Last night, Chicago Red Line was back at PushPush with The Position, Wierd Spelled Wrong and JaCKPie. Pre-sales were a little slower than last time, but by the time the doors closed to start the show, we had another full house. We've had really terrific audiences in quantity, and more importantly in quality.
We did a little bit of a different setup for the show getting only one suggestion at the top of the show and then each cast doing their thing until edited off the stage by the next team. The Position kicked us off to a great start with lots of big offers (my favorite of which was the bi-noc-u-lars that "made everything more extreme"). They had Zell Miller, a bucket, a stone skipping prodigy who could skip a stone right across the Atlantic and hit a speaker in Parliament, and a shower that burns the dirt off. Mark edited them at a high point and began Wierd. His piece drew the bucket from The Position's stuff and centered around the landlord who realized he couldn't live without it. He also had a really funny rock band who, in the middle of a jam rehearsal, could still hear the slightest sound ("I can hear the landlord breathing at the front door"). Then, JaCKPie stepped in beginning with a scene in Parliament. We also had a very unusual "ladder league" baseball game, a firefighter who sold pizzas on the job, newspaper headlines spreading rumors of health hazards connected to tobacco, and a member of Parliament who loved his wig a little too much (the skipped stone from The Position later killed him).
For the finale, all of us performed Reel to Real, our version of an improvised movie for the stage. The whole thing involved McDaddy, played by Samuel L. Jackson played by John, fighting a war with Ray Kroc and the Hamburgular. Appearing in supporting roles were H.R.Pufnstuf, Long John Silvers, and Captain D's parrot. It was quite entertaining from a performance standpoint anyway. The audience seemed to get a kick out of it. Everyone played their butts off for the whole night. At the sweaty conclusion, we all took our bows and headed off for sustenance at Manny's as is our custom.
Sunday, August 18, 2002
Thursday, August 01, 2002
Show: JaCKPie & The Position @ some comedy place 7/31/02
Well, the day started with me scorching my throat with stomach acids, and moved onward to showing up late to work, getting sent home sick after an hour (most of which I spent investigating the linoleum in the office bathroom), crashing at home, waking up, drinking Powerade, driving to Roswell for a show, doing a show, crashing hard again, and getting up early the next morning for a flight to visit family. That's the big picture.
On the show...
The club was basically a large room inside one of those "entertainment complexes" that houses a bar, some video games, and a bunch of big TV's [televisions...it wasn't THAT kind of entertainment]. The whole place was situated in the corner of an older-ish shopping center.
The room itself was cavernous, but there were paintings all over the walls, tables everywhere, brass railings, a sunken area in the middle with booths and more tables. Ben described it as a speak-easy style. That's true. If it were better cared for and located in a better overall setting, it would feel like a cool, swanky little club out of the 20's or 30's. There was one thing that really screwed it all up...
The Stage
The stage rose like a clapboard retaining wall from the floor of the sunken "pit area" up around six or seven feet. It hadn't been painted in no telling how long and the trim along the front of the stage was broken and jagged. The depth of the stage was divided by a thick burgundy curtain. The space in front of the curtain was relatively shallow, but playing the space behind the curtain would've created impossible sight-lines. Since most of our audience sat in the "pit", the show felt like we were playing somewhere in the clouds, literally way over their heads. It would seem to make far more sense to me to put the stage much lower...two feet max. off the floor of the "pit"...based on the configuration of the room, but they probably moved in as it was and don't have enough capital for renovations.
We had somewhere around 20 people in the audience, and they were pretty much all brought by people in the cast. There were maybe three or four from the entertainment complex's efforts. With a larger crowd, there would've been more shuffling of waitresses and clanking of plates, glassware, etc. to deal with than we experienced. There were some other noise issues, but we all really should project more anyway. The staff was friendly and nice. On the whole, it was a good learning experience, but, in my opinion, not the best showcase for our style. I do hope they and anyone else who plays there build a following for improv, and I wish them all luck.
On the show...
The club was basically a large room inside one of those "entertainment complexes" that houses a bar, some video games, and a bunch of big TV's [televisions...it wasn't THAT kind of entertainment]. The whole place was situated in the corner of an older-ish shopping center.
The room itself was cavernous, but there were paintings all over the walls, tables everywhere, brass railings, a sunken area in the middle with booths and more tables. Ben described it as a speak-easy style. That's true. If it were better cared for and located in a better overall setting, it would feel like a cool, swanky little club out of the 20's or 30's. There was one thing that really screwed it all up...
The Stage
The stage rose like a clapboard retaining wall from the floor of the sunken "pit area" up around six or seven feet. It hadn't been painted in no telling how long and the trim along the front of the stage was broken and jagged. The depth of the stage was divided by a thick burgundy curtain. The space in front of the curtain was relatively shallow, but playing the space behind the curtain would've created impossible sight-lines. Since most of our audience sat in the "pit", the show felt like we were playing somewhere in the clouds, literally way over their heads. It would seem to make far more sense to me to put the stage much lower...two feet max. off the floor of the "pit"...based on the configuration of the room, but they probably moved in as it was and don't have enough capital for renovations.
We had somewhere around 20 people in the audience, and they were pretty much all brought by people in the cast. There were maybe three or four from the entertainment complex's efforts. With a larger crowd, there would've been more shuffling of waitresses and clanking of plates, glassware, etc. to deal with than we experienced. There were some other noise issues, but we all really should project more anyway. The staff was friendly and nice. On the whole, it was a good learning experience, but, in my opinion, not the best showcase for our style. I do hope they and anyone else who plays there build a following for improv, and I wish them all luck.
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