Home 2

On a whim I started taking classes at iO in 2007. In 2008 I began performing there. Since then I've been in the building to watch shows or perform a couple times each week. At this point it's a home away from home.

Whenever I'm at iO I feel comfortable. I know the space, I know the layout, and there are tons of great memories there. At any given time I can run into any number of good friends. Some places feel like home because you go there so often or it's a place that has a lot of people you love there or it's a place that houses a certain passion of yours, iO is all three. I was given a lot of great opportunities there. I was taught and grew and given a chance to perform. I was given a chance to experiment, sometimes with success and sometimes with failure but I was always welcomed and nurtured. I met some of my greatest friends there. My interest in performing was reenergized and focused there. I spent many a late night watching shows, learning from shows, and talking endlessly about comedy.

After years of doing shows and watching shows and rehearsing there I feel that I have a place there. It's a place that in some small way is mine. I'm part of a greater collective of wonderfully talented creative people that orbit around this one building.

I go there to kill time: to read and write and jaw with friends. I go there to challenge myself. I go there to feed this insatiable need I have to be on stage and illicit a response from a crowd. I go there to talk to people who are like me, creative funny people who can't live without performing, daring people who want to push things and challenge people. I go there to be entertained and to see my friends take risks. I go there because I feel that I belong there.

If you don't have a place where you belong, find it. Then go there as often as you can.