Suddenly it's Tuesday?? blog -
back in the office and much less groggy thanks to some sleep and some coffee and some sleep.
So, to the obvious putting-the-final-button-on-the-TCIF blogging. A blurred sense of time due to being awake 20 hours a day for 4 days should make this interesting and guarantee that I leave something out. I will do my best.
my last thank you before the recap is to my wife.
Without her I wouldn't be who I am and without her support I couldn't do what I am doing. While this weekend was fun and laughs and late nights for me she was on single parent duty and only got to see one show out of this whole thing that I love so much.
The kids force this odd separation between the woman I love so much and this thing that I love to do so much by their whole 'needing someone to be home to take care of them' so she doesn't get included in the fun parts as much as I would like after getting to live with all the not-as-fun parts for so long.
Sure, she hears about it from an exhausted husband that was out too late, slept in because she's handling the boys and then drags himself out the door and leaves her with the two circus-freak children to help people make shit up and not get paid a penny for it. She's behind my passion about what I do but understandably concerned by my business model but she supports me anyway.
Thank you baby. I love you.
Saturday - the big day.
Saturday was the big one, the headliners, the main event.
It just felt strange since I'd already seen so much good stuff and had such an intensely good time that I was half delirious with pride, sleep loss, laughter and vitamin water and it seemed impossible (or potentially evil) that we were going to laugh harder and have more fun.
the Onion Writers - "the Onion Writers Humble Return to the Brave New Workshop" slide summed it up nicely. the Onion show was sort of the odd-one-out last year since we didn't really know what they were bringing and they didn't really know what we were all about. This year we knew a little more what to expect and they certainly got a sense of the festival vibe and showed up just wanted to have a bunch of fun. I'm all for it and I'm glad it the Onion show felt more like a part of the festival this year. They did some goofy improv and looked silly doing it. They handed out whiskey and knives. They know us all too well, apparently.
Ferrari McSpeedy/Josh & Tamra Show - This show was one that had me on edge and giddy just knowing that it was coming. I'm a huge fan of what Mike and Joe do and I think they really are responsible for bringing a style of play that got people thinking about how weird and out-there you can be and are constantly pushing for great, different shows. Put that together with Muppet-improv and I'll be the first guy in line to buy tickets or would put together a festival just to engineer such a thing and it would be worth it. It was cool, it was weird, my brain couldn't grasp that I was finally seeing it. "Hooray!" isn't an adjective but it's the best description of the show I can think of.
Brave New Workshop/BASSPROV - high on my list of shows that are super important to me, both to showcase the BNW to people that might not come to see the BNW mainstage improv sets and to show BASSPROV to the Twin Cities for the first time in 7 years (according to Sutton, that just doesn't seem possible and it certainly doesn't seem like we should've waited that long). Not only that but I really wanted to say thank you to the BNW for everything they have done for both the TCIF and IAGG over the years once again.
The quality of the show was never in question and doesn't even need to be 'reviewed'. It was great. end of story.
Survivors of the Undead Plague/ Darby Lane - I love what SOTUP does and that they trust me enough to let me do what I do while they're doing it.....what? Yes. Yes, Troy's character needed to find his child and make it to the church, probably pretty important BUT he did look down the barrel of a fucking gun. It was like he was daring me, no, ordering me to kill him. Nobody is safe in the SOTUP shows and I think that freaks people out even more. So cool.
Darby Lane with Joe Bill, Mark Sutton and Jill Bernard. - Holy Shit. I know Darby Lane doesn't have the hype or name recognition that a lot of the performing groups do but they are always great and I'm glad anytime Matt Donnelly comes here to do anything because I know improvisers here are benefiting from it.
Party time - the CC Club.
I hate playing "host" because there's just never enough time. I want to hear from everyone, thank everyone, shake hands with everyone and the reality is you get too little time with everyone and not enough time with anyone. We could've gotten Andy evicted and that's a sure sign of a good party.
Sunday I saw Wall-E with the family and it was beautiful and touching and smart. I want to see it again when I'm not totally depleted.
Sunday night - it does seem a little strange. It's weird to have another full night of shows after the big 'closing' party, a weird little epilogue to the giant improv explosion of the weekend but anyone that knows us knows what Sundays are all about and that it isn't the 'lesser' of the nights by a long shot - it's more like our intimate improv night....only less creepy than that sounds.
Police Cop Detective PI and Mustache Rangers are both BASSPROV-like in their "two people talking" format and yet couldn't be much more different in some ways. I love that it took the Rangers more than half their set to get around to explaining where they "were" since an unfamiliar audience would have no clue they were in a space ship and they'd just be two guys in chairs for 25 minutes for no reason at all.
HUGE had a set, I sort of remember being there. I wanted to hide in that race car tent and huddle in bed for real. "We're clearly all too tired to be doing this" may be the most truthful thing I've ever said onstage.
Then Buddy Daddy. Describing "a guy doing improv with his dog" doesn't capture it at all. It was so weird and funny on top of being painfully cute that it was the perfect fit and ending to our oddball Sunday night. The woman sitting next to me while I was running the camera was weeping and/from laughing through the entire set.
I repeated it again onstage and I will do so anytime we talk about the festival - it is all thanks to the performers, our supporters at the BNW and the people in the audience. All of it.
I had moment in the corner with Lauren about the whole final bow thing, I felt like a jerk for not coming back to stage but I have a problem with getting attention over all this even though I appreciate the thanks and it means a great deal to me. All we did was give people an occasion and permission to just show off how incredible the Twin Cities scene is. It should never be about the people putting this on - we'll save that for the Twin Cities Festival Festival.*
We put on the improv festival to focus on the improvisers and they should be as quick to step up and take credit for making this awesome as they are to thank Jill, Nels and I for doing things like logistics.
All I can say to everyone is 'it's my pleasure', 'You're Welcome' and 'You deserve it all the time, not just once a year". We're working on that as well. I think the TCIF 2008 was a great step in the right direction.
Sunday night I went home, plugged in my camera and then woke up just before 4am where I had passed out, head on my desk. Yesterday I dropped Joe off at the airport, barely functioned through the first post-festival day and euphoria-hangover from such an awesome weekend.
Thanks again and again. i don't know what else to say.
* what?? I know. That is maybe funny to maybe two people. but seriously, the TCIF, Pride and the Twin Cities Jazz Festival are all on the same weekend. It's the Twin Cities Festival Festival.
There, I've explained the joke and the only time the focus should be on festival producers.
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