenders. We will just have to try harder.

Getting ready to head to Chicago for CIF at the beginning of June and I because of all the above I got invited to participate in a panel discussion during the Snubfest portion of the CIF week of Festival producers. it's a ticketed thing. it's a paying gig. It's weird to think that people will be paying to hear my thoughts on these things we do, which doesn't feel like something I think and strategize about as much as just have a lot of energy and passion for. I'm going to need to make up better answers than that if I wanna earn my cash.

As much as the idea of coming to down during the biggest festival to talk about how we do a smaller festival seems weird it would probably be even stranger listening to the Chicago end. I know the guys that work there and I know they put shitloads of time and energy into it as well but I have to imagine that every answer should at least include the phrase "first, you have to be IN Chicago" since the central nature of where they are determines a great deal, the same way smaller festivals are smaller by virtue of not being Chicago.

I think we've got a bunch to learn from each other but at the same time I can't teach someone what works in Minneapolis as if it will work in Omaha any more than it could go the other way. We just happen to luck out and be in Minneapolis. We rule.
Seriously, those will be my two answers. I need to get thinking.