Goodbye 3541

I started taking classes at iO in 2007. I didn't go to a show for my first term there because I was too scared to use my student ID and I was too broke to pay for a show. During level 2 I mustered up enough courage to go see the Sunday 10:30 show which turned out to be GhettoBlaster and 3033. The first show I didn't care for much but when 3033 took the stage I was enthralled. They took a suggestion and for thirty minutes danced and interpretively moved to a soundtrack, no dialogue. I remember it being funny but it struck me more as an engaging piece of theater, even more impressive given these five men were big, big but graceful. From then on I was hooked.

The following week I went back on Sunday this time for the whole evening. That was the first time I saw Deep Schwa. I fell in love. They were so fast, so smart, so wickedly playful. I don't remember much about the show but after it my face hurt from laughing. The team at the time was Jeff Griggs, Brett Lyons, Dan Antonucci, Kevin Fleming, Meagan Flanigan, Brian Jack and Colleen Murray. Craig Uhlir got back from Vegas a month or so after I started watching Schwa and at first I didn't like him- too sharp, too mean, too aggressive. As a teacher Craig won me over and that roster of Schwa became my signpost and my inspiration for what improv was and could be. Subsequent additions and returning members like Rob Janas, Brian Wilson, Kate Duffy, Joe Canale, Danny Mora, and Neil McNamara were also incredible to watch. Since that first show back in 2007 I've only missed a handful of Sunday nights at iO, less than ten.

                             

I didn't got on a team after classes, I was crushed and angry. I did some work, auditioned, and made it in. My first team at iO was FireCup, it was a great first team, we really cared about each other and most of the time it showed on stage. It was a huge accomplishment when we started playing downstairs in the Cab, in my mind that was always the stage to play on, the goal, where the real work was being done. My second team was Rick where I think I did some of my best work with the Harold. My third team The Hague was great in its atonal weirdness. My independent team The Album and Julia and I's two person show Salute Jive both got runs in the Cabaret, both were unexpected and I couldn't have been more grateful for the opportunities. Ted and I put up our two person sketch show "A Year Of Saturdays" in the DCT, it was the first thing I did that I felt was in my voice. I found that voice at iO.

I had some great teachers and some bad teachers who talked too much. I had some boring teachers and some creepy teachers and some inspiring teachers. I learned some great lessons, some of them because of how angry and biting they were delivered. Some people were mean to me, I was mean to some people, I embarrassed myself a number of times, sometimes I was too proud. Occasionally I talked too much shit.

I had the pleasure of coaching JaJaJa, Echo my first Harold team the members of which will always be near and dear to me and currently coach Attica. I made a lot of friends, was involved with many interesting projects, got inspired, got motivated, got beaten down and picked myself up. I had a place to go whenever I wanted. I found a home and an art form that excited me. 

I don't have much attachment to the building itself, it's the people that are important, but I'll miss the Cabaret stage, the low ceiling, the simple lights, the way the laughs and indifference sounded. I'll miss watching a great show and getting pumped up to go on after or watching a terrible show and getting pumped up to get the crowd back. I'll miss doing a great set coming off and feeling sorry for the team that has to follow it. I'll miss the challenges and the energy, the heat and the camaraderie. It was such a unique space, part bar part theater, compact and intimate. I'll miss sneaking in the back and watching shows from the hall way and then disappearing during freeze.

It wasn't a flawless place. It could be dangerous both interpersonally and in regards to performance. It could be a place of judgement but also kindness and acceptance. Of contradictions. It was a place where you could seek and find some clarity of purpose. Hone your comedic chops in a classroom or on a stage.

It was a magical place and after tonight it's gone.

The echo of Echo

Echo the team I coach at iO had their last show tonight. They are the first team I was appointed to coach by iO and we've been together since they graduated classes around this time last year. Almost a year exactly, not a bad shelf life for a harold team.

They taught me a lot and I hope I taught them as much. It's been a fulfilling, at times pleasantly frustrating, experience. As a coach you walk a fine line between friend, peer, and authority figure. There were times when I knew what I wanted to communicate but couldn't articulate my point, times where I knew what I wanted them to do but couldn't elicit it. I learned how to coach a team and they learned how to be coached. We had some interesting times not least of which was a steady change in roster.

Looking back, I break down the evolution of the team in three acts. Act One: a beginning. Getting to know each other, getting to know the harold, feeling things out, and dealing with one of the original members who was relatively unstable who was subsequently removed. Act Two: a transition period. We got Trevor, Ariel went on a boat, Blair quit the team, and Allison joined it. Act Three: progress. The last six months of the team we really gelled and put up some great shows and consistently had great rehearsals.

