Babe Ruth

We had a solid show last night. It was pretty balanced between the four of us, and we each had some shining moments. When improv goes well, it's a rush! I was walking on air the rest of the night. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, I have been thinking about how it feels to step away from a performance that bombs. Sometimes, even if the show as a whole was quality, I'll find myself alone in my head. I'll blame myself and wonder what else I could have done or said differently. There is the mantra that "there are no mistakes in improv", but some choices are definitely more effective than others. Improvisers tend to be their own worst critic. This is not a bad thing. For one, it shows that you care about what you are doing. It can also push you to improve your craft. Every performance is a learning opportunity, and I've learned a lot from my mistakes (less effective choices). If you're looking to nitpick your own performance, you'll always find something. It's easy to forget that it takes courage to get in front of a crowd with no idea what will happen next. At least you're up there- up to bat. So if you're feeling down about a performance or even a rehearsal, just remember: Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, but he also struck out 1,330 times. You can't hit a homer if you're not swinging, so swing!

Ben

Michael Pizza's PBS Filming

Man, I (Brett) had a REALLY fun time at our show last night. Every time I am about to walk onstage, I get nervous and start asking myself why in the hell I do this. Then, as soon as the show begins, I forget about everything and just play. It also helps when you have Josh Logan onstage saying things like "getaway sticks".

The night could not have gone better. We did an interview with Alt.news before the show, Bill Arnett unveiled some new videos and then we had a killer Michael Pizza show. So, maybe it could have gone better. I could have gotten free Chipotle or Keira Knightley could have asked to wear my hat or something. But anyway.

Here are some of my favorite moments from the show...

1. Josh was a southern woman who called her legs "getaway sticks".

2. I played a southern science teacher in a scene that only lasted 3 lines. It went something like this: "Welcome to the first day of science class. Today we will be discussing your lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Class dismissed."

3. Eric and Josh had a hilarious moment when, as Eric was being hunted, he stopped and bought a hotdog from a park vendor.

4. Kass had a really great moment in the end where he fell in love with himself and then had to jump back and forth in order to play both the man and the woman. Funny.

Anyway, that show really reminded me of how important it is to have friends and fans who support you. We needed a big turnout and people really came through. With that being said, I want to support some people who I feel deserve it. So here it goes...

1. If you want to read about improv, read Bill Arnett's blog. Read the old posts as well. It is mostly dead on, funny and smart. Here's the link: http://blogs.iochicago.net/bill/wordpress/

2. My sister is in an improv show every Friday at 10:30pm at The Apollo Theater called Baby Wants Candy. It consists of the VERY best improvisers in the city.

3. There is a new Harold team at iO called Neapolitan. They have been doing some really good work. Check them out.

4. If you want to see the teams that Michael Pizza looks up to and strives to be like, go see Cook County Social Club, 3033, The Reckoning or Improvised Shakespeare.

That's it. That's all I got.

Show Last Night

What a turn out!

Michael Pizza's second to last show at iO couldn't have gone much better. We had a huge crowd that was most likely a result of our friends, students and the Cook County Social Club overflow. There may have even been a few curious onlookers as we had the TV show Alt.news there from a PBS station doing a story on the iO theater.

The show itself was a ton of fun as it felt as if it was just us having fun in front of 100 close friends.

We have one show left in our current run and that is next week so get your butt up and out and see us.

We love you all.

E to the C

List

List of 10 most unusual things in my room I’m looking at right now. #10) Cardboard cutout of Clint black holding a Wheatables box, 9) Tin Christmas canister with a Winnie the Poo costume stuffed inside. 8) Creepy music box of a porch. 7) a 4 leaf clover. 6) Northern Sil Lum Plum Flower Fist kung-fu kata 5) "Only loving beats tennis" wood plaque. 4) Small decorative ground break shovel with “LePrince Jardinier” engraved on it. 3) A cluster of fine glass decorative strawberries. 2) An apocalypse kit fit with night vision scope, MRE, med kit, rope, sewing kit and canteen. 1) A life size monkey butler wearing an olde tyme Spanish officer’s helmet holding vitamins and draped in an Iranian rug.
Josh

Christmas Eve At The Elam's

Hello all. Tonight is the Elam's Christmas Eve. My younger brother is getting married this year and the other siblings have all turned old, with old people lives and old people obligations. So, this year, we decided to schedule Christmas a week early so that we could all spend time with our respective significant others on Christmas. I, of course, have no significant other. So let's have a singles mixer on the real Christmas Eve or else I'll be left at home to sit and watch Season 1 of Jericho alone!

