A Year Of Saturdays: Reflections

This is the running order for Ted and I's show A Year Of Saturdays which just finished up at iO this past Thursday. Writing and performing the show has been the most satisfying artistic experience I've had since I played Eddie in Rocky Horror in college. The theme that we set out with was honesty. We tried to create a show with honest heartfelt moments as well as fun goofy moments and I think we were successful. Even with the goofy or more over-the-top scenes we tried to base them in some kind of emotional truth whether it was estrangement, sorrow, or anger. Each week we shared personal stories about how we felt about each other as well as stories about ourselves. 

I've seen a lot of sketch shows and a lot of comedy since moving to Chicago and Ted and I both agreed we wanted to do something different. That was another goal. Do something that we haven't seen people doing. And for as much funny things that there are going on there isn't a lot of truth. People don't get very personal or vulnerable on stage. We tried to walk that line and I think we were successful. We had a lot of great feedback from people that came and one of the things I heard a couple times, which I loved, was that it was touching. Sketch comedy doesn't need to be a succession of sketches that make people laugh, it's an art form just like any other. You can make people laugh, make them think, and then pull on their heart strings in the course of a few sketches and that's what we tried to do.

The writing process with Ted was great. We would meet two hours before a midnight open mic at Second City and write a new 15 minute set for that particular show. We did that for about seven weeks to generate material. We wrote and tested material all within a matter of hours. We refined stuff that worked and through out things that didn't work. After we had enough material we got a slot at iO and brought Jamison in to help us shape it. We all have the similar senses of humor and sensibilities and Jamison structured it and clarified some sketches so that the show really flowed. 

I'm so proud of the show, so proud of the message, and had such a great time performing it. It's so refreshing to perform a scripted show that you wrote and conceived, where no compromises were made, and the goals that you had for it were realized by the audience. I'm so grateful to Charna and Baz for letting us put up the show the at iO, so grateful for collaborators like Ted and Jamison, and so grateful to those people that came out.

I'm glad it's done. Ted is out of town for two weeks. When he gets back we start writing our next show.

The past is history, the future mystery.