Been a busy week. Work, improv and Fiddler rehearsals occupy most of my time. I’ve been having trouble sleeping regularly and I worry that it’s going to tire me out, but on the whole life is good.
Friday my Theatresports team dethroned the seven-time incumbents (although their roster admittedly changed up quite a bit from week to week). It wasn’t a particularly deep show but it was a good show, and I might have had the spotlight moment with my portrayal of an obsessive birthday clown that spontaneously combusted. I reportedly managed to cause my other team members to break, as well as myself at one point. We’ll be back in one form or another this Friday, so that’s something I’m looking forward to.
Saturday was Improvise Your Own Adventure and I again shared the lead role… this time was a lot rougher than last weekend, though, even though my lead partner was one of the sharper and more inspired improvisers I know. We weren’t making so many of the elementary mistakes (freneticism, too many offers, not enough listening), but we got mired in solving the problems at hand and I know I didn’t let myself be sufficiently affected by the things happening around me. That’s mostly the perfectionist in me talking, though… by all accounts most everyone in the audience still had a good time and was able to follow and enjoy it, even if it wasn’t up to our own personal standards.
One of the neat things about working with Unexpected are the occasional gigs that come our way. It’s how I wound up going to Austin, Texas expenses paid for a week last August. It’s also how I wound up pretending I was part of a flock of flamingoes darting around town promoting Woodland Park Zoo. Clearly the level of quality and dignity of these gigs run the gamut… this Friday I’m signed up for one that definitely falls at the flamingo end of the scale, inasmuch as I’m mostly doing it just because it’s something weird and different I will now be able to say I’ve done. Basically some dance studio is having a big gala event at the Sheraton… this year’s theme is The Wizard of Oz, and in the ragtag cast of performers they want to have wandering around and posing for pictures with them, I have been asked to play a flying a monkey.
So in the company of Dorothy, the Scrarecrow, Lion, Tin-Man, Glinda and the Wicked Witch I will be hopping and screeching at the Sheraton while everyone around me is sipping drinks, eating hors d’oeuvres and trying to have a good time. Don’t worry, I’m sure there’ll be plenty more pictures than I’d like.
The worst part is probably not so much even the general indignity of it all (my dignity is something I’ve never paid too much of a premium on), but that the costume they have for me is pretty cheesy and horrible… I went to try it on yesterday and it’s way too big, and looks like a bear costume that got shoehorned into be a flying monkey suit. But hey… how many software engineers can say they were a flying monkey at some big gala event? That’s right.
After the fitting I hung out with Jay and Cheryl from Unexpected (who are also doing the gig and were there as well) and we went for lunch with Jay’s three-year-old daughter, who is possibly the most adorable three-year-old on the planet and on Jay’s persuasion told us the line she’d heard Bruce Willis say when watching Die Hard with her daddy (unaltered by him, and what she actually claimed to have heard): “yippie-ki-yay mother fungus”. I nearly died from laughing.
I helped a friend from Unexpected test out an iPhone application for the store Archie McPhee (purveyor of such legendary items as pirate bandages, remote control laderhosen and inflatable fruitcake) and now have a $50 store credit there as thanks. Unfortunately I’m not sure what to spend it on… it would require either buying more of their inexpensive crap than I want, or paying quite a bit more for something more substantial. I’m not aware of any expiration date so I’m in no hurry, but I welcome suggestions!
EDIT: Watch the video on the inflatable fruitcake page… that’s the guy from Unexpected that got me the gift certificate.
Dan.
