The Wasteland Comedy Hour is over. Indulge me, if you will, as I fumble for a suitable postmortem.
The last show, “In Calvin We Trust,” was a good blend of silly and sentimental. We mixed with some comedy staples—god, religion, death—from new angles, and peppered in some darker material—our fears, the future, the cosmos—and steeped everything in a rich time-travel broth. Of our shows that require context to understand, I’d say “In Calvin We Trust” is up there with “Hitting Our Marx,” and I don’t know if there’s any one bit or sketch that I could extract, hold over my head, and scream “Look! This is how awesome our show was!” As we got deeper into our seven show run, we found ourselves intertwining sketches more and more. I’m looking forward to the day when we edit the footage from our live shows together, and host the whole experience in cyberspace—we definitely made a “live happening” that’s difficult to grok from our standalone video selections.
That said, here’s a thing:
Weird, right? It’s my send-off to the T.S. Eliot character I’ve been playing for the last three months. I figured he’s already dead, so there’s no harm in turning his pseudofuneral into an artsy-fartsy meditation on performers’ postpartum. Also, I love “The Long Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and had to get Eliot’s real voice in the show. This seemed like an elegant solution, a kind of video elegy. The funny stuff in our last show was strong enough to buoy this downbeat, and I am eternally thankful that we have a team willing to take these kinds of risks.
Speaking of the team! Holy shit, do I love these cats. I wish I could throw them a parade. I wish I could remember every compliment that people have given me in the last five days so that I could replay it for the cast and crew, word for word, as I clap them on the backs and then maybe give them handjobs. The Wasteland Comedy Hour was a massive machine, an extremely demanding ensemble production that relied on our team’s ability to not just pull their weight, but to stretch well beyond their comfort zones, to be open to peer collaboration, critique, and construction, to set the bar high and then jump like crazy. They built a ship, drew a map, and steered everybody there and back again.
The time to bask in our success is quickly drawing to an end, as everybody switches gears, prioritizes new and old projects, and contemplates what to do now that they’ve blown six months on one big beast of a variety show. Myself, I’ll be continuing to improvise with my friends and colleagues in the cast, although I’ve put a moratorium on any new improv projects that involve significant rehearsal time. I’m reclaiming my weeknights and charting my own course for the immediate future—finding full-time employment for my days, and (screen)writing at night. It’s going to be rocky, moving from the comfort of a supportive, talented ensemble to spending nights alone with the inventions and failings of my own imagination.
But The Wasteland was a shot of liquid courage. We’re all moving onward; upward.
In writing up the latest adverts for the show, I took a loose tally of how many sketches we have. Prior to now I’ve been keeping it vague to avoid liability, citing “seven hours” of scripted material. The seven hours is still accurate, if a bit modest, and I was downright shocked to count 176 sketches in various stages of completion. This total encompasses stage sketches, film sketches, songs, monologues, dance numbers, audio bits, and several hybrid experiments. The number of bits will grow by the end of the run. We started writing in June and producing in September—not bad, I say!
Time to get your tickets! If you think you’ll want to attend multiple shows, we’re offering a $50 pass to all seven of ‘em. Just inquire at the box office or wait a few days for the special link on the ImprovBoston site to go live.
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of a dying internet phenoma-meme! You know you’re headed to “All Your Base” territory when you start posting fucking improv-themed LOLcats.
I’ve been writing almost exclusively about the experience of a producer on The Wasteland, which gives me a particular myopia when it comes to what’s “new” and “interesting” in the project. Today our director forwarded me a document so befuddling that I need to share it:
What ramblings are these? To whom do these arcane instructions belong?
Why, they’re our choreographer’s, of course—I forgot we had a choreographer. The lovely Katie Proulx has choreographed a dance for a filmed bit called “The Sundress.” I’ve been completely uninvolved in the development/rehearsal/planning of this particular bit, so it’s always delightful to see the hard work of others manifesting in such a real, immediate way.
While on the subject of hard workers, I need to give big acks1 to Joy Adams, our costume designer, who is currently slaving over some of our more fantastical costumes. We’ve also got a slew of musicians working on our musical numbers, an awesome Stage/Production Manager hammering out logistics and recruiting several ASMs, we’ve got people at ImprovBoston working to publicize our show, and the list goes on and on. Their names and titles are better organized here!
Our community is great. I can’t wait to see all this “bounce around.”
UCB Theater, 9:30pm Friday night. The lights go up, I walk on stage for the first time, and half of the audience boos. That’s when I know it’s going to be a good show.
Code Duello
They weren’t booing me, of course, but Mr. Aaron Burr. It’s happened a few times, now, where the audience chooses their side before the show even begins. This is facilitated in part by our show opener—a brief narration refreshing the audience on their post-colonial American history—when the narrator intones the name Aaaron Burrrrr in “spooky-voice,” as if our silly improv play is being told over s’mores by an aging camp counselor. At this year’s DCM, Aaron Burr was a villain before he even opened his mouth, and that served as a nice little roadmap for the show—hopefully I gave the audience who they wanted, a lovably despicable Vice Presidential man-child. And Mr. Hamilton turned out to be a pithy cockney lad masquerading as the ex-Secretary of Treasury.
