This is a topic I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, for various reasons, but I thought about how fitting it would be to know how even the greats had their tough moments of eating shit on stage, and that should be motivation to keep on keeping on.
Not to ensure this doesn’t happen to me when I deliver my Maid of Honour speech tomorrow…
The best way to get over a crappy stand-up set, I discovered last night, was to hit up an improv room. Specifically, Natasha Boomer’s “Wheel of Improv.” After a fair amount of ridiculousness, a little practice of my own, watching some newbies go up for the first time, watching some more experienced enjoy the challenge of working with the seasoned pros (in this case, special guests were Ken Hall & Rob Norman as well as a surprise drop-in from Becky Johnson & Kayla Lorette,) and finally chats and cupcakes at the end of the night, I felt a whole lot better about myself.
The stand-up bit needs more work, but at least I don’t feel as bitter about it after having been in the extremely supportive care of the Toronto improv community.
I have finally begun writing a fucking script! I’ve been telling myself since graduation from Humber “Brie, write a spec script, Brie, write a spec script. Do it do it do it now!” But I didn’t. I don’t know why? Procrastination? I guess it’s because I can always go out somewhere and perform. It’s easy to put off writing by justifying the fact that you need to go out and do and see shows; to stay connected and to make sure people out in the community remember your face and that you do in fact, live and breathe. However, equally, it’s important to have a base of written work in case someone asks you to write for their TV shows one of these days. (Or so I dream.)
I decided not to write a spec script. Rather, I’ve had an idea mulling around the ol’ brain box for a number of years now, and I’m finally putting the ideas down in writing and creating my first script for a sitcom pilot. Of course we did work on similar tasks while at Humber. We collaboratively wrote a workplace pilot, which was altogether a very interesting learning process. But it was the entire class working on it, so my contribution was pretty limited. Nothing you could show to an agent or whatever. We also wrote pitch packages in our writing class, which was also an interesting exercise, and I was told to get writing an episode, but I never quite found the desire for it. It was a fun project to work on, but I didn’t see the show ever realistically being picked up. It was about army cadets, and I don’t think there’s a huge interest in youth paramilitary activities. At least, not since 1945 anyway.
In addition to the writing of words, I also caught a few live shows this week. On Monday, I attended the Humber College New Faces ’14 show. (I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since my face was new!) It was a classy show and featured a guest performance by none other than veteran comic Dave Thomas. Last year, I left the Industry Show with a sense of joy, maybe because I knew some of the performers still, and I was still riding high from my own experience from the year before, but this year the connection was a bit different. I now look at the shows more critically, thinking: “if I were ever to direct a show of this magnitude, I would do this differently, or I wouldn’t do this at all, or I would definitely consider this… etc.” Maybe having taken the Conservatory program at The Second City has given me more experience and a different approach to putting on a massive revue, but whatever the case, I felt differently about this show than I had in the year prior.
Then I thought about the aftershmooze. There were some people I would really have liked to chat with, but the room was clearing out and it seemed like everyone wanted to go home because it was friggin sweaty in there. Also, I felt like what’s the point of talking to someone if they’re really there to see and mingle with the people who just performed a huge show that took months of preparation and 2 years of training? It wasn’t my night to shmooze. Or was it? Who knows? Are there appropriate conventions to shmoozing? It was a great night to catch up with my ol’ teachers. Ever since high school I’ve found it slightly easier to connect with the teachers than to most of my classmates. I know. What a nerd, right?
Anyway, it was a great show, and it’s always a cool production to see such young, hopeful talent rockin’ their jokes & performing their little hearts out on the Main Stage. It’s also a great way to get motivated to get my own butt back in gear!
That being said, I also attended a show put on by a great Toronto improv troupe; Fake Cops. Every month they put on a free show at The Ossington. This week, they had some pretty awesome acts. It seems like a great show to be able to explore; to make crazy choices and see where that takes you. To do a set where you end up covered in cereal, or to perform with a mic stand wearing a wig. Either way, the result was laughter! There was some weirdness and some messiness, but it was all good, it was all interesting, and the night had a really good vibe going on. I highly recommend checking this one out (and I’d love to get on it one of these days, if any Fake Cop ever reads this blog.) Passive-manipulative social media marketing. That’s my bag!
