Sometimes it’s really hard to be creative and funny after having spent a lot of your energy staying awake and staying helpful at the day job.
Tonight is one of those days.
But I’m working on something so important tonight, that no matter how heavy my eyelids or how burny my eyeballs, I will complete it. I will not waste this opportunity.
The hardest thing about comedy right now feels like getting all the administrative stuff in line.
Luckily, that happens my day-time superpower. What’s yours?
Last year, after one of the Personal Space Invaders shows at Comedy Bar, I was having a post-show chat with some improvisers and we were joined by Tony Rosato. I complimented him on how funny and great he was that night and he did the same back to me. (He really didn’t need to, he’s Tony freakin’ Rosato.)
We kept chatting and the conversation shifted to sketch comedy. He told me he really missed performing sketch, and that its definitely something he’d like to get back into.
I had just gotten back into sketch (or rather, had finally found someone patient enough to work with me); so I was feeling enthusiastic about the art form. So I blurted out, as I often do when I’m feeling invincible and as though time is unlimited, that we should do some sketch together.
Tony sounded very enthusiastic about it. (Or at least as enthusiastic as his style could muster – he was a pretty calm dude) But he smiled.
I’d asked him why he stopped performing sketch after SCTV and SNL and he spoke very openly about the mental health struggles he’d had in the past.
But he was feeling like he was ready to get back into it if and when the opportunity had shown itself.
Well here it was. Opportunity.
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The thing about making plans in comedy is that we often do that thing where we say “yeah, we should totally work together some day.” Sometimes we mean it. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we mean it and we realistically don’t know how we’re ever going to make it happen, even if both parties are willing due to time restraints or other commitments. Sometimes we figure we’ll get around to it eventually, once life settles down a bit.
But then, sometimes you lose the chance to ever get around to it.
We really don’t have much time here together. I want to stop putting off the things I want to achieve that can begin TODAY.
I don’t want to miss another opportunity to work with genius.
I’m sorry I never got to write, even just a single sketch, with my friend Tony.
If you want to know the difference between Toronto-folk and non-Toronto-folk, throw a wedding.
A great reminder thanks to People & Chairs.
Cameron and I saw the Chihuly exhibit with our friend, Nadine Prada, yesterday. It was like walking into a glass wonderland, filled with colour and light.
Part of the exhibit was a film where the artist described his career in glass-blowing. He spent the first 10 years, he said, just “making mistakes.”
A decade is a long time to keep failing. And yet, the result of all those mistakes is now enjoyed by millions, in museums, gardens, rivers, and hotels worldwide. We wouldn’t have these breathtaking sculptures without all the crashing and burning.
As improvisers, we have the opportunity to make mistakes every time we perform. Chihuly’s work was a brilliant reminder of just what a gift that can be.
A lot of people think 2016 stunk like poop. And it many ways it did. But if there’s one thing my recent trip down Morning-Affirmations-Lane has taught me, it’s that sometimes is does the body a lot more good to focus on the positive rather than the poop.
So here’s a little highlight of some of the things I consider to be accomplishments from the year 2016 (in no particular order):
On top of all that, I spent quite a bit of time planning my biggest show of the year; the one where I married my best friend; my partner in silliness Dan Dingwall.
2016 was a pretty big year for me. And I can’t wait to see what 2017 has in store.
The Social Capital Theatre is such a great place to go to feel tremendous support from a huge variety of your fellow improvisers in the community. It’s unpretentious, collaborative and so positively uplifting.
My advice: go there more.
My cat just came up to join me as I was deciding to write about a decision I recently made to stop working for a company where I hope to one day work in a more significant capacity, but which for the moment was providing me with more challenges, stress and difficulties than benefits.
The cat is chewing on my sunglasses, which I will now place in my desk. (The cat or the sunglasses? You decide.)
Sometimes l don’t know what decision is the right one to make for my future. So much of what I read in terms of motivational literature has to do with choosing your own path, and being in control of your own life’s successes and failures; not being the victim of circumstance.
But in an industry full of gatekeepers, it’s sometimes difficult to truly believe you’re the captain of your own ship. It’s like, sometimes I just want to dock my ship at a cool space station, but space-parking is full, and maybe I’m too space-early, or space-late to ever be allowed in.
Everything will happen for my highest good. That’s one of the affirmations I try to remember when I get to feeling this way.
It’s just that sometimes I just wish my highest good was at that damn space station.
Ok, so I got a little excited lately, trying to do all this weird wacky promotional stuff on this site that was originally intended just to be a blog about my experiences in comedy.
So I want to make it clear that this blog has gone back to what it was originally; AN BLOGUE.
If you were using this site to find out where and when I was doing shows (which you weren’t) you can now check out briewatson.com for that.
Hopefully this will encourage me to do more blog and writy stuff.
Thanks for being OK with change.
I know there’s not a lot of money in improv. I know it’s something you do because you love it. And I also know I’m lucky to know a group of people who love it enough to have become so good at it I can barely contain myself when watching them perform.
Tonight, I got to play with these people. Well, a percentage of these people. A hand-picked group of these great make-em-uppers. And it was kindof like an out-of-body experience in that I had to remind myself from time to time that I was on stage and part of the performance, as well as experiencing the joy from watching this stuff done really, really well in a really cool way.
Thank you Chris, Pete, Sharjil, Candace, Christian, Colin, Chelsea & Gill for helping me turn this idea into one of the most fun shows I’ve ever experienced EVER, ANYWHERE.
Thanks to Gary & Comedy Bar for the Festival of New Formats being a thing.
Man, I hope we get to do this again.
Brie Watson 