Tag: humour

Some things just can’t be the same the second time around, but, you make of them what you can.  This was my second year volunteering at the Canadian Comedy Awards.  This was its 12th year and was originally supposed to be held in Ottawa. I have no idea why they decided to bring it back to Toronto, but hey, who’s complaining?

I volunteered by checking in award nominees when they arrived to the Delta Chelsea hotel in Toronto.  I got to meet a lot of fun performers just sitting at a table, handing out sweet swag bags.

By chance, a man I had met last year, who organizes the Stand-Up gala portion of the Awards weekend recognized me and asked me to help out at the gala.  I turned him down, obviously.  What?  No.  Of course not, I went and met Shaun Majumder, who was hosting (and was a super nice guy!) and some of the other featured performers for the evening.

By virtue of my selfless acts of volunteering, I was allowed to attend two nights of after-parties, which were both very fun.

Was it because the Kids in the Hall were there last year?  Some of my heroes?  That I actually got to see the Awards show?  That it was my first time surrounded by such talent because I hadn’t been up that often performing yet?  Was it the booze?  I don’t know, last year’s party just seemed a bit crazier, a bit more exciting.

But it was still a great time and I’m excited to even have been allowed into an “industry-only” event.  I’d encourage any of the Humber students to volunteer, except, then I might not have got my spot and would have had to fight more people off to get into the after-party.  So.  Yeah, stay at home and watch TV, kids!

I need to go to bed now.

Holy Crap.  I can’t believe I haven’t posted anything since the Moneyball review.  I have been BUSY, ladies and gentlemen!  Time feels like it keeps speeding up.  I’ve been completing assignments the day before they’re due, staying up past midnight, despite having to work super-early in the morning at the Career Centre.

 

It seems in each class, we’re working on major projects.  There isn’t really one in which we’re working less hard than the other. It’s crazy!  The workload is by vastly greater than last year, but folks, I am loving it.

I’m working on a chauvinist male “bro” character called Brian for my Acting class.  It’s both liberating and challenging to portray the type of male I absolutely despise.

I’ve written and submitted the first draft of a 10-minute play (more dramatic than comedic) play about a soldier of the First World War who visits a French brothel.   Apparently, I’m feeling very nostalgic about my time spent in France.  Like it or not, talking about hundreds of thousands of dead guys for 5 months straight two years in a row really gets into your head.

We’ve completed our clown pieces in physical comedy and are now moving onto different techniques.

In sketch writing,  we’ve been working on two major projects: a parody of a TV show (I chose Star Trek, obvi) and a monologue script based on a person we know upon which we’ll be building characters.

In stand-up, Larry’s teaching us what it would be like to work in a writing room, working on a late-nite host’s monologue.  The humour is very topical, news-related, so it’s been helping us with the LaughDraft news as well (which we will be filming this week after a long hiatus!)

Finally, we’re working on writing a sit-com.  I won’t reveal too much about that at the moment, in case anyone reading this blog decides to steal my class’ ideas and prevent us from ever working on this project in the ‘real world.’

And then there’s all the ‘outside school’ stuff… and work…

Life is crazy!!!

…Just the way I like it.


It has been a busy week.  Most of the week was spent rehearsing and memorizing lines, leading up to LaughDraft‘s first live performance since our Launch Show back in June.  All this, while trying to keep up with school work!  You’ll be pleased to know that the show went very well!

The next day, I’d been offered a chance to check out a taping of the Ron James Show at the CBC building by my Sketch and Improv teacher, Robin Duke.  I figured, though he’s not necessarily a comedian targeting my demographic, what the hell!  Why not?  It’ll be cool to see a live taping of a comedy TV show and I’ve never been to the studios at CBC, so shooo, let’s go for it.

As such, this blog entry will analyse certain of the differences between these two shows; the LaughDraft SEASON OPENER and the taping of two of the episodes in Ron James’ 3rd season with his own show on the CBC.

Ready?

OK.

The Venue

Have you ever been to the CBC building?  That place is COOL!  We were up on the 10th floor in a studio not unlike those I visited during my tour of NBC Studios in New York.  The sound was crisp, the equipment was pro.  The set was very cool.  The air flow was very comfortable.  The seats were nice.  They had to bring more in to accommodate everyone who had come to the show that evening.

The Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts & Culture’s performance space is in a basement.  The sound was muffled by a perpetual talk-radio background for some unknown reason, the mics, not strong enough.  Some of the actors could not be heard at the back of the room.  The equipment had just been installed that day.  The lights, put up by our “crew” aka Joey, who had the day off.  The air flow was, wait… what air flow?  It was hot and humid as sweaty balls in there.  The seats were from IKEA.  If anyone else had come, they would have had to stand.  The pipes were dripping on spectators and performers alike.

Advantage Ron James.

The Crowds

Upon arriving to the CBC building, there were many security guards who directed us to where we needed to go to pick up our tickets.  Then we stood in a massive line in the CBC building’s main atrium? (Is it an atrium?) and waited for ushers (not-uniformed, I should specify) to bring us up the fancy scenic elevator, down the hall and to the left and finally to our seats in the studio.  The joint was packed.  Average age was probably 50ish.  Get ready for jokes about people who don’t know how to  use Twitter everybody!!  Consistent laughter, even when RJ had to repeat the joke over and over again to get it right for TV.  Which is weird.  Imagine going to a stand-up show and hearing the comic tell the joke, and then come back at the end of the set and say: “OK, apparently I messed this one up or you guys didn’t laugh hard enough, so here we go again!”  Stand-up would be an easier business if that were the case, methinks.

People drizzled into our show.  There was no gigantic line-up.  The outside was poorly lit, so I’m surprised people were able to find us in the first place (Thank you Paige and Ron for drawing the crowds in!) They’re just as good as ushers, and better looking at that!  AND, they actually looked happy to be here! BUT people could go right in when they arrived.  None of this standing around and herding people like sheep business.  No, not for us.  Although there was a bit of a cram as many of them in as possible like those evil chicken farms where they all poop on one another and get sick and stuff. Our venue had a nice amount of people in it, not completely packed, but just about.  Average age, probably 22?  (A much younger crowd than our Launch Show, which was interesting – Thank you first years!) Good laughter!  Absolutely no chance for telling the same joke over again.  If we fucked up or missed a line, we just kept going because we don’t have the luxury of an editing room.  This is LIVE people! People actually got excited for our stuff though, it didn’t seem so generic, laugh here, clap here. I think there was a bit more surprise to our show.  Not that stand-up monologues and sketches really compare in the kinds of laughter you get out of them, but still, ours felt good.

The Show

It was really cool to see a live taping of a television show and it was super cool that Ron James made a plea to get people to go check out live comedy.  I guess he feels like he owes it to his brethren.  He knows what it’s like to be working the circuit.  He’s made it, it’s easy for him now.  He has a team of writers, make-up, wardrobe, professional everything, GOVERNMENT FUNDING!

US?  We had fun.  We have the satisfaction of having put something together, worked our butts off at it, and performed.  No network censors.  No elaborate spending.  Just pure, raw comedy!!!  We’re just getting started.  We’re at the opposite end of the career-spectrum as RJ, and it’s an exciting place to be.

Advantage LaughDraft.

 

 

Rehearsals for our upcoming LaughDraft show are going well and we’re set to get into the space for a cue-to-cue tomorrow.  The only thing worrying me right now is that we won’t have as many people as we did at our first show, which was a huge success.  The difference, this time, the money’s coming to US.  The first show was a fundraiser for the Kapisanan Centre, but now, we’ve paid our dues to rent the place out and the rest is coming back to us, so we can continue to make videos and better content for our website.

This isn’t a plea to get people to come out to the show (well, maybe kinda) but it’s more an insight into my anxiety.  What if we flop?  I know we’ll just try again, but what if more people lose interest?

They shouldn’t, and I really shouldn’t worry, because the show’s going to be great.  I know.  I was at rehearsal. Now all we have to do is figure out how to end the show & we’re golden.


I went home today for the long weekend, but came back to TO at night. I feel like I need some preparation before going back to school. Given the nature of the course & students, I feel like my next two days should be spent in a yoga karmic calm.

But I’ll probably just have a Breaking Bad marathon.

#priorities

I was feeling fine all day at work. I even Yelped a nice coffee shop to finish up some writing in preparation for my hosting gig at Sirens tonight. But as soon as I realized I forgot my notebook at work and, even though I think I remember everything I had written in it today, I’m right back to being a nervous wreck, trying hard not to poop my pants on this nice white coffee house bench.