Aaaaaanyway, I suppose I still have a job to go to tomorrow. I best be off to bed. Bonne nuit WordPress!
Maybe I’m ready to start writing again. I had a pretty brutal couple of weeks there, but things are slowly beginning to become funny again.
As most of you might know by now, my itty bitty Peanut recently passed away. However, she did used to shed a lot, so I have since collected and created a fur-doll with her remnants. It’s almost as though she hasn’t gone at all!
I’m also somewhat looking for jobs as it has become necessary since I’m on the verge of losing my current one. I can’t say I’m happy with my employer’s decision, so to make it right I will be spending my remaining time there repeating work I’d already completed to render my redundancy notice accurate.
My bridesmaid’s dress has arrived from China. When I told everyone at work it was too big, they all congratulated me for having lost weight. I didn’t tell them I ordered the dress 2 sizes too big.
My new sketchprov troupe (that’s what you call it when your troupe performs both sketch and improv comedy) “Red Herring” are excited to announce we’ve applied to our first comedy festival; the Detroit Improv Festival. Fins crossed. I hope we get in. I really need the motivation to get my damn passport renewed. For some reason, the call of chicken wings from Buffalo just isn’t strong enough for me these days. We also have a few cool shows coming up in May and June. It’s always so great working on a promising new project that can actually go places, like Detroit!
It’s Spring. The Earth is waking up and so am I. <—- who says that shit?
(I do. Sometimes.)
Well blog, I’m sorry. It’s been a while. I know you’ve been sitting here, waiting for me to feed you, but I’ve been busy. I know that’s not a good excuse, but I’m here now aren’t I? So let’s get to it.
Huge news. I’ve recently been OFFICIALLY hired by The Second City to lead improv workshops in French and English as part of their Educational Company. Last Friday, I lead my first workshop at a high school in Brampton and I was absolutely thrilled to go back to feeling the way I did when I was a tour guide, or a cadet instructor, but for something I like even more than First World War history and paramilitary youth engagement; improv! Good old fashioned make-em-ups! Hopefully one day I’ll have the same impact on a kid’s life as Daniel Ayotte did on mine when I was a young Rosario Tanguayan in Welland; making things up on the spot and feeling tremendously free; even for an 11 or 12 year-old, who was already pretty void of responsibility. Sure, I may have lost it for a while there after high school, pretending to be a very serious political scientist, but it’s such a joy to have it back and to now get to share it with others.
Also great, my boss at el-dayjob and I worked out an arrangement so that I can continue to work at both companies without conflict… of course I had to clear it with my team, the union and Human Resources, but that’s the joy of kindof working for the government.
In addition to that, I have a new comedy troupe in the works. We’ve performed one improv spot to date, and we’ve got a few sketch shows in the works. Right now though, we’re all very concerned about our Second City general audition. After such a great year working on Conservatory material, it’s wonderful to start thinking about the next steps the Toronto comedy scene has to offer, and though that sometimes feels very scary and uncertain, it also lights a fire under one’s ass to get producing funny ass shit for the world (and mostly your friends, peers and family) to see.
On the home front, my Peanut has fallen ill with a bit of a weak liver. She was hospitalized for two days last week and let out right before my birthday, which was a phenomenal gift! Though I have to feed her myself these days because she’s not got much interest in eating, she is doing a bit better. She used to hide under the bed all day, but now she surfaces up onto the bed and appreciates a good cuddle. Hopefully she will become stronger (and hungrier) as the days progress.
As a result of the Nut issues, I had to cancel a gig this past week, and I feel absolutely horrible about it; they were very understanding, but there’s something about not-showing up for a gig, especially when the people who run it are awesome in every way, and it involves Star Trek cosplay, that really bites total butt. Tina Fey talks about saying yes to everything, but at that moment, I had to say yes to making sure this tiny creature under my care survived the night off her IV, even if that meant omitting the strenuous process of putting a sock in my hair to simulate Captain Janeway’s awful hairdo from Seasons 1 – 3 ST Voyager.
