Ethical my arse

We are having another round of auditions tomorrow night. As such, we need a venue to hold them. The Ethical Society seems the logical place, as it's where we held them last week, and where my other group, amongst several other groups, holds rehearsal on a weekly basis.

I leave a message on Friday morning that I want to use the space again. I don't hear back. I leave a message on Monday morning. I don't hear back. Jon and I head over there at lunch. No one is around, doors are locked. Ringing the bell calls no one from the inner sanctum of the building. I call back Monday afternoon, it says they have office hours Tues, Wed & Thurs from 8:30-5:00. Keep in mind that these office hours are very random, and change arbitrarily from week to week.

So I figure if I call this morning, she will be in. I call this morning, no answer. Not even the machine advising of random office hours. Just rings forever. I try a few more times, with the same results. I once told Leah that Einstein said trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. I am now my own definition of insanity.

Jon and I head over again at lunch. No one is around, doors are still locked. The bell tolls for no one. The same UPS "sorry we missed you" stickers are on the door from yesterday, and new ones have now taken up residency next to them.

So I call a few minutes ago... I get a machine. It makes me feel warm and happy to know that I can at least leave a message that won't be returned. Again, it proudly proclaims the office hours... hmmm... these office hours you speak of. That'd be today, right? Right now as a matter of fact, yes? Yet no answer. Whatever. I left another message, and gave my work and mobile number.

I think the worst thing is the website. I now know the number by heart, but the first few times, I had to go to the site to get the number. And there is her picture, mocking me. An exaggerated wave, frozenly taunting... "You can't reach me. You'll never reach me."

I may get a call back. I may not. Jon and I have decided to hold auditions there anyway. The building will be unlocked, because some choral society practices there on Wednesday nights. That's right... 11:30am on a Tuesday... it's Ft. Knox. 7:30pm on a Wednesday, open like it's Denny's.

We'll drop a check in the box, hell, I even have a copy of the old contract, I could just recycle it. I'll write on the envelope, "Only open this on Tues, Wed or Thurs between 8:30-5:00, subject to change without notice. Sorry we missed you!"

Lindsay Lou

I spent a little time this morning before work talking with Linds. We got to talking about how bad we've been at communicating and keep each other abreast of our current woes and lunacy.

It's strange in that we used to take such advantage of each other when we lived together. Had that right there, and took it for granted. It was great to have someone at arms reach that you could say anything to, and they'd tell it like it was.

Then with my move to Philly and her move to England, it went to the complete opposite extreme. We suddenly found that it wasn't there anymore, and had to rely on ourselves. With that, I know that I began to internalize a lot of things, so much so that I wasn't aware of until just recently. Somewhere in there, the communication was lost.

Sure we would be there for the big things like our respective grandparents' deaths, and things like that. But we weren't there more consistently to deal with the craziness of our everyday lives, and that's really the biggest thing.

So we are going to try to meet in the middle somewhere. And it's not just Linds. I see the same thing with Tawna, Mira, Darrell, Sarah, etc. I talked to Tawna last night for about half an hour. We played catch up, but a lot of it was about nothing in particular. I miss that. Why haven't I kept that up? I don't know. Well, I'm going to fix it.

Aye, there's the rub.

If I had $156 Million

The Powerball is now up to $156 Million. This has gotten me thinking what I might do with all that money.

- Take care of family and friends
- Buy / build three theatres; one for high end productions, one for improv and another to put on totally crazy and experimental theatre projects
- Buy me some tropical villas
- Donate a lot, so much that they change the word 'philanthropy' to 'mattanthropy'. Seriously, who is this Phil guy anyway?
- Foil all assasination attempts made by BJ Ellis.

I never read his blog anyway. Heh.

You can't have it all

Well, we had auditions last Wednesday & Thursday. We didn't have nearly the turnout that we had hoped, but we still had some great people come out.