Here is a memory from Christmas Eve last year...

I drove all night to get to Tennessee in time to spend the day before Christmas with my parents. My sister and brother (who are both Chicago improvisers) got in my car after a performance and we drove through the night. I got home at 7am, slept for a few hours and then woke up to start the festivities with my family. I was expecting a normal Christmas Eve type of day. I got up and took a shower to wash off the funk from the drive the night before. When I got out of the shower though, my brother and sister were knocking on the bathroom door.

I opened the door with a huge smile on my face, expecting to get the Christmas bits started. You see, we are an improviser family. We make jokes that go on for hours or days or years in my family. For example, Scott pooped on himself once about 7 years ago and we all thought it was so funny that we created a "Poop Dollar" that gets passed around to whoever pooped on himself last. I currently have the poop dollar. Anyway, we like to do bits in my family. Well, this particular Christmas Eve morning, I opened the door expecting bits. I was smiling from ear to ear when my sister spoke. She said "Daddy just got wheeled out on a stretcher to the Emergency Room". Ahhhhh yeeeeaaahhhhh, I thought. I've been up for 5 minutes and they've already got a joke in the oven for me. Let the Christmas games begin...

It wasn't until I saw tears streaming down Scott's cheeks that I realized that this wasn't a joke. I would have loved to have seen my face. The stupid fucking look of Christmas joy, changing to confusion, changing to a blank stare as I replayed what had been told to me and reconsidered it through a new, serious filter and then the look of fear. I wish I had it on tape.

We all rushed to the hospital and sat around together, waiting for any sort of news on what was wrong with him. Eventually, the doctors told us that he had "blown his spleen apart" and was bleeding internally for hours. He had bled 80% of the way to death, but would be alright after surgery. It all ended well and he is fine. But, needless to say, we didn't really get to celebrate Christmas.

Also, in case you are wondering, we DEFINITELY got our hospital bits in there. We took pictures with him while he was high on morphine like we were tourists at a landmark and now, whenever he is upset, we say "chill out Daddy, don't bust a spleen". For copies of those pictures, look on my facebook under the album "It's a Spleenessee Christmas".

Brett

Work Work Work

In case anyone wanted to know, I work at Blue Cross and Blue Shield doing all their AV work.

That generally involves setting up projectors, mics, speakers, laptops and whatever else a group might need for a meeting/party. It can get pretty boring at times because we used to have a part-timer who did all the busy work but with cutbacks, I am now the one who has to pick up the slack. With that comes the joy of dealing with the white-collar crowd who doesn't yet understand a recession no matter how many coworkers get laid off.

One thing I am certain about myself, I am not a corporate type of guy. All my friends in the building are the electricians, carpenters, caterers and other laborers that work with their hands for a living. Blue-collar types.

The more I work at my 8 to 5 job the more I am sure that this is not what I was meant to do. I came to Chicago with the intent of learning improv well enough to teach it and open a small theater elsewhere. I am finding that my job is getting in the way more than I expected, especially now that I am married. Like and aging prize fighter who needs to hang it up, I find myself putting in eye drops and pomade in my hair before shows in order to look like I am not dying from exhaustion.

For now I have to fight through my lack of time and these dreaded dark circles under my eyes that seem to get darker by the day. I also have to keep the image alive in my head of coming into my own theater, grabbing some coffee(from the cafe in my theater) and getting to work on the new promo for an upcoming show.

