Week three! We sold out the theater in pre-sales alone, which is great news for us but sad for our friends and family who tried to buy tickets at the door. If you’re planning on attending one of the four remaining Wasteland Comedy Hours, buy tickets in advance.
This show was a turkey. And by turkey, I am referring to a three-time streak of awesomeness in the sport of bowling—of course. A lot of the material came together at the last possible second, which will be the norm now that we’re mid-run. Another warm, supportive, and super-smart audience who appreciated our artsy moments as much as our dollops of, shall we say, raunch dressing. Highlights of this show included a five-part running musical exploration of Craigslist’s Missed Connections, a Hitchcockian thriller about babies, a talking cat, a silent film porno, and that part where we gave everybody in the audience a mix CD.
I’m working on getting a video uploaded. Hopefully by Wednesday?
I wish I had a copy of that damn Lisa Frank Van Gogh slide….
Week two was our most personal show, “Oh Mirror, You Always Know What to Say!” Another full house with people content to sit in the bleachers and loft. For Friday’s show we asked every willing member of our cast to prepare a personal monologue around two minutes in length. With such loose instructions, I was genuinely amazed at how well these monologues developed. Our cast had so much fun with their stories, presentations, and anecdotes that the two minutes invariably ballooned into 3-5. Our show ended up running 1:20, but I don’t think we overstayed our welcome. My friends and colleagues took some big risks out there, alone with the audience, and reaped the rewards.
Another one of my goals for The Wasteland, accomplished: create a safe space for sincerity. With all our silliness and satire it’s easy to distance ourselves from our material. Putting the “i” in “comidy” could have been tough for our particular cast because we aren’t practiced stand-ups or monologists; we often rely on characters and hilarious scenarios to sell our ideas. But we rose to the occasion, and shared some pieces of ourselves amidst the bits and jokes. I hope the rest of the shows are able to occasionally pull this off, but it’s not their stated goal.
This Friday’s show, “Love the Ones You’re With Whom You Are,” is going to be exciting. It’s a perfect blend between film and stage material, and we bounce between touching and raunchy like your favorite pinball game. If you haven’t already, consider buying yourself some tickets....
If our audience is to be believed—and I do find them occasionally trustworthy—opening night of The Wasteland Comedy Hour was a solid success.
The first shock was a completely full house. We filled ImprovBoston up to the bleachers, and latecomers found themselves cramming into nooks and holes. From my vantage in center stage, it was an even mix of faces familiar and unfamiliar. They were a very warm, excited audience. Even our pre-recorded curtain speech got some giggles.
My biggest fear—Eliot’s opening monologue—went mercifully well. I took a risk by reading an excerpt from “The Imperfect Enjoyment” as the inspiration for my bit. I am, I admit, a bit power-hungry when I’m on stage (especially when I’m on stage alone). If I feel like I have control over the audience and their expectations, I am having a ball. If I feel like there’s a disconnect between the audience and myself, or what I’m saying, my head-voices start chirping and my performance suffers. I rolled the dice on Friday by kicking off the evening with one of the crudest, angriest, and sexist poems I’m aware of, nearly guaranteed to alienate our very first audience. All the more satisfying, then, to win them over in the next few moments.
I can’t speak to the experiences of the cast, but from the good post-show vibes, I think everybody enjoyed some success on stage, or watched one of their videos rock a full audience. As with every show, there were ups and downs. One particular “down” for me was completely forgetting to write a joke to cover Ryan’s costume change, and having improvise some bullshit about invisible-ink tattoos in the moment. Thank goodness for a forgiving and receptive audience. I was pretty angry at myself for forgetting to prepare that moment, but the cast convinced me it read better than it felt. Typical!
Hopefully the success of “Our Bodies, Our Shells” bodes well for the next six shows. I’m very much looking forward to this Friday’s show, “Oh Mirror, You Always Know What to Say!” which I believe is the most sincere, raw show of our run.
Tonight is the premiere, and we kick it off with “Our Bodies, Our Shells.” Remember two posts ago, when I was mulling over the justification for wedging T.S. Eliot into a comedy show? I glossed over the idea of Eliot as an “advertising mechanism” because, as of that writing, we hadn’t had even a nibble of interest from any media, which of course undermined my point.
But in the last two days I’ve given two interviews about the show, and as predicted, most of the questions were about Eliot. I’m starting to figure out how publicity in Boston works—reporters love hooks. It’s so obvious, but we rarely get to exploit it in the improv world. It’s super-important for these limited run shows to get press hits right off the bat, because by the time word of mouth buzz builds, the show is usually halfway (or entirely) finished. Writers in Boston don’t really touch improv, because they can’t provide a reliable review (the show they see will never be replicated). The rare improv shows that are profiled usually have big hooks (Code Duello, Ennis Cotter, The Robert Cycle). Sketch comedy fares better in print but there just isn’t a lot of sketch in Boston, so it tends to fly under the radar. Anyway, we’re lucky to get some press right off the bat.
I wish I had a copy of that damn Lisa Frank Van Gogh slide….
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