I posted on the improv boards, TAGP and on Craigslist. We had people respond from all of them. A lot of people responding the the TAGP post emailed me headshots and CVs. They were typically more towards the serious acting side of things. You know, it's funny... the "actors" were more serious and took well to the idea of deepening characterization, but mostly lacked standard improv skills like denial, agreement, yes anding, etc. The improv people nailed the skill fundamentals, but then had issue with the deeper characterization and being serious. If I could take them and combine their DNA into super-improvisers, that would be awesome. I'm still working on that one...

So we've decided to hold another night of auditions. Jon and I are going to see if we can get the Ethical Society space again for Wed night. We've decided that although we've made a few selections, we are going to wait until we have a full cast to notify everyone whether they are in or not.

I took Matt Holmes' workshop on Saturday. It was a lot of fun. It was four hours long, so he was able to do some great things with people that were really new to the concept of improv. We even ended up doing a Harold by the end. I think that speaks volumes about Matt and what he can do with people. Most everyone caught on easily, and made some nice strides that you were able to witness in one afternoon. That was sweet. What I think was the coolest thing was that aside from Heather, Mark & Raff, I didn't know anyone else in the class. I think it's great that Greg & Matt were able to get a great response from a lot of people that aren't already heavily in the scene. It made me really excited about the PHIT program and what it can accomplish.

Shameless promotion of caustic wit...

Buy my friend Dennis' new book!

The Hypochondriac's Pocket Guide to Horrible Diseases You Probably Already Have

Excursive ramblings

I went to the Rehearsal Jam on Tuesday. It was a lot of fun. When I showed up, there were three people, Rick wasn't there and I was thinking it was going to be a lame turnout. In actuality, it was quite the opposite, as I never fail to be amazed at the procrastination and tardiness of my fellow improvisers. It's a bit odd I suppose that I continue to be 20-30 minutes early to everything that most others are 20-30 minutes late to. Add that up over time, and I've probably wasted a year. But that's my problem.

So the Jam went well, and we had a good turnout. It's also turning out to be a great opportunity for newbies to introduce themselves to a nice majority of the community. For example, last time we met Tommy, a recent transplant from San Francisco, who was with BATS out there. Then the other night I met Patti, who is also coincidentally a transplant from SF but also lived in Minnesota (she was with Drunk Baby Collective) and spent some time in Leeds, UK. She is a chemist and that is extremely cool, because she bring a lot of intelligence to her improv. She's worked with Shaun Landry, Keith Johnstone & Joe Bill. Nice.

Yesterday was quite the busy day. I had a follow up with Dr. Goldstein on my pilonidal. Apparently I am golden, and scheduled another follow up for three months from now. I got back just in time for another *lovely* publication meeting. After work I headed over to see Dr. Gordon. I still don't know what to make of her yet, but therapy seems to be therapeutic... so I guess that's doing the job, right?

Then came auditions. It was a good time. We had some great exercises in there that really helped the people show what we were looking for. We played some warm up intros, Rooms word association, etc. After that we went into Rant Monologues, which I love. That is going to be the opening for our format, and just from auditions last night it looks like it's going to work perfectly into what we are doing. Then we went into some scene work, which included Mime Construction, I - You - We - Because, Anti-Environment, & Hidden Condition. Some of the later ones were very telling. So it went really well, but we didn't have nearly the turnout we were hoping for. Perhaps tonight, eh?

One week of Hell (Baby, that is)...

It looks like I am going to have quite the week!

Tonight marks the first time the Village Idiutz have come together since the Festival last November. I can't believe how long we have all waited. Now we need to review all of the feedback that we received, both positive and negative, and look at what we want to do to GROW! ADAPT! and HEIGHTEN! PHIF | 2006.

Tomorrow is the second installment of the Rehearsal Jam that Rick's put together. I hope that the turnout is a great as last time around. Reminder: I need to pimp the auditions while there's a captive audience!

Speaking of which... Wednesday and Thursday Jon and I are having auditions for HellBaby! I am really excited to see who turns out. We've received great response from postings on the IRC and on PhillyImprov.com.

I also heard from both Eileen and Michelle from HARSH. They are really excited about what we are doing down here, and hopefully we should be getting Ari and others down to do some workshops. I will talk to them more when we do the show with them at Grape Street on the 11th.

