Link: Tj & Dave interview

At last year’s Montreal Improv Festival, StoryBox Theatre, a group comprised of several Second City teachers and Chicago big wigs, came to town to perform. (All really nice people!) We humble Montreal folk asked them which improv show in Chicago was most popular. They replied unanimously: TJ and Dave.

Yes, that TJ and Dave that came to Montreal two years ago for Just for Laughs. TJ and Dave that I, living on my little Montreal<->New York axis, had never even heard of at the time.

Well, TJ and Dave were in New York recently promoting a documentary about their show. In an interview with Gothamist, they alluded to performing at Mainline for JFL:

Have you guys ever considered taking the show on the road, touring with it?

Dave: We have been around to different festivals to varying success. If people don’t know what they’re coming to, they’re sadly disappointed. Especially at a comedy festival…especially at a comedy festival, especially at a comedy festival in another country just north of us in a theater off the beat and track when they’re there to see stand-up and, say, we come out in the sweltering heat.

TJ: “Theoretically”

Ha! I found that funny, but now I’m bummed that they didn’t enjoy performing for us. When I do a run of shows, I always have my favourites, and sure, least favourites, but I never let on to the audience that they just saw a show with which I was unhappy. Now I know they hated us, and maybe it’s all my fault…

I reviewed their JFL show at the time. It was an introspective review. I’m always searching for myself when I watch and review improv. What do I like? What do I want to see? What do I want to do next? It’s about me; not about you, TJ, you Dave.

TJ and Dave did two (among other) things really well: lingering on moments and moving the story forward. They liked lingering more. While they journeyed, I longed for destination. It’s very much a style thing.

They read my review. And now they hate Montreal.

Which brings me to my next point: I received my media pass for JFL’s ZooFest. Time to go out and break some more hearts and put Montreal on the map as the city that “slow comedy” left behind.

– b.j swank

Haiku

Montreal Improv is running a haiku contest for a free pair of tickets to the best show at ZooFest, ASSSSCAT 3000.

I’m so in my head
What to say? How about “Yes”?
A laugh! They like me!

Whatever I say
Comes true. You know what, Del Close?
I just found the game

Bixi or Bust(ed)

Time to sound the alarm!

Montreal’s public bike system, Bixi is going through some serious growing pains. I signed up two weeks ago and at first things were great. The bikes are heavy, but adequate. The frequency of docking stations (every 300 metres they say) is generous. But in just two weeks, things have taken a rather ominous turn. Between 10-20% of docking stations are currently broken. The same problem is reoccurring across the city: the part on the docking station that clamps onto the bike gets shattered. I think this is caused by people returning bikes–you have to give them a good shove to click in–rather than vandals forcing bikes out. This means that it’s increasingly difficult to find an open station downtown in the morning when everyone bikes in. A lesser issue but still one of concern is that the bicycles themselves are starting to fall apart too–slipping gears, jammed brakes, flat tires, broken baskets, etc. Either people are riding them like they’re rentals or they have a few design issues.

To make matters worse, their website is not always properly updated in real time. You can’t trust where it tells you there are free stations.

Using Bixi at non-peak times is still fantastic, but I’m worried that if they don’t find a quick fix, the entire network will be compromised.

Stay tuned!

And we drove all the way to Chicago…

Second City may be coming to town!

Dear [Second City,]

I share your commitment to excellence [in comedy] and would greatly appreciate the opportunity to discuss my qualifications with you in person.

Reference available upon request [or insert bj swank's email address here].

Yours sincerely,

thegirl

Reason #456 why it’s fun to have another girl in the troupe

Recipe swap!

Sauté Classico brand Sweet Basil Marinara sauce, 1 sweet red onion, 2 cloves of garlic, some bay leaves, 1 mango and 2 chicken breasts cut up into pieces. Serve with rice or pasta and a smile.

Thanks to the other girl for passing this along. It’s truly delicious.

Cuisine seems to be on the brain a lot lately. Yesterday’s show at the Comedy Nest involved a frenetic cooking show involving “Bozo” and “Clown” teaching confused viewers how to make asparagus and ham…

Reason #457: sharing wardrobe tips during a photo shoot (is there such a thing as a good strapless bra?)

Reason #458: compliments!

If our troupe didn’t have a “no touching” rule, I’m pretty sure that reason #459 would be: hugging. But, alas, we’ll have to skip this one in favour of, perhaps, an enthusiastic nod? Yes!

