Back to Toronto and back to Sirens – the most easygoing, welcoming and awesome room in town… and I’m not just saying that because I’m slightly tipsy and I want the Vests to keep putting me on their Best Of shows…

For those of you who know me well, I told my bike accident story today and it was well-received.  Well, as well-received as such a story COULD be received.  It was met with quite a few “Ewwwwwwws” and “Ahhhhhhhhhs,” which, I suppose, is what I should have expected.  For those of you who don’t know the story, I’d go into detail and explain it to you, but instead, I’m going to make you wait a few years until I show up to do a set in your hometown and you, your friends and family will have to pay me to tell it to you.  Moohoohahahaha. (Comedy incites evil laughter, apparently.)

Or, you can come see me tell bits of it tomorrow at the Best of Sirens show at the Blue Lagoon.  That’s another option.  Another free option.

OK everyone.  I’m rolling up the rim right now… right now… will I win something… will I??? Will I???  Please Play Again?!  Fuck.

That was Rrroll Up the Rim, in Rrreal time.  How’d’ya like that?

I’m going to bed.

Here’s a pic of my buddy V & I in our Archival Sketch Show:

 

 

We were performing this sketch from SCTV.  You can sortof guess which character we played based on the costumes and facial expressions.  It was fun sooo much fun!  Andrea Martin, I salute you!

The week of four performances in a row is over.  I’ve had the weekend to recover and I’m home for a few days for Reading Week. I was going to put this off, but I read another kid in my program’s blog and it inspired me to get this in.

I want to be in a sketch troupe.

I want to write things with clever people and perform them.  The Archival Sketch Show was so exhilarating it had many of us in the class talking about how the next logical step is to get together with some folks, write and get some performances done.  Shit, the college has set up a sketch performance night at Comedy Bar every Monday, which apparently is going to go under if students don’t start showing up.  The problem?   I need a sketch troupe.  My general anxiety about what people think of me prevents me from flat out asking people to get together to do some writing and my inner (very powerful) critic is worried about being too harsh about who I want to and, particularly, who I do NOT want to write with.

I want to be in an improv troupe.

My classes at ITC are going well.  Today, I was a stealth cow.  I didn’t think twice about entering the scene on my hands and knees. I feel like if this had been the beginning of the semester, I might have been more hesitant.  I feel completely refreshed to know that my social censor is fading and that I’m opening up to the possibilities involved with creating imaginary environments and situations. Luckily, if I stick with ITC, I can audition to be in a student troupe.  At school, well, it’s the same process as the sketch thing, isn’t it?

In one week, all of these desires to work with others and perform have been overwhelming.  This week, I’d also been given the opportunity to work and perform with some students from a section other than my own.   That, as well, was exciting.   There’s so much talent in this program.  So many connections that could be made if I could just know others were as serious and as dedicated about doing this as I am.

But I get mixed messages.  Always mixed messages.  And at the end of the day, I sit alone on a couch in my parent’s basement musing self-interested bullshit instead of collaborating genius ideas with those I fear cannot stand me.

Insecurity, defined.

Happy Reading Week!

First of all, milk in coffee is not nearly as good as cream.  But despite the pleasant weather, I don’t want to get dressed yet and go to the store to buy cream, so milk will have to suffice, at least for the duration of this post.

This is the morning after my class’ first Archival Show performance.  I would have liked to have posted last night immediately after the performance, but I decided instead that having a drink might be a better way to celebrate a job well done than to sit at home alone at my computer and blog.  Any dedicated followers might disagree with my decision, but at the end of the day, I think I made the right choice.

Let me explain to you a bit more in detail what the deal is with this Archival Show.  Then, if you’re in Toronto, maybe it’ll motivate you to get out and see the performance.  Or, if you’re in Ottawa, you might decide to leave work early to do the same.

The Humber Comedy program is a two-year diploma college program.  At the beginning of the year, there were approximately 60 students in the first year of the program.  The first year students are divided up into three groups of about 20 students per group.  I belong to section 01, to help clarify.  As part of our second semester, each class has been assigned to a director, (three of the program’s faculty have been selected as directors.)  The teacher thus becomes the director and the class of students becomes the cast.  The cast of what, you ask?  The cast of our Archival Sketch Show.

Basically, we’ve combined a collection of sketches from SNL, SCTV, KITH and other acronyms representing great sketch comedy shows and put them together.  Each student is assigned a certain amount of roles in the sketches.  After two weeks of rehearsing, we, the students, perform the show in front of a real live audience at a real theatre in downtown Toronto, in this case, the Factory Theatre at Bathurst & Adelaide.

The idea is that we take what we’ve learned in our sketch classes, acting classes, physical comedy classes, history of comedy classes, improv classes… ok, basically each of our classes and use that knowledge to put on a professional sketch comedy show as a means of demonstrating the skills we have learned (and of justifying the program’s existence to the government?)  No, but seriously, the proceeds from the ticket money all go to a charitable cause, which is great as it allows for us to give back to the community and develop a sense of social justice, or something like that.

Last night was the culmination of all this learning and rehearsing as we took to the stage and performed the first of our two shows.  Tonight, we go again at 7:30 p.m.  The energy was high, the spirits were excited, friendly and encouraging and the atmosphere was really just spectacular.  And did I mention fun?  Did I forget to mention how much fun it is to put on a sketch comedy show?  Even though we’ve rehearsed the stuff so often, many of the jokes are no longer funny to us.  We’ve become immune, until the audience starts to laugh and laugh and laugh and it sparks again – oh right – this stuff is hilarious… now bite your tongue and don’t break character!

