2003-01-29 - 11:00 p.m.

First Class

Tonight was the first of my improvisational acting classes.  I really liked it.  It is a group of about 10 beginners like me.  The instructor is a guy named Chris who has been doing improv for about 5 years.  In his day job he is a cartoonist at a local cable cartoon channel.  I think I am the oldest guy in the class. Everyone else is anywhere from 5 to 15 years younger than me.  There are only two women in the class.  I was hoping there would be more.

Both of the women are pretty confident and have a good presence.  They are not going to put up with much macho posturing from the guys.  I can see they will cut them down to size if things get out of hand.

 I drove down to the small theater right after work.  It is a tiny building that used to be a warehouse or something like that.  There is a main stage auditorium that seats about 100 people and a small back stage room that can seat about 30 people. The theater is a non profit organization and they are doing a lot of good stuff.  They have comedy shows, late night shows, new plays and quirky stuff.

The class teaches us how to improvise a scene.  We started with a name game to learn who everyone is, and then we started doing simple scenes with just two actors.  Chris talked about the basics and did a little review after each segment.  When we messed up he told us. And he encouraged us to mess up.

Some of the guys in the class are pretty funny.  It was obvious pretty quickly which ones were quick and which ones take a while to catch on.  I did pretty well in my scenes.   In one of them I was a guy who was buying a new car.  In another I was asking my sister if I was adopted.   It is very hard to listen to what is going on and come up with a quick response.

I did enjoy it, though.  When Chris says he wants two of us to come down to the stage the same three guys and the one woman kept getting up.  I found myself sitting back until everyone else had a chance to go.  Then I would get up and take my turn.  Usually I am the first to volunteer for these things just to get it out of the way, but this is a class full of extroverts and it is fascinating to watch.

One of the guys is a student, another is a DJ, another is businessman, another one is a waiter, and I forget what the others do.  One of the young guys wants to be a stand up comedian.  He had a hard time staying positive during a scene.

I learned tonight that each scene needs to stay as positive as it can be until "the turn" when everything goes horribly wrong and the characters have a conflict.  Since we had to make it up as we go along there was no way to predict when the conflict would show up.  But it usually showed up right on time every time.  It is as if we are hardwired when it comes to writing stories.

So I really enjoyed it and I can't wait until the next class.  There is one a week for eight weeks and then we have a graduation performance.  I think it is going to be a good group.  I like them all, so far.

The rest of the day was pretty normal.  It was raining.  Traffic was bad.  All of the upper management is out of the office this week, so it is pretty relaxed.  Poor Kevin is sick and coughing a lot.  I have never seen him like this.  He says it happens every time he starts a new work out routine.

Today Tommy came into the office and started railing on me because I did not watch the state of the union address last night.  He said it was typical of Democrats to never, ever listen to the other side of the story and learn anything.  Then he proceeded to explain to me that President Bush is not responsible for the bad economy and the upcoming war.

After correcting him for about 5 minutes and knocking down his argument he walked out of the room and went to his computer to do some research on the internet to prove me wrong.  He came back about 10 minutes later and presented evidence that he had found which I quickly pointed out more or less proved MY argument.

I don't know why he does this.  He gets so upset about Democrats, he is a total hypocrite, and his arguments usually degenerate into a personal attack on me, which is the mark of an amateur.  I always keep it on the issue, even if I have to make stuff up, but I never go for the personal attack.

Toward the end of our argument I looked over a Kevin and was surprised so see an aura around him.  I have seen this before, only this time it was very different.  The last time I saw it he had just proposed to his girlfriend and he was literally glowing like a bright light all around him.  This time the light was just around his head like a big sphere.  I pointed to him and said, "Kevin's got an aura!"

Everyone stopped and looked at me.  I described it to him and asked what was up.  He said nothing was up.  As I said, he has been tired and sick for the past week, and just dragging.  But I know he was thinking something and I think I know what it is.  Last weekend he was out with his friends and there was this one woman he has known for a while with them.   He told me every time he meets her there is some connection between them.  They have never dated or been intimate, but he can tell something is going on every time he is around her and he knows she feels the same way.

Of course he would never cheat on his fiancée.  And he knows now that since he is going through a period of celibacy before his marriage there is going to be a lot of temptation out there for him.  He also knows that he can resist it.  I believe him.  I know for a fact that he has several opportunities to cheat on his girlfriend over the past few years and has not.

So when I saw him glowing and asked him what was up, he just made a comment about his thinking something.  That is one of the things I like most about Kevin, he has a good energy and it just flows out in all directions.  It can be a great boost for an energy sponge like me.

Ok.  Now I have to go to bed. I need to be rested up for this weekend.

Jimmy
 

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