Reason # 459: enthusiastic nods!

Road Trip Impressions

Chicago pizza is delicious.

Mick Napier’s ideas about directing improv are also delicious. I listened to his workshop and had to hold myself back from standing up and yelling “amen!” when he invited us to do rather than discuss scenes, when he suggested that side “coaching” should be limited and that, instead of being interrupted and directed during scenes, players should be invited to choose different behaviour or patterns next time around. He seemed to roll his eyes at the way long form can lapse into a slow/serious rhythm and encouraged players to vary up the pacing. I have an improv crush on Mick Napier.

Bigwig improvisers in Chicago swear a lot.

EL train riders seem to be very tense. To the young woman who kept berating another young lady with taunts of “get off the train, bitch!”: you should try yoga or perhaps a scented candle in your bedroom.

Chicago’s magic bean is just as fun in the daytime as it is at night.

Seeing the words “Without Annette” and “Second City” on a show ticket can cause goose bumps. I have an improv crush on this ticket.

At this point, I’d like to give a “shout out” to the lady that works at the Cracker Barrel restaurant who thought it would be a great idea for us to visit all of the Cracker Barrels on our trip back to Canada so that we could collect all of the different Cracker Barrel shirts from the different states. She gave us a map to facilitate our quest. Next time you’re down, remember that “there’s so much happiness at the Cracker Barrel”. Happiness and breaded fried okra.

We’ll be having a “Help Annette Pay All of the Highway Tolls” fundraiser in the coming few weeks.

Moral: any great trip should involve breaded fried okra and Mick Napier. And, ideally, a red rented van named “Cherry” and 5 of your favourite improvisors. A GPS system and some Werthers Originals do not hurt either.

I’m gonna live forever, I’m gonna learn how to fly!

“Can I have your autograph?”

The setting was high school. The question was posed by Mrs. l (I’ll protect her identity by not capitalizing the first letter of her last name). She was rumoured to be in a relationship with another female teacher at our school, a gruff sort of woman with a manly swagger, orthopaedic stockings, and a penchant for hippy necklaces. Mrs. l had seen me in the school play as the prissy-narrator-turned-wild-woman-in-a-fruit-outfit and her kids were big fans. This was such a pivotal moment in my performance career because autographs were very important to me. In fact, I remember being absolutely obsessed with getting all of the Disney characters to sign my autograph book when I was a kid and getting very, very angry at my sister who accidentally got “Chip” twice instead of Chip AND Dale. I was going to apologize to my sister in this blog for being so silly but I’ll have to think it over a bit. I mean the second Chip’s signature looked nothing like the first one. And it was upside down.

I remember being at the Just for Laughs Festival improv tournament a few years back and hearing them announce my name as a “celebrity judge”. I never thought that people actually spat water out of their mouths when they were shocked in real life but I learned that night that it is very possible. This was fresh off my professional make-up session next to Roman Danylo. When asked “Do you do a lot of professional acting?,” I responded “oh, I work a lot in Europe” instead of “I often pretend to be the wife of former, Swedish tennis superstar, Stefan Edberg at night while cuddling my pillow.

Sure, at first, it’s all about the glamour and the recognition. After 10 years in the biz, however, it becomes about more than all that. It’s about more than that little drawer in the green room in which I stuff my purse, that slightly cracked water pitcher that we get to split between us during the shows, and that rickety old toilet handle that we have to pretend is still fastened to the toilet so as to not arouse suspicion that we may be responsible for breaking it. No, it’s about the joy of the activity, the connection forged with your fellow improvisors. Inspiring cackling from the front row is gravy, sure, but you learn not to rely on it as a validation for your existence. Doing improv for superficial reasons like that might make you inclined to be all like “oh, man, I sure hope I get to rub shoulders with Andy Dick at the Chicago Improv Festival next week” and then you’d be like super disappointed when you learned that his show has been cancelled.

This blog entry is dedicated to Mrs. l. If you’re out there, I want you to know that there is a spot in my autograph book with your name on it.

15% Tip (85% filler)

What can you do to become a better performer?

Walk around your environment, point at things randomly and call them by some other name (i.e. point at fridge, yell “Ouija board”).

Wear something that you normally wouldn’t and adopt a character inspired by that article of clothing. Then go somewhere public and maintain the character the whole time. Maybe keep a journal as the character for a while. Make sure to check back in with your actual self from time to time lest you start to lose touch with reality (I recommend a hot bath, a deli sandwich and a whole lot of Ryan Seacrest).

