jennings rampage

I am not getting out of bed.

Oh, sweet Christ, I feel like I’ve had my ass kicked, severely kicked. I mean, yeah, I’m in terrible shape, so spending most of the weekend on my feet and only sleeping nine hours over two nights really isn’t going to leave me feeling rosy and fabulous, but did I have a great time. List format!

• The Death By Roo Roo boys (Curtis and John, Neil, and Brett and Jon) finally rolled in Friday evening, and we hit up Ham’s for dinner. They changed their menu, which was disorientating. We rolled over to Hamilton for the shows, which were good, and definitely benefitted from the energy of a packed auditorium. (Oh, to perform every show for three or four hundred people.) Roo Roo’s set in the 8pm show got cut short by a lighting problem, but it was probably the tightest seven minutes of improvisation the world had ever seen. I had a blast playing with the festival teachers in The Bat, which was the first one of those I had ever done, and hopefully the last time I talk about vaginal dryness on stage. Roo Roo came back at midnight for a full set, which naturally delighted and amazed, and exceeded expectations. After the show, Katy and I went to play poker over at Dana Brown’s. I made the right read on my girlfriend, ’cause I know her, and caught her semi-bluffing early and forced her to fold the winner, built a stack, and cruised into the money, which I convinced Greg to split so we could go home. I needed to be up at ass-thirty the next morning.
• So my alarm clock goes off at ass-thirty on Saturday morning, and I take a moment to curse our android Executive Producer for scheduling a 9:30am meeting before 10am workshops. Harumph harumph harumph. But once I got over to Hamilton, I felt really energized and ready to attack — and let that manifest itself as a self-challenge to make Melanie Kolasa turn beet red as many times as I could. Accomplished. We broke off into our workshops groups, and I had ten for my morning session on La Ronde, a longform for which I have an unusual and sustained hard-on. Jill Bernard was curious about my strategy for teaching La Ronde in two hours, so here’s the nutshell: high energy warmup, some three line scenes guiding them into making initiations that establish strong connections between the characters on stage, some slightly longer scenes to get the feel for exploring the relationship as a mechanism for moving the scene forward, then an introduction to the form itself, with emphasis on making bold choices to move each subsequent scene far away from the scene we just saw, discouraging a narrative approach to the form, and pacing the scenes much faster when you’re calling back relationships during the run after the character wheel. We ran the form three times, and for ten frogs in a box, they did a great job creating an ensemble piece. The afternoon session was just a bit rockier, despite my clear explanation on the differences between a barbecue and a cookout for the benefit of the New Yorkers in the group. You never know what’s going to happen when you put frogs in a box, and these frogs had a hard time avoiding the trap of following a narrative. And there was an awkward moment when I gave a note to a student that directly contradicted a note he received in the morning session from none other than the Executive Producer — had to quickly give the “seek out many points of view and develop your own perspective” lecture. But it was a close call. And then I went home and took a nap.
• I ran into Asaf, Rene, Miss Hindley, Jill, KPR, and his friend with the fabulous high-heel sneakers on my way to McAlister’s, and I joined them for dinner. I stared at Jill a lot and fought with Rene. I enjoyed chatting with KPR this weekend, and I really want to do the Toronto Improv Festival in August, it’s on my list. The shows, of course, continued to be fantastic. The Reckoning performed the best Harold I had seen in over a year, at least, and I was absolutely delighted by how it inspired my friends and teammates to grow as artists. That, my Internet readers, is the true value of hosting an improv festival, and I feel fortunate and blessed to have such a great festival run by such an adorable android take place every year just ten minutes from my house. Hooray for improv.
• The afterparty lasted much much longer than I thought it would. I seriously thought the fuzz would shut it down inside of an hour, but nope, no probalo. Good for us. I had a nice-enough time, but being the fat guy pushing and shoving through a room packed tight with sweaty people holding beers isn’t quite my idea of a celebration, so Katy and I took off and got Bagel Bites and watched some TV on our new DVR before going to sleep, since I needed to do the ass-thirty in the morning thing one more time.
• Sunday was ensemble coaching for house teams, and my new team whose temporary name I will not write worked with Jay Olsen from Chicago. We had a fine time, even though we probably held ourselves back a little on account of exhaustion and the fact that this was precisely our second rehearsal together. Jay seemed to have a very different perspective from me, and I quickly gave myself the “different perspectives” lecture and had fun. Then it was trash detail at the wreckage of the afterparty, then home to finally crash.

And that’s why I’m moving a little slow today. Oscar-style thanks: Zach, Zack, Malinda, Ross, the Roo Roo boys, all the instructors, and, fuck it, EVERYONE, ok? What a week. Let’s do this only once a year.