I'm so grateful to have been Echo's coach. To have been witness to and partial catalyst of their creative growth as a team and as individuals. Allison, Ariel, Blair, Chris, Chris, Claire, Dave, Mike, Molly, Paul, and Trevor will always have a special place in my heart, they gave me an experience I'll never forget.

This is good luck but not goodbye.

Pride

Last night Echo, the team I coach, had a great show. It was fast, it was fun, and they made a couple of those intuitive leaps/connections that make you sit back during a show and say wow.

As time passes I get to watch them grow, become more confident, and more versatile. I try to guide them and push them in certain directions but I think it's time more than anything that helps them develop. I don't try to impose a style on any individual or the team as a whole. I try to recognize the style of the team and the individual, name it and cultivate it by giving them all the tools I can. Most of the time I think it's just teaching them all the different styles they can play in, the different moves they can make, the different ways to play a scene. Once they have a diverse knowledge of what they can do I let them loose to do whatever they want. I see whatever patterns emerge and try to refine and clarify it.

The team and I have gotten to know each other and I care about them all. They are all talented and I believe I help them in small ways to get better. It's gratifying to see progress, it's gratifying to see them take my advise. When we have a great show or a great rehearsal I feel good. I feel like I've done my job. I feel proud to be part of this group of energetic funny people who are taking some risks.

At the show last night I wanted to point and say: That's my team.

Entrances And Exits

In the past day Carrie has stepped down from The Night Shift and Blair has stepped down from Echo. It's an odd feeling when someone leaves an improv group. Sometimes people leave because they move, they are too busy, or because they are not getting what they want out of it. As someone who stays there is a sense of loss and sometimes rejection, failure. The group failed by letting this person go or I failed as a coach. I did something wrong, we did something wrong. But that's not the case.

We are all on our own artistic journeys. We all have different goals and need different things in what we do. Everyone is on there own personal journey and needs to make decisions that put themselves in the places they want to be. I don't stay in a group or with a show if I think it's stagnant, if I don't like doing it, or if it becomes an obligation.

Improv is great. I love it. But there comes a point I think after doing it for a long time or after being on groups put together by other people that you desire something more. Something more personal. Something more unique to your own voice. When I moved back to Chicago I got on teams at all the theaters I could: iO , Second City, CIC, and The Playground. I wanted to do as much as I could. After I did that for a year or two I realized simply performing is good but performing with an intent and focus is better. I started to develop outside ideas, outside interests, foster my own style, and because there are only so many hours in the day you have to shift priorities.

You have to trust yourself and when you have that feeling of constriction or boredom you have to make a change. Develop your own stuff. Write. Put together a group with people you want to collaborate with, that you have an affinity for. Create a unique focus and follow it.

If you step down from a group it doesn't mean you dislike the people in it. It doesn't mean you resent the time you spent. All experiences are valuable, every friend makes you grow. But when your heart pulls you away. Follow it.

Life is full of change. Friends, lovers, jobs, cities come and go. They are all valid, they all in a way become a part of you in the ever-evolving person that you are. When you leave something you don't really leave it. You carry a part of it with you always. It has shaped you.

Find what brings you joy. Then chase it.

Echo Again

Last night Echo had their first great show. Our previous shows have been good, each one progressively better than the one before, but I hadn't seen that spark of inspiration or sense of fun or magic that I saw last night.

It's nice to get validation. As a coach I don't get a lot of feedback. If the shows are good than that tells me I'm doing good. There is also a discrepancy for new teams between their shows and rehearsals for the first couple months. There's no pressure in rehearsals, I'm the only one there to judge, and for the most part I think there's not a lot of obligation to make me laugh. In front of a packed house that's a different story. They feel pressure to perform and to get laughs because they aren't necessarily totally solidified as a group. Personalities haven't gelled, people don't necessarily know each other that well, there may be an element of panic.

Last night we closed which may have had something to do with it. Watching the first group alleviated some pressure, maybe, I don't know. Before the show I gave everyone on the Team a personal goal, something I wanted to see from them as opposed to a general piece note. I also tried to be as brief as possible. That may have had something to do with it. Improv is so ethereal it's hard to tell. Maybe they were just due.

Regardless they had a great show and I am very proud of them. It excites me for the future.

Echo

The team I'm coaching picked a name last night. The name came from the space we rehearse in. It's this weird cavernous store front, not in use. There's trap doors and a weird sauna/dungeon in the basement. They've been doing some great work and I'm really excited for their first show.

May 14th 1030pm iO.