Tag: life lessons learned at improv class

Ooh! Ha! BALLerina! Balls! …heh (or More Improv!)

Don’t Quit Your Day Job

For the record, my abject fear of the film Black Swan in no way contributed to this sudden outburst of aggression between classmates.  But I sure thought it was funny.

Yes, it is that time again!  Our wacky improv class will be performing not once, not twice, but three times this month at the Hideout!  If you happen to be in Austin on the 1st, 8th, or 15th at 7:00pm, you should check us out.  You just might catch someone getting a ball to the balls!  (Not very likely, but you never know!)

Would you like a little tea with your lemon?

The weekend was a smashing success.  I got up to Austin early enough for a lottery improv show where the boy’s name was drawn from the hat to go be foolish on stage.  Class went well on Saturday and we had our student showcase on Sunday.

It’s been a very long time since I did any sort of performing in front of people, and longer still since I performed without an instrument to hide behind.  Somewhere around high school graduation I developed a truly unhealthy stage fright habit (this after 10-plus years of music and theater performing with nerves of steel – what gives?), and that definitely returned on Sunday, but somewhere within the first thirty seconds on stage it just totally disappeared and we had a grand old time.  Between the comfortable chemistry the class has built up over the last few months, and the instructor blatantly screwing with us as he directed the show, I guess I just forgot to be nervous.

My immune system was kind enough to wait until all of that was done before it mutinied.  Tonight, I am doing battle with seasonal allergies with a piping hot pot of chicken soup, a piping hotter pot of tea (with a bit more lemon juice than I intended to add), and…

a healthy dose of charcoal dust thanks to my sudden urge to make messy doodles:

Well, I tried to help myself, anyway.  There are only so many creative endeavors one can pursue in near-dark while avoiding the glaring light of a computer screen and -err- lights.

As a side note, working through the early Beatles albums will do surprisingly strange things to the brain while grasping for doodle ideas.

I fail!

I’ve been taking an improv class with the boy on our weekends together.  One of the very first concepts we covered was learning to fail.  Get out there.  Try something.  Don’t be afraid to fail if you have to.  When this happens in class, you yell, “I fail!” and take a great big bow, and then everyone else applauds and is generally supportive.

That said…

“I fail!”

Not only did I not manage to complete my four projects last week (day job-type things came up – I know, boo hiss), but I took the bag of supplies and projects in various stages of completion with me to work on over the weekend, and then proceeded to leave it all at the boy’s apartment.  I told him he is more than welcome to finish the last one for me, but he didn’t seem to be up to the challenge.

Take a bow!

So instead of showing off my beautiful amigurumi critters, I offer you…

…the aluminum foil origami gibbon I just made at Freebirds, after being struck by a mighty hankerin’ for a burrito as big as my forearm and loaded up with everything that is bad for me.

…now everyone else applauds?