It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve been back from the Ottawa/Montreal leg of our Comedy Before the Frost tour and I still haven’t had the time to post any of the photos or videos.  But I’m working on it.  I promise.

… I’ve been busy!

2012 Cream of Comedy

I had my first Level D class at the Second City Training Centre this past Monday (Rob Baker‘s my teacher – So excited! Uh… the comedian, not the dude from The Tragically Hip – although that would also be cool.) Afterwards, I huddled and dodged the hurricane over to the Main Stage to check out the last little bit of the 2012 Cream of Comedy show, where those 5 performers who were selected from Fresh Meat got to battle it out one last time in hopes of winning the Tim Sims Engouragement Fund  Finally, Christi Olson was declared victor and was awarded  $5k & a scholarship to the Training Centre.  Good on her.  She’s hilarious and totally deserves it.  Also, I hear she needs money to buy meds, so… good.  Comedy’s literally keeping this girl alive.

Kudos to the producer Deanna Palazzo for putting for the hard work she put into Fresh Meat and CoC this year.  They were both really fantastic performances, which ran smoothly, professionally and hilariously, just as planned.

I don’t know why, but because I didn’t know Tim Sims, I derived great pleasure out of recognizing him from the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercials where he played Rory Tate, the scientist tracking mysterious peanut butter and chocolaty crop circles.  I REMEMBER those! I guess it makes me feel better because I can acknowledge that though I never got to see Tim perform live, some element of his performance has been ingrained in my memory – so I feel better about being nominated to be in a competition for award in his name.  Does that make sense? I don’t care.  It does to me.

You remember this too, right?
IT DOES TO ME!

Anyway, C0C was hosted by Kristeen von Hagen, who is hilarious.  And,  having heard she was in town, the wonderful Jess Beaulieu snagged her up to headline her and Laura Bailey‘s popular CHICKA-BOOM show, on which I got to perform with some other fun sketch and improv comedians and none other than Royal Canadian Air Farce veteran, Luba Goy.

The Canadian Ukrainian Princess

“What? Brie, that’s amazing!”

I know.  You don’t have to tell me that.  I feel it too.

She performed a great little bit of stand-up and included some of the fan favorites, including Kim Campbell & Donald Duck.  After the show, Luba kept us out too late for a Sunday, telling the hosts they need to hurry up, get married and have babies (not with each other…) before their parts dry up.  She then picked up what is probably the Free Times Café owner’s family heirloom, a sweet old accordion, without permission and went to town on it – telling us tales of her own one-of-a-kind childhood accordion, which her friend traded in sans permission.  Tragedy, right?

Who could say anything though? She’s Ukrainian Canada’s sweetheart!

Also, Luba tells me I’m no longer allowed to drink sweet white wine, so… I have to settle for Pinot Grigio these days.

YOU HAVE TO DO WHAT LUBA SAYS!!!!  BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN OTHERWISE.

Luba Goy – more terrifying than Halloween.

Softball season is officially over – sad times.

If I didn’t mention it at all, I’ve been spending the weekends this summer playing on a Comedy Softball league, which in and of itself does sound like somewhat of a joke – but all jokes aside, we were actually a pretty good team!  Put together by the producers of the JokeBox Comedy Lounge (my good buddies Dee & Jimmy-Jams) and comprised of many current and former employees & performers of the Second City – and a few other comics here and there – ended up in 2nd place in the league!  I hadn’t played softball since my last summer in Ottawa and am always looking to play in the summer – so this was a fantastic opportunity to play and to meet (and drink) with some fantastic members of the community.

Here we are…

Team JokeBox 2012

Close…but no cigar, gang!

(I was totally looking at the camera in one of the blurry ones.)

You should have seen the size of the champions trophy!  Comedy Bar does not skimp out on its sports awards!  *Sigh…Oh well, there’s always next year, team!

***

On the not-so-sad side, another one of my pieces was published on Bite.ca today.  You can totally check it out by clicking the link below:

The Name Game (Bite.ca)

I think I forgot to mention the total crazy excitement that happened last Sunday at work.  The Arcade freakin’ Fire (Win & Rejine anyway) came to see a show at the Second City.

I didn’t get to take a photo of/with them or anything because, I’m a total profesh at my job.  Obvi.

But the cast got one, so I’m gonna steal it and live vicariously through it.

No big deal, but I brought them to their seats and told Win to use the ladies washroom by accident.

Yup.

 

I’m a little behind in my blog-posting.  Probably because I started a new job, the whole waking up at 6:30am, driving an hour and a half to get to work by 8:30am in Richmond Hill, then driving BACK for an hour after work, not getting home til like 5:30-6pm, then going out & doing comedy or otherwise is shall we say, a little time consuming.

The JokeBox Comedy Lounge is a weekly comedy variety show put on by the wonderful Deanna Palazzo and James Dalzell.  (For more information about Jokebox, see my previous post: Say Goodbye to Your Case of the Mondays)  This past Monday, CODPIECE, my new sketch troupe, made its official debut. We were one member short, but all in all, I think it went over very well.  We received compliments on some of our sketches, and though the four of us are very busy employees of the Second City FOH staff,  I think we’ve got lots of potential.

This is what potential looks like.

CODPIECE isn’t booked for another show until November, but in the meantime, we’ll be working on bringing you what you want most:  more creepy Chapters employees and Snuits.

In the meantime, please Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

It’s hard to believe we’re currently rehearsing for our end-of year sketch show!

It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in the audience as the second years from last year gave it their all one last time before graduating and/or moving on to the Industry Show. I’m so excited to see everyone’s sketches, the remount of some people’s plays, but most of all — I am stoked to FINALLY see our parody videos we filmed all last semester ago!

  (See: Parody Shoots.)

And, I’m excited to actually put on our show, obviously.  It really is going to be a good one.  We’ve really extracted some of the funniest written scenes, with some of the funniest characters from over the past two years for your viewing and laughing pleasure.  And everyone on the team gets a few opportunities to shine! (…)

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to perform sketch comedy, and as repetitive as I’ve been in saying it, I really miss doing it.  Paige & I also get to showcase some of our dance experience in this show – in two numbers.  So hey parents, all those 15 years of lessons are paying off. (Not literally.  I don’t get paid for this.  But maybe one day it’ll actually pay off.  In this case, it’s just paying off because I’ve been cast in two scenes because I can dance and sing simultaneously.)

Maybe I’m too tired to be posting today.  (Maybe that’s why everything’s in brackets.)

Maybe that five hour rehearsal for 10 minute’s worth of (terribly flawed) stage time really wiped me out.

Maybe it was working til midnight yesterday.

I’m finally caught up with Mad Men.

I need an oil change.

And to do laundry.

Zzzzz…