Dave Pasquesi

DCT. NIGHT.
We had an improv class and we were on our five minute break. Everyone of course makes their way to the restroom to do the business that life affords. Ben is already in there. I step in and the odor is overwhelming. A bathroom can stink. A bathroom can be a place that just smells of urinal cakes. This particular occasion was a smelly episode. So, as I stroll in, I comment, "Wow, this place smells like poop." That's it. An innocent observation that fell out of my mouth. Then Dave Pasquesi steps out of the stall, with his tall body and big eyes, looks directly in my eyes with a slowly twisting head motion and says with a slower than necessary cadence "what a weird place for it to smell like poop." When he said the word "poop" he said it in a popping sound effect way. I don't know if Dave thought I was jabbing at who ever was in the stall or even if he was jabbing at me with a condescending "duh" remark. Then he washed his hands. I peed and the episode came to conclusion.
That's it. Ben loves it.
Josh-

My Wife's first "Chicago improv show"

Hey all,

I am about to head to my wife's first improv show here in Chicago over at the Playground Theater. The thing is, it really is not her first show. She did one with her friend from Carbondale opening for Michael Pizza back during the "Michael at Midnight" run. So why do I consider this her first show?

Well, she is on a new team Valid Hysteria that has been around for a while in Chicago and recently re-auditioned and re-cast. This team will be the first that she has played with that is an actual Chicago based team. They are very new to each other and are coming up with their for for tonight as I write this.

For me this is very exciting as it should open up doors for her and create new friendships in a city that can be intimidating at times. I know moving to this city has been a rough adjustment for her since she did not have any friends here and she is not working a regular job. I think this is the start of her getting settled in a bit.

So if you come to the show tonight, I will be the guy holding the camcorder with a grin on his face and if you get a chance ask her about her improv she is involved in. But don't blabber on, because I am going to want to talk about improv with you when you are done.

-E to the C

Brett's thoughts on tonight's show

Hey guys! Michael Pizza just had our tuesday night show at iO and I had a few thoughts on what I loved, what I liked and what I disliked.

First off, tonight was really fun. We decided backstage that we wanted to attack this show with a Brendan Jennings energy. If you don't know Brendan, he's one of the funniest and most committed improvisors in the city. Anyway, we played hard, fun and fast. We started off as a group of women who all hated being married because we could only have sex with one man. We were shopping when we realized that we were about to miss our movie (Fivel Goes West). We dashed off to catch the movie. After that, some of my favorite moments in the show came as the women sat in the theater watching Fivel Goes West. Kass and I even played the mice singing "Somewhere Out There" (which was actually from the first Fivel movie, but still really fun). People cheered after the singing, which is always great.

There were a couple of times where we just got too crazy. At one point there were two homeless men, a kidnapper and his victim, the parents of the victim, someone calling CVS pharmacy on the phone and who knows what else! It got kinda crazy and "out there". I didn't love this scene because it'd have been better if we just stuck to one idea.

Another fun thing we did tonight was have two shows. Rather than having one long show, we did a short show, took an intermission and then did a second show completely. Our coach David liked the second show better, but I completely disagree with him. He thought the second show had better scenes, but I thought it was sloppy and all over the place. I guess everybody just likes different things. I'd love to talk to some students after these shows and see what they liked and disliked. Maybe next week...

Well, that's about all I got. I have a Digiorno pizza in the oven, some red wine and some episodes of Jericho to watch. Have you ever seen this show??? It's shaping up to be pretty awesome.

Old Notes

Ever since Holly Laurent told her class to take notes I've carried around a notebook. So far I've gone through about four of them. They're usually little 4x6in books. I just finished the fourth one and the life of these binded pages saw Pat O'briens level 4B class, a 4 week Barry Hite workshop, an Improvised Shakespeare 4 week workshop, and an assortment of improv shows that I watched and recorded thoughts. I always go back through and see if I've applied the notes, sometimes I have and sometimes I haven't. Here are some notes I've taken;

Barry Hite-
Feel something about everyone. Make those feelings known.
When doing object work, try for every character to have something small. Just a touch of object work is enough.
No one is ever just angry. Anger comes from something else. If you find yourself angry on stage use is to reveal something about your character and why you're feeling that way.
Make changes in your characters emotion. We played this game where we would get two emotions. Let's say I had "joy" and "jealousy." We would start a scene with our first emotion and then at sometime in the scene you would switch to the other one. This gave your character a fuller personality and kept the scene moving.