Be sure to keep pushing yourself by continually learning about things that are beyond your comfort zone. By never letting yourself get too comfortable, you will feel more at ease with the unexpected onstage. This strategy will also help you feel more at ease with failure. I can’t believe it took you so long to read up until this point! What’s wrong with you?

Expose yourself to different languages.

Study people. Watch them in the park, in the office, in their bed while they’re asleep. Never. Let. Up.

Other things my drama teachers taught me over the years that are perhaps not quite as helpful:

“No homosexuality!” – my high school drama teacher would repeat this over and over as we prepared for our skits. I don’t think she had anything against homosexuals, I just think that she was tired of seeing the same content over and over again (why does high school drama have to be like this?).

“You’re my star student” – oh, sorry, this isn’t actually advice. This is just a little something that my favourite drama teacher once told me (twice).

“You’re going to be a star one day” – yeah, again.

“Don’t sing, dear, just step to the back of the chorus line, farther, farther, yes, that’s it” – also, not really advice. Just something that my least favourite play director said to me in high school. Suck it!

“You don’t mind playing a man, do you? It’s just that you don’t fit into the girls’ dresses”. Suck it! Suck it! Suck it!

Ahem.

I suppose the best tip of them all is to hang out with your fellow improv players a lot. Get to know and love them. Walk their dogs, cradle their babies, hold out your hand for their chewed gum when the flavour runs out. The relationship you develop offstage will hopefully translate into more playful, relaxed and fun performances.

Question For You

At our last show, we came out to Beyonce’s delicate and stirring minuet, Single Ladies. It’s one of those pumpin’ and upbeat songs that works with people running onstage to start a show. Which leads to my question:

What are some your favourite songs to lead off a show?

What’s wrong with this picture?

People… People Quoting People

I came across Patton Oswalt’s high school grad speech a while ago and seeing it again in The Apiary reminded me that I wanted to pull a quote from it and group it with a few other quotes I’ve recently run across. The quote I had in mind was Patton’s reference to Bob Hope (I can’t find the original source so I’ll take Oswalt’s word on this). Bob Hope said:

When I was twenty, I worried what everything thought of me. When I turned forty, I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. And then I made it to sixty, and I realized no one was ever thinking of me.

Nikki loaned me Steve Martin’s autobiography, Born Standing Up. I’m not sure I’d qualify it as “enjoyable” because it has a grim and weary tone to it but it was a very worthwhile read. In the book, Martin relates some advice he received from Johnny Carson after Carson did a Goofy impression that he used to do as a child during a show:

You’ll use everything you ever learned.

The last book I finished was David Sedaris’s When You Are Engulfed in Flames. It was a really good read but nothing in there struck me as particularly quotable (at least with respect to improv). However, when I bought it, I also picked up Julie Andrews’s new memoir of her early years, Home. In it, she quotes the words of her voice coach that stayed with her:

The amateur practices until they get it right. The professional practices until they cannot get it wrong.

Yes. Yes, to all of these.

There and Back Again

LtoR: Gil, Nick, Vinny, Sean, Marc

Made it home from Toronto safe and sound. Other than giving the rental car a few accidental love taps, the trip was a fantastic voyage through improv.

We had a second show added to the Fest, this time at the Bad Dog Theatre and it went even better than the first. Everyone brought their ‘A’ game and we all had a ton of fun (always a good recipe). I didn’t get to see everything I wanted to at the Fest but I did manage to catch quite a few shows. I want to highlight three shows that really stood out to me:

1) Zach Ward from North Carolina and Rene Duquesnoy from Chicago put on an excellent two-person show that was playful and whimsical while featuring great timing, knowing when to end a scene and strong character work.

2) I had heard a lot about Epione’s tragic improv from Gil for a while now and I finally got a chance to see it in Toronto. It’s some of the most intense improv I’ve seen– no, it is THE most intense improv I’ve seen. These guys and gals commit to their characters as their characters commit terrible acts against one another. It’s improv that puts some very damaged people on display with no punches pulled.

3) Another stunning two-person show was ¡ATTENÇION!. Jason and Micah from Chicago put on a clinic on how to listen to your partner and finding the heart of their scenes. These guys chased every game to a satisfying end and didn’t stop pulling surprises out of their pockets from start to finish.