As I’ve mentioned, my section’s got another show lined up tonight.  For more information, you can check out: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages#!/event.php?eid=187385044615456&index=1.

Or just, you know, send me a txt or leave a message on the blog about a) how to get tickets or b) how apologetic you are about the fact you can’t come and how you intend to make it up to me with gifts or something similar.

Either way, I think it’s important for me to note how great of an experience it has been to put this show together and how much I’ve enjoyed working on it with the other great folks in my class.  Top notch people.  Top. Notch.

NOW.  Come get your laugh on TONIGHT at 7:30!!!

See you there!!

Busy week coming up this week, readers!  I’ll be performing thrice this week!  Once at Yuk’s and twice at the Factory Theatre.  It’s going to be a crazy week and I’m really excited for it.

I’m pumped for Yuk’s because, if all goes according to plan I’ll be performing a stand-up comedy “duo” on the theme of Valentine’s Day on Tuesday at 7:30.  It won’t be a very long set, but I guarantee you will laugh based on how well it went over in class.  My duo-partner is a great writer and has a hilarious performance-style, so I really thing y’all should come down and check it out Tuesday evening because it’s gonna be goooood.  I can feel it in my bones.

As for the Factory Theatre, if you read this blog regularly, you’ll remember my mentioning the first year students at Humber will be putting on an Archival Sketch Show.  My section will be performing on Wednesday and Thursday evening (Feb. 16th & 17th). Both shows begin at 7pm.  This will likely be a crazy-entertaining show.  I’m really looking forward not-only to performing some classic sketches, but also to seeing some of our colleagues perform.  We don’t often get to see the work from the students in the other sections, unless they go out and do stand-up often or they belong to a sketch troupe (and few do… on that note…wish I was one of them… just sayin…) ANYWAY…

What I’m saying is that it’s February and you probably don’t have anything else do to, but seriously,  find an excuse on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday to come watch these shows, at least the Archival Show because  not only will you bust a gut, but the $5 ticket you purchase will go to a good cause.  The entire performance is a big-ol’ fundraiser for the LAMP Community Centre.

Check out the Facebook Event page for more deets: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages&tid=1878860294128#!/event.php?eid=187385044615456&index=1

Now I’d better go learn my lines! 🙂

Am I too tired to post a blog tonight?

Probably.

It might have something to do with today’s six-hour rehearsal, the cold weather, the delicious pasta & the Piers Morgan.

I feel like I’ve got a whole lot to say about the past few days of Comedy School but I don’t know where to start and I realize it’s stupid to write something like that, because I should really just think about where to start and start there and not write about it because the reader might find that ridiculous.  It’s like when people post in yearbooks: “I don’t really know what to say… Have a nice summer?”  Ouch.  Ok, so high school didn’t hold the greatest memories for me.

… only kidding.  High school was GREAT…ish.

Anyway, so you may have read me mention that the three first-year classes of my Comedy: Writing and Performance program are putting on an Archival Sketch Performance at the Factory Theatre in Toronto in two weeks, in which each class will be putting on a different version of a hand-full of various sketches selected by the faculty.  If you haven’t read about it or if you’re interested at all, check out: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages#!/event.php?eid=178852265490587 and remember that I’m in section 01 when you decide which performance to come see.

We began our rehearsals a few days ago, but yesterday’s snow day put us a bit behind.  Anyway, we jumped into further rehearsals today and everything seems to be going well thus far.  Now, you all know I am TOTALLY one to complain and I don’t want to make this sound like a complaint, because I am pleased with the roles I’ve been given, I mean, I get to play Andrea Martin, and that is AWESOME… (If you don’t know who she is, shame on you: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0551908/. There you go.  Educate yourselves…  Anyhoo, my beef is something that’s going on not only in my section, but all throughout the sections and in past performances as well.  My beef is that I’d hoped the casting would be a bit more… how shall I put this… progressive?  There are fewer women in the program than there are men.  I get it.  Take a look at the comedy world, there are significantly more men than women.  But does that mean that because a sketch was originally cast with men, that women cannot perform roles that really bring up no issues of gender whatsoever in their content?   There was all this nonsense about how it would be more difficult to cast women in roles seeing as how there are less funny sketches starring women in primary roles, rather than roles like: Lady Secretary or Buxom Blond, etc.

Anyway, here’s my case.  This is one of the sketches we’ll be putting on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3-LxmrFm40

Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald are men.  I’ll give them that.  But who’s to say either of these characters couldn’t be played by a woman?  I mean, what difference would it fucking make either way?  They’re talking about a movie for Pete’s sake.

Again.  I don’t want to sound complain-y, I guess I’m just surprised that it’s even an issue.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a progressive Who’s On First?  Women play baseball now.  I know.  It’s fucking mind-blowing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sShMA85pv8M

That’d throw them ALL a curve.

Finally, proof that women are funny even in men’s roles (because we’ve already done it this year):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QIHG2fB8thc

Am I right?

OK so you all get the point.  Brie, the angry feminist thinks that because we’re girls signed up in this program, we should have the same amount of privileges to perform in our favourite sketches as the dudes.

The retort:

Yes, Brie.  But if this was in the real world, you would never be cast as a man because you’re a woman.  Deal with that.

This ain’t the real world.  I’m paying a bunch of money and I should be able to flaunt my versatility, no?

Blah.  Again! I mean NO OFFENSE because I really dig the Andrea Martin role.  But come on!  It’s 2011 and you want us each to be performing our own interpretation of the sketches anyway, rather than impersonating the original cast members.  Switch it up a bit!!  Fuck.

*Deep breaths*

Anyway, there’s just no pleasing some people.  I get it.