At the DCM you only have 30 minutes before you’re blacked out, and they run a really tight ship, so there’s no leeway. This is a challenge for our show, which has a definite end point we must reach by the 30-minute mark; if Hamilton isn’t dead when the lights go out, we’ve broken our promise to the audience, and god judges broken promises pretty harshly. Matt kept a better eye on the time than I did, and thank god—he died with 1 second left on the clock. We didn’t get to see the brief aftermath, but at that point the show was so silly it was best to end on another childish tiff (as to whether or not he was truly dying). Cheers and thanks to the UCB’s tech crew, who executed our show flawlessly.
Boston & the DCM
Bostonians made a healthy showing at this year’s marathon. I was able to get my butt in the audience for both Bastards Inc. and Uniprov‘s sets. I wasn’t able to attend Backstory or Dream Show or This Is Pathetic, but when the topic of Boston improv came up backstage (as it inevitably did), I spread the word about our traveling troubadours. (If you have a recap for a show I missed, post it in the comments!)
Matt Walsh and other UCBers asked me if there’s a big scene in Boston. My response was, there’s a growing scene. This seemed to be the consensus amongst non-Bostonians familiar with ImprovBoston and Improv Asylum. In talking to UCBers and improvisers from around the country, I’ve come to realize that Boston has a reputation for producing theme-heavy shows. Waiting for Ennis Cotter, Code Duello, Backstory, Uniprov, Dream Show, The Robert Cycle... these shows all have a “hook” because that’s how we draw audiences in Boston, where the interest in improv from non-improvisers is pretty low. Although shows like Ennis Cotter and Code Duello have traveled well and been well-received, I find the general sentiment in Chicago and New York is, “why would good improv need a hook?” In New York, Chicago, and LA, good Harold teams are consistently able to entertain audiences without costumes, highbrow themes, crazy structures, consistent characters—the very things that define a “showcase” show in the Boston scene. At the DCM this year, most of the shows with “hooks” were one-off jokey shows, highly entertaining but ultimately just opportunities for the veterans to fuck around on stage.
It’s a shame that more Bostonians don’t regularly see shows at festivals, particularly the shining gems at the Del Close Marathon. I remember my mind being blown three years ago by Scheer-McBrayer, Respecto, The Beatbox (from DSI), and Mother. Two years ago I added The Stepfathers to my list of must-see shows. This year I wasn’t able to see nearly as much of the veterans as I’d like, but I was delighted by the depression-era antics of The Sunshine Gang, and Chuckle Sandwich was hilarious.
Anyway, the point is that there are people in our generation doing stage-work that is smarter, faster, funnier, more believable, more organic, and more supportive/supported than anything happening in Boston. It’s not a matter of personal taste, or of “different styles,” or of a larger pool of talent. They are simply better ensembles. They work better together. Why? Training, drive, and practice, I’m guessing—emphasis on the latter two. At first it’s a bitter pill for Bostonians to swallow, but I have never walked away from a festival intimidated or down-on-Boston. I always walk away inspired. The kind of improv that we want to be doing is attainable, and it’s being done by people our age, in commuting distance, in places that we can watch. The Boston scene is growing, yes, but how much faster would it grow if everybody were inspired by the superior work being done on the national stage?
Backstage @ the UCB
Last year I was super fucking scared of being at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. In retrospect, I feel almost lucky that I was able to pull a good performance out of my jangled mess of nerves. This year I was way, way more relaxed, and consequently was able to enjoy some time backstage, afloat in the sea of free beer, improvisers, improv groupies, and improv celebrities.
I don’t know if it’s my uninformed outsider’s opinion, but there seems to be a fair amount of incest and idol-worship amongst the UCB community. Boston may be insular, but we don’t have any heroes. I’ve always been astounded at those moments when you realize that 3/4 of the audience knows every performer on stage by name. It may be a result of UCB alumni actually being successful in the entertainment world at large. Let’s face it—those of us who do improv want to have the careers of the famous improv alumni, be they from Second City or the UCB. But idol worship? Improv groupies? I thought I was immune.
And then, I found myself conversing with a few of those people who I want to be. Whose careers I envy, whose talents I respect, whose genuinely nice personalities seem unaffected by their success in television. I fell into fanboy mode, covertly drooling after pleasant interactions with writer/performers from The Daily Show, The Office, 30 Rock, and… oh, fuck it, I’m a groupie. I want to push these men into a dark corner backstage, demand they tell me all their secrets, then kiss them heterosexually.
The icing on the cake is that Code Duello seems to be building a great reputation, both amongst general audiences and improvisers. Having somebody compliment Matt and I on a great show is awesome, but having somebody tell us they heard we had great shows and were really sorry they missed us… that’s a completely unnecessary (but delicious) courtesy! And it seems like our audience has a few more returning members with each performance, another wonderful silent compliment. I feel like I’m able to network, remember names and faces, and generally put myself out into the larger improv community better than I was able to a year ago.
DCM ‘08
Obviously I had a great weekend, and I must thank the DCM selection staff again for giving Matt and I the opportunity to play in the festival. Next year, Boston, send your best. And until then—fucking see some shows in New York. If you need direction, I have more raving recommendations than you can handle.
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