Pictures of a Cute Puppy!

This week I spent most of my time taking care of a foster puppy. Any by that I mean he woke me up at 4:30 am making baby Wookiee noises.

This is Strider.  He's a 4 month old lab/shepherd mix who was found running wild with his 6 siblings.  They all came to the shelter incredibly shy and exhibiting fear aggression.  I fostered this baby until he was adopted on Friday.  In just 5 short days he went from completely terrified to the point of losing bladder control when I touched him to being a sweet, curious little guy.  He still needs lots of socialization and work on his manners, but I trust his new family will provide him that.

A comic about comics doing comedy

A friend of mine posted this comic to my Facebook page and said "Oh, so this is how these things go."  To which I responded, "Pretty much".

The image itself is too big for my page and if I shrink it at all it's unreadable, so follow this link!

Enjoy!

The Dick Joke

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about the role of vulgarity in improv.  It gets the audience's attention immediately.  It's fun to do (if you're comfortable with it).  It's easy.  But here's the problem with vulgarity:

It's easy

Too easy.  You can talk about your penis all night.  Cool.  Chances are at least 50% of the audience has one and can relate to that.  So they'll laugh and their girlfriends may chuckle.  But that's it.  The excitement of "OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE HE SAID THAT" has worn off and it's not exciting ever again.  Shock value is fleeting.  It wears off quickly.  After a while it's old and irritating and offensive. Vulgarity for the sake of shock value in an improv scene takes away everything else the scene is about.

The Improv that I Do

Now is a good time to outline the improv that I do so in the future you know what I'm talking about!  I'll start with the most recent and work my way back from the first to the second.  Yup.

Wow

I spent about 30 minutes on my last blog post.

Before I started it, I posted on my facebook about needing a hug.

Thirty minutes later, I was in a better mood just having written about all the inspiration improv gives me.  And then I found an incredibly awesome, encouraging and uplifting message in my inbox from an amazing improvisor I've only met once and doesn't even live in this state.

All I can say is "wow".  Improvisors are the best people in the whole wide world.  Thanks, Amie and everyone else who helped cheer me up.

:)

Breathe

This weekend I participated in two workshops graciously hosted by The Kanas City Improv Company and taught by Jake Schneider of The Reckoning, a troupe that performs regularly at Chicago's iO Theatre (formerly known as the Improv Olympic).  Uh yup!  We did some scene work and played with the JTS Brown format.  I very much enjoyed myself at these workshops and I worked with a group of improvisors I don't normally spend improv time with.  I made some new friends, met new people, said hello to old friends and met a brand new improvisor.  (AND SHE'S A GIRL!)  I think there were about 20 people total in the group.

Kansas City Improv: The biggest little community in the world.