Writing all this helps with stress. I’ve been feeling it pop up a bit more frequently lately, maybe because so much seems to be happening all at once. But it’s not as bad as this dude on the streetcar after the Blue Jays game who kept making really loud exhales whilst punching the side of the streetcar wall. I suppose we all have our own techniques of dealing with stress, but I awful concerned this dude was going to have a total Hulkesque breakdown and just smash the back of the streetcar and go running down Bathurst Street jumping on cars and crushing them in his wake.
Maybe he just needed a nap.
Speaking of which, the hour has arisen, I must bathe and retire for the evening. Thanks for reading! 🙂
It’s Sketchfest season again everybody! Hooray and celebrate! This year, I am not working quite as diligently with the organizers as I’ve done in the past, mostly because I’m too busy with the day job to sustain all the evenings of hilarity and drinking and fun times. Fun times are exhausting, you guys. Anyway, I have been checking some of the shows and so far they have been GREAT!
Speaking of great, I wrote another article for She Does the City and it 100% has to do with Sketchfest, so please go ahead and check it out:
The idea was that I interview all the all-female troupes (Templeton Philharmonic, Ladystache, 2 Weird Ladies, LadyBusiness & She Said What) participating in this year’s Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival & find out more about them, their style, and why the readers of shedoesthecity.com should check them out. It was a lot of fun. I quickly became aware of why podcasts are so popular, because interviewing other comedians is really fun and insightful. I wouldn’t want to do it all the time, because transcribing takes a LOT of time, but the sitting down and talking to funny and interesting, hardworking and genuinely great people was a lot of fun!
Tonight, I’m off to check out the Kids in the Hall (if only 16 year-old Brie knew how many opportunities she would get in the future to see these guys live) as they do a live reading of their film Brain Candy. It’s going to be great! I love how they all hated one another when they made this movie, and now they’re revisiting it as older, cooler buds.
As the festival continues, I will attempt to post more, but don’t just sit here and read. Make sure you go out and see as many shows as possible. This is seriously such a great comedy festival, a wonderful place to study styles and methods of performing the art and basically just a really sick party.
My highlights of the fest so far are:
It was a big day for Canadian women yesterday. We took home the Gold in Hockey and Curling, and on the home front, this Canadian gal had her own personal little victory.
I’m talking about my first article published in She Does the City, a most excellent website geared towards all things women. It’s a wonderful site with all sorts of great resources concerning events going on in town as well, so check it out, and have a laugh.
Last night I had the pleasure of hosting a fantastic comedy variety show at Musideum; that word, that name… you know any venue with a Latin suffix is bound to be awesome! This amazing little space on Richmond St. was filled with hundreds of musical instruments, a beautiful grand piano and, in this case, a bunch of hilarious performers and a super-supportive audience.
The weekly show is put on by The Sandbox, comedy troupe formed in the Second City’s Conservatory program, who’ve stuck together to continue their comic journey. Damnit, now I’m describing the Conservatory program as a journey. What have I become?
Anyway, The Sandbox kicked off the show with some great fun and lively improv. They were followed by a musical comedy troupe called The Sour Keys, who were super impressive. They performed songs ranging from adorably punny to really disturbingly cute. Next on the bill was 2 Humans, a great little sketch duo set to perform at this year’s Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival (so go check them out!) Finally, closing the billed show was a solid and hilarious improv set put on by well-known troupe Sneak Attack. The night wrapped with an improv lottery jam, in which yours truly was invited to participate; and I was a dinosaur and a horned-up old lady at the LCBO hitting on a 19-year wine salesman. Playing within my range, y’know.
Oh, did I mention there was a gigantic, awful, miserable snow storm yesterday? And yet, the Musideum was packed to the brim for the show with a warm and very supportive audience of people who just seemed happy to be there and were rewarded and delighted by the night’s hilarious performers.
What a fun night of comedy! Even better, there’s a new Comedy Night at Musideum every single Wednesday, so next time – you can be there to experience the fun for yourself!
Brie Watson 