Pat O'brien's class
Stylize your scenes. Give them a feel, an emotion or a "vibe" that can be felt in the audience.
Spend a few seconds at the top of the scene reading your partner. That way you can get a great feel for what's gonna go on between you two.
Every emotion you want to feel on stage is because of the other person. A lot of improvisers feel something that has nothing to do with their partners.

Blaine's Improvised Shakespeare workshop
Have a strong want immediately.
Pick a focal point. Something that is influential to your character. Anything to feel something about.
Emotional changes. You don't want to be a stone on stage. Give in. Give yourself up. No man is an island. Be vulnerable.
Watch focus between scene partners and split scenes. The audience's heads should all be moving together like one. From right to left- from left to right. During a show watch the heads of the audience and see if they move together. If the don't than focus isn't properly being traded on stage. Even while on the sidelines try to give nothing to the crowd because it can affect them and their focus.

Those were some of the major notes I'd taken. There's more but I'll probably rewrite them in this new notebook, so perhaps they'll make it into another blog.
Josh

12/1/09 Show Thoughts (Ben)

The last few Michael Pizza shows had a strong first half and then either leveled out at the end or even dropped in energy. This week's show was sort of the opposite: a shaky, lower-energy start but ended with a crescendo. After getting the suggestion of "toothbrush", we built our movement-based opening. There was a close-up of teeth being brushed, a space port with tiny saucers taking off, and a bed in a seedy motel room (If this bed's a-rockin'...) There wasn't a wealth of information or detail in this sequence, but we definitely could have drawn more from it.

The opening morphed into a group scene. It was four young brothers sneaking downstairs early Christmas morning. We all feared spankings for doing this, but we made a pact to do it anyway. Lately we have been talking about character point-of-view, and the difference between conflicting views in a scene and distinctly different characters having the same/similar points-of-view. We used the latter on Tuesday. Sometimes it's more fun to live in the world of a scene with each other as opposed to having a plot-heavy problem between characters.

We then edited pretty efficiently to different scenes, but the variety of energy and pace just wasn't there. Having said that, it was pretty solid show. There was some great environment work, such as all four of us interacting with the balcony and peeking through its bars that resembled a prison cell.

We ramped it up at the end of the performance with a montage of "The Eli Manning Story", which was loosely based on "The Blindside". My favorite part of that was Brett as the quarterback in the final seconds of the game. Josh and I played several different linebackers trying to tackle him. Eric was at the other end of the stage as the wide receiver and commentator. Brett's fun choice was not to throw the ball and just keep eluding the defense for a while, and then finally run the ball in himself. Eric's great line was, "Eli Manning has just rewritten history!"

Thanks to all that attended this week's show! We have this iO run until January 5th*.
We hope to see you there on Tuesdays at 8PM upstairs!

*Please note that we will not be performing on December 15th due to an iO event.

Ghost Dogs!

I hope everyone had safe travels over Thanksgiving! As I drove back to Chicago from Iowa on Thursday evening, I had a strange feeling that a doe or a thirty-pointer was lurking behind every bend on Highway 20 around Galena. I give thanks that I did not see a single animal on the road that night. However, almost exactly three years ago, I wasn't so lucky...

Trust me- this is a true story.

Back in early December of 2006, I had driven my forest green Dodge Stratus to Chicago to scope out apartments and audition for Mission:Improvable. On the trip home to Cedar Falls, IA, around 1:00 in the morning, I was cruising at 70mph in the right lane on the I-380 straightaway north of Cedar Rapids (Please note that not all Iowa towns start with "Cedar"). It was well below freezing, the ground had just a trace of snow, but the roads were fine. I was belting out shuffled songs on my Nano, which I tend to do when driving alone.

