Monday, March 26, 2007

The Actor's Nightmare

I was fully prepared to go to my first improv rehearsal at 5:30 this evening. I haven't done improv in years, but I watch it often and figure it's a lot like riding a bike, another talent I'd recently re-discovered. I figured this rehearsal would be no problem.

Surprise! It's not a rehearsal! It's a show!

My teammates were as prepared as I was. Phil is a stand-up comedian who was doing the show "just for kicks." Hannah had been randomly chosen from the audience a few nights before to participate in a game, and had done so well they'd invited her to perform. But hey, we figured, how bad can it be? We had no chance of winning - Australia's legendary improv duo "Erik and Derek", otherwise known as "The Canadians" (no they don't know Kim those idiots but I digress) were playing, and they had never lost a game. The other three teams were just along for the ride.

We started with Slide Show, and as my teammates posed for the slides, I told the story of doing competition calisthenics at the parasol collectors convention while on vacation in the Antarctic. Next, we conveyed the story of the divorced dog and cat trapped together on a nuclear sub through Interpretive Dance.

At intermission, we were in the lead.

We started act two with Emotional Roller Coaster. My emotion was sexual frustration and my location was a laundromat. I had it in the bag. Our last game was Papers. My teammates quickly established mother and son cooking in the kitchen, and as I struggled over who would be my lover I drew the line "too many cooks spoil the broth." It was that good. The game ended, the points were tallied, and the winner was......

Erik and Derek. BUT, only by 1 point. We left the other two teams in the dust.

Okay, so, newspaper, radio, stage...