Also on Wednesday, I have a appt. in the morning with Dr. Goldstein to follow up on the whole pilonidal debacle, and then have another appt. with Dr. Gordon right after work. Then straight over to the auditions. Nothing like packing in it, eh?

Friday is Katie's last day at work. :(
We will probably be heading out after work for a bon voyage celebration that will of course be rife with debauchery and alcoholism.

On Saturday I have a dentist appt. with Dr. Koshetar in the morning, and then have the "Game On" workshop with Matt Holmes in the afternoon.

Somewhere in all of this, I need to post more articles to the site, and finish the formatting issues. Damn! Slap my ass and call me Judy! I'm a busy bee...

So many things; so little me

The show went pretty well on Friday, all things considered. It was a tough audience, by most respects, and that didn't make our job any easier. We opened the show, and it took them awhile to warm up, if you could even really call them warm at all. By the time we got to Hot Sauce, they were finally laughing a little, but not as much as they should. I mean, that shit was funny, and the audience was barely energetic.

And those girls at the bar. Damnit, shut the hell up! You can't tell there were 20-30 people came to watch the show. You know... the show that's going on ten feet from your noisy asses... I swear that's where the term "bitch slap" came from.

Heading to the Rotunda tonight to see Rare Bird Show and the Cabal. That should be fun, I haven't seen the Cabal in quite awhile.

So at the show on Friday, BJ asked me if I wanted to perform with them at SHP next Thursday (last Thurs of the month). At first I thought he was asking for me to sit in with the NCrowd, but quickly discovered that he wanted me to bring in some people to do our own set. Damn, I guess I am the pickup group man, eh? I actually told him that I couldn't, because I thought I had an appt. with Dr. Gordon, but turns out that's actually the night before. So I emailed Beej and told him that I will see what I can do.

Other than that, working on HellBaby... trying to get everything together as far as solidifying the form, and finding a place to rehearse, etc. We will probably have auditions in a few weeks.

Okay, I have to get some stuff done now.

Show tonight

So Corey and I will be doing our two-man show tonight at the Troc. I am pretty psyched about it. I've never done a two man show, but it should be a really interesting dynamic. No room for hesitation... I like it.

The show also got featured in the Metro Weekend. Page 21, if you are local and can pick one up. It notes only Industrial and Hot Sauce, as we hadn't signed on at the time of press release. Doesn't matter though. I will be thrilled if it brings in actual people, and our audience doesn't consist once again of mostly improvisers.

Here is the info on the show tonight:

Corey Cohen/Matt Nelson Untitled Project (longform improv)
Industrial Improv (longform improv)
NY UCB Theatre's Hot Sauce (sketch)

Balcony at the Trocadero
1003 Arch St, Phila
6-8pm (doors open at 5)
$5 Cover
Drink Special: $2 pints of Bud (not that Bud is too special)

I'll be sure to post how it goes.

Another Improv Sunday on the books...

So last night was another installment of Improv Sundays at Fergies. The show went pretty well. Although it was not where I would have liked it to be technically, the audience was laughing and seemed to enjoy it. I will probably post more about this in my IRC Journal.

Here's something fun that came out of last night... Corey and I are going to do a two-man show this Friday at the Trocadero. Mike put together a show with Industrial Improv and a musical guest, Hot Sauce. He needed to fill the extra slot, and I said what the hell. I was impressed by how great a show Holmes/Maughan had when they just went out there and had fun.

It's the first time that I know of where we will be doing improv there in a happy hour timeslot, 6-8pm. Perhaps we will be able to catch some of the happy hour crowd that is still in the city. Anyhow, I think the two-man show will be fun. Corey and I seem to be pretty good on reading each other, and seem to be on the same page for most of our improv. I don't really care if we are a rousing success, I just think it will be something fun and different.

The mundane finds a voice, aren't you excited?

So here is the biggest thing to hit cyberspace since lunchtime... my blog.

It's a special place where my sarcasm, wit and general anomosity towards mankind is second only to my lack of commitment. So let's see how long I procrastinate until my next posting, eh kiddies?