Tag: improv

This past Tuesday, Humber’s Comedy program held its’ first Stand-Up Gala at Yuk Yuk’s – to be aired (perhaps) (eventually) on Sirius XM satellite radio.  We had a special guest host, Levi MacDougall, who you probably recognize from all those Rogers commercials, but who you should probably learn more about because he’s a lot more impressive than the dude in those commercials.  ANYWAY,  it felt good to perform that night, because I hadn’t had the strongest set in our showcase the week prior, (the one in which a bunch of Humber alumni and other industry people came to evaluate,) and yet I was still asked to participate.  And, I believe I had a better night on the Gala show than I did on the showcase, so Win 1 for Brie!

I’d like to say I’m over the relatively shitty feeling you get when a bunch of people you hardly know tells you what they didn’t like about your performance in the form of a numerical grade, but I’m pretty over it.

Some people had better Showcase nights.  Some people had better Gala nights.  There are good and bad nights & good and bad sets.  I am uplifted that my Gala night went better, because it encourages me to want to go out more, to write more and to keep at it.  Life doesn’t end at the showcase.

Obviously.

It ends at the Industry Show.

No.  Not really.

That being said, we are currently hard at work on our end-of-year Sketch show, which has been TREMENDOUS fun!  Our director, Gary Pearson, is so profesh, organized & on the ball.  I’d aim for an attitude like his if I was ever to be back working in a sketch troupe.  And I am SO stoked that two of my sketches, one black-out and an improv-come-sketch (with help from the very funny Brandon Trainor,) were selected to be part of our show.

There’s something about the collaborative nature of sketch comedy that makes upcoming performances more exciting than the nerve wracking excitation of stand-up.  It’s probably because you have others to play with and fall back on.  It’ll also be a moment to take in because it’ll be the last time us 02s work together as a collective.  Unless we’re all chosen for the Industry Show.  (Fingers crossed.)

Maybe it’s the cough syrup talking sentimental, but I’m sure gonna miss thing gang when clown college’s is all over. 😦

I suppose a great way to stick to my New Years resolution of writing more/all the time, is to write more in this blog.  I know it’s supposed to be behind-the-scenes confessions about my time at Humber (Clown) College, but well, it’s the Holidays still, we don’t go back to school until Monday, so in the meantime, please excuse my non-school-based rambles.

My cat’s in heat.

(Why do I always talk about my cat?  I don’t mean to.  I don’t think any cat-owner means to talk about their cat(s) as much as they do.  They’re just so adorably distracting.)

Last night we cuddled and spent the evening catching up on hours upon hours worth of Glee.  Hey! I don’t care what you have to say!  That TV show, love it or hate it, is bringing more and more children into the performing arts.  I wish Con had a glee club when I attended school there.  We had an improv team that couldn’t afford to go to the only improv competition for French schools in Ontario.  It was all the way in Timmins.  That’s pretty damn far from the Niagara Region.

We couldn’t even put on plays.  We tried to once, but interest and enthusiasm among the cast was so low we had to cancel it (AND I’d nabbed the lead! #unfair)  Trying to compare my high school education with high schools on TV is impossible.  They don’t write shows for 300 or so French Canadian public school children, most of whom’s ambition remains “staying a live to deal pot to the next generation of Wellanders.”

I think small-town Franco-Ontarian culture does have a place within pop-culture.  Somebody get me on the phone with TFO!

I should probably have written that last bit of rantiness in French.

Eh bien.  Peut-être la prochaine fois.

With the launch of Facebook’s new Timeline and, as time, in the real, non-social-networky world goes on, I’m beginning to realize I have a bit of an obsession with time.  Let’s add the word “time” in here one more time for good measure.  Time.

I'm making it easier and easier for you to find out everything you need to know about your next victim.

I’ve never been the greatest at managing time.  I used to sign up for many extra-curricular activities, (dance, piano lessons, army cadets, sports, improv, taxidermy, etc.)  I was out so often that some of my fondest memories are of my parents and eventually my siblings rushing me from one place to the next.  It was a regular occurrence for the driver to brake especially hard at red lights and stop signs when I was trying to put on my cadet dress uniform over top of my ballet tights in the back of the moving car.

In university, I became a bit better at managing assignments, but not until third year.  I’d had enough of all-nighters because I worked.  I needed to be (somewhat) conscious to up-sell popcorn to miserable suckers.   I began to recognize patterns in the professors’ assignment-schedules, knowing I would be given a certain amount of time to write a certain amount of essays that were all going to be due within the same week so, I’d begin writing them well in advance. By fourth (and fifth) year, I had pretty much managed it.  And if I still couldn’t finish on time, there was always bribery. Sexy, sexy bribery.

I finished school and moved to France and there, time sped up.  It started to feel as though it was going so fast I was spinning. (Note:  it might have been all that wine.)

When I came back state-side, (province-side?) I was obsessed with seeing people; staying in touch with friends I’d made in France and re-connecting with school and work friends – booking and often over-booking myself,   throwing parties at which I would try to combine all of my social circles at once in an attempt to save time and thus, kill several birds with one party-stone.

Who spiked the punch?

It is impossible to combine everything in one.  Comedy in Toronto is helping me to realize this. On any particular night, there are at least a dozen performances I can attend, either as a performer, or (more commonly) a spectator.  I can’t see them all.  I can’t do it all.  And  there are parties.  And there are other meet-ups.  And there are joke-jams.

Then, there are nights in.

Nights. In.

Sometimes they’re the simplest and the most meaningful.