Then, as if out of thin air, I see something white moving onto the highway from the right ditch about fifty feet in front of me! What happened next only took a few seconds, but everything seemed to be in slow motion and I don't remember the music being on in those moments. At about 40 feet, I realized what this thing was. It was a huge yellow Labrador retriever! (Seriously, it looked like a mix between that and a St. Bernard or something.) The headlights gave its coat the appearance of polar bear fur. Then, another white fluffy thing emerged behind it! Then another! That's right. I'm telling you that not one, not two, but three very large dogs were about to step out in front of my Dodge Stratus! Do you remember those old-time shooting games with the ducks that come in, one right after the other, from the side? Well, it kind of looked like that as all three dogs made a break for it across ol' I-380. At 30 feet, I slammed on my breaks, but I still hit TWO OF THE THREE DOGS! The second of the three went under my right tires, as the leader of the pack hit my bumper and grill directly in front of me. After the enormous THUD-THUD, I don't remember music- just dead silence*. I was mortified! Maybe it was because the dog was so tall, or perhaps it was because the impact was right before the screeching halt, but somehow the first Lab became airborne! In what had to have been a ten-foot high arc, this poor animal literally went end over end until it hit the twenty degree pavement. Rigor mortis could not have possibly set in yet, but it looked frozen solid in the air and on impact. This thing spun like a Coke bottle to the left and off the asphalt, looking as if it had already been to a taxidermist. To make it even more macabre, the head ended up facing me when it stopped rotating on the frozen gravel shoulder. In my rear-view mirror I could see the second retriever motionless on the right side of the road. The last of the three must have run off into the darkness unscathed. It was nowhere in sight.

For a few moments, I thought this couldn't have been real. How could three dogs just magically appear like that? My overactive imagination gave me an answer: GHOST DOGS! They must have been ghosts! My hands were shaking uncontrollably as I peeled my white knuckles off the steering wheel. I put my Dodge in park, threw on the hazards, and got out to see if I would need a new front fender. There was no visible damage to my car; just some pale yellow hairs stuck around the intake and a small smear of blood on the driver's-side headlight. I still had frightened adrenaline coursing through my enitre body. I honestly asked myself out loud, "Do ghosts have hair?".

I felt absolutely awful about the whole thing. What had I done?! I had never killed more than the occasional bug in the house. Sometimes I'd even scoop up a spider with a piece of paper and set it free outside. Now there were two counts of "caninicide" looming over me. I felt incredibly guilty, even though there was nothing I could have done. Since both victims were completely off the road, I figured there was nothing else I could do. If they weren't ghost dogs before, they were now. I buckled myself back in the Stratus and slowly put my quivering foot on the gas pedal. I was still so out of it that I hadn't even put the car in drive yet. For the rest of the way to Cedar Falls, I drove about 45mph, all the while vigilantly watching for more ghost dogs.

*When I told my friend Dan this story, he asked me what song was playing when this all went down. To this day I still can't remember. I must tip my "zinger cap" to him, because he thought of a pretty appropriate tune: "One is the Loneliest Number" by Three Dog Night.

Post Rehearsal

Hey everybody or maybe nobody.

So we had our weekly rehearsal last night. Yes, we have rehearsal in improv and no we do not plan on what we are going to do for the next show.

This week we focused on editing as our last couple of shows have kind of petered off at the end. We ran what our director, David, called the gauntlet. We would start a scene and let it go for about two minutes and then edit it and change up the pace and mood. It went really well with a few very fun moments.

One that made me crack was a scene in which Josh initiated with the scene with "Alright, I will dance with you" to me. I played the creepy/charming guy and he was the awkward/weird gal. The move that made me laugh was, whenever I spun Josh or did a "dance move", Josh would twirl and then get lost on the dance floor until I turned him around.

Tonight for the show David is going to warm us up so hopefully that helps us get ready to rock the stage. Hope to see you at some shows!

E to the C