back to the ever daily day, little to do and less to say - minds would wander and thoughts astray

Saturday morning blog -

I have been playing catch-up constantly these days and found myself emailing a friend saying "yeah, I blog everyday" and realized that was completely untrue lately and that when I do blog I keep promising more info on more interesting things "soon" so I'm trying to rectify that.... gradually.

Of course, most of what I've been "working on" isn't work at all but improv or performance stuff, for those of you interested, here's the scoop lately:

Stare Down - I got to run tech for this show the last several Fridays at the Bryant Lake Bowl and I feel like I've done a less-than-stellar job of promoting it but that's what happens when you don't get out and only communicate through scattered blogs. It reminded me of when I used to work at the BNW and in the weeks before opening they would give the cast bags of posters to help get the word out - even though the cast was essentially locked in the building until it was too late, making them the absolute worst street team in the world.
Anyway, I dig this show in a big way, it's improvised but doesn't feel like your normal, wacky improv show - instead it comes off with a clear style that sets it apart as a "theater" show and the fact that the banter and action are made up becomes secondary to creating something with a specific feel. Kudos to Stare Down - one of my favorite shows.

Things with the Actual Theater Project have stalled and that's totally my doing - I have the next set of papers to file sitting on my desk and I will be working on them today - I swear. I can't really express how much I want the paperwork part of things to be done with but it's somewhere right around how much I want to stop being the person that always talks about this thing I going to do "someday".

I've been trying to stay on track writing down my thoughts for a training document for technicians in the weird area that is improvised tech and I find it exciting even when I have to wonder if there's even people out there that want to care about it besides me. Jill has been bravely nudging me to stay on the project, which is easy to put on the back burner (which is pretty full of other things since you can move an infinite amount of things to the back of this magical stovetop without having to shuffle something else to the front..... perhaps a new metaphor is needed) and I'm stoked about the direction it's taking and regardless of any impact it may have I'll be glad to get it out of my system.
Jill - keep on me.
People that want to learn what I'm trying to teach - ask where it is.

In the meantime - Nels' return has put some fire under some other improv projects (improjects?) that need time and attention - including starting talks of Creature Feature as well as our NEW show, currently on the baord to start this winter. Trying to give shows enough time, effort and eneergy to launch them right is a new process for us and I think we'll be much happier with the results.

At the same time we're also getting workshop/class offerings ready to go so this organization can start to take on a more complete and cohesive plan of attack. While this isn't exactly the specifics of what we're doing know that once we have concrete details to announce, everyone will hear about them.

and, HOLY SHIT - the message boards at Minneapolisimprov.com have come back to life!!
Long before we had weekly gatherings or even regular shows this was the place where people that improvise in the Twin Cities would hang out online and where our community grew for a long time - it's back and you should join in, performer, audience member or otherwise.
Go to www.minneapolisimprov.com and waste work-hours with us!

The other end of business is the quickly approaching, almost upon us monster that is the Renaissance Festival - which is following the typical patterns the Festival always follows of being poorly (or at best extremely loosely) organized, governed by insane whims of a guy that doesn't understand, or give one warm crap about, things like "entertainment" and the communication one gets from the office as a performer is something like talking to a coma patient - you know they're in there somewhere but you're going to do all the talking and you should get used to that.

After some wondering how it was going to turn out George and I did get our contracts and I'm very much looking forward to just getting out there and playing on the street and getting face to face with that audience again. All the rest is bullshit - some of it deliberate and malicious, some of it thoughtless and accidental, but bullshit all the same.

I'm going to play.
Because, clearly, I don't have any work to do.