"I Forgive Myself"

 

One of my favorite philosophies, which I've learned from Improv, is the concept of "I forgive myself." There's NO FREAKING way I'd currently be performing one of my favorite musicals, on stage, if it weren't for embracing this tenet.

Performing and teaching improv has (almost) cured my stage fright...which, in high school, was damn near crippling. I have been a member of ComedySportz Philadelphia for the past 12 years. I have been teaching improv for the past 7 years. I freaking love it!

Through this sometimes maligned art form, I have grown to realize my fear was never "looking stupid on stage." As a comedian or entertainer or just a damn fool, that's kind of part and parcel to making people laugh. In fact, my low-rent super power is to convert people laughing at me into people laughing with me. Obviously a defense mechanism (also going back to high school). I've learned that much of my fear came from letting down those around me. My cast mates or fellow performers. If I drop a cue line, how does that affect their performance? THAT had long been my fear of stepping on stage in a scripted format. With Improv, there are no cue lines. There is no script. You accept ("yes"), you amplify ("and"), and you continue to tell the story...together.

But how do you take what you learn from improv and insert it into a scripted performance? By learning how to forgive yourself in the moment.

Last weekend, as we opened Assassins at City Theater in Wilmington Delaware, I new I was as prepared as I could possibly have been. I knew the script forward and backwards. The scenes. Two monologues. The songs. BUT, as sometimes can happen in a live setting, I slipped up. I transposed a line in a song... which happened to be a huge cue line for the rest of the cast. Collectively they salvaged my mistake, but I was so disappointed in myself. THIS is the FEAR come to life!

But then I said, "fuck it." I could sit there and let it eat at me for the rest of that performance, which will undoubtedly kill the mood every time I walk on stage, or I can do what I've learned from Jason Stockdale, Dave Jadico, Alli Soowal, Mary Carpenter, Kristin Finger, Don Montrey, Emily Davis, Darryl Charles, Sue Taney, Jon Colby, Steve Roney, Jim Burns, and a myriad of other teachers I've study with over the years and simply say "I forgive myself" and move on.

I'm not going to tell you it's easy. It's not! Quite the contrary. It takes a shitload of practice! But, since I fuck up a lot, and I'm old, I have to be damn close to my 10,000 hours needed to master it.

It works on as well as off the stage: Forgot to make the coffee, I forgive myself. Ran out of time before mowing the lawn, I forgive myself. Haven't showered in 3 days, I forgive myself...though those around you mind take exception.

The day after my error, I was back on stage in another performance. To alleviate it happening again, I was laboring over that part of the song. Jim Burns, who I have worked with on shorts, web series, improv shows, and various stage performances was helping me. After working it for a bit bit he finally said, "Okay. Don't over do it, or it becomes a thing." That advice greatly complimented the "I forgive myself" philosophy.

When that moment in the song came up, I concentrated on the words, but let go and didn't over complicate it. Everything went completely fine.

Forgive yourself. Also, if you can. get a Jim Burns in your life!

"Elvis, And The Million Dollar Quartet"

For anyone who has been following this blog AND my podcast "Elvis, And," I am eternally grateful!

We have a new (mini) episode today, which I am particularly fond of! Give it a listen if you have a few minutes. I assure you, it'll become a holiday tradition.

"Elvis, And The Million Dollar Quartet"

#ImprovSavesLives

About 5 years ago, I became a company member of ComedySportz Philadelphia. I can't tell you what an honor it was and how amazing it continues to be.

The other company members are my friends, and some of them are as close to me as family. The shows (or matches) are still as incredible to participate in as they are to watch. This weekend was no exception. 

I was neither in the matches, nor in the "arena" to watch them. Instead I watched this whole story unfold over social media. 

We perform matches every Saturday night at 7:30pm & 10pm. Saturday 1/2/2016 was no different...more or less.  There are 40+ members in the company and hundreds of games to choose from. Each match features between 8 and 11 players (which includes a musician) and 9 games (give or take). Because it's improv, EVERY SHOW IS DIFFERENT. 

The 7:30pm match was sold out. Not an empty seat could be seen.

Then, the 10pm match. Also, not an empty seat could be seen, but that's because at 9:55pm, the entire city block in Philadelphia lost power due to a Restaurant fire nearby. The Theater was plunged into darkness. What to do?

I'll allow our artistic director Dave Jadico to explain:

The entire block had a power outage at 9:55PM. We decided to do the match anyways. We offered refunds to anyone who wanted to leave, explained that we would do an hour and ten minute match without a halftime. Everyone was excited to be a part of it, no one left. We adjusted a few games, shortened the show by one game and removed the halftime. Fortunately, our accompanist Josh Rosen had brought his acoustic guitar, so he did all underscoring and music acoustically, including singing Closing Time at the end as the audience left. The National Anthem sounded like the whole audience was sitting around a campfire. I’ve never heard the entire audience sing that loud. Several of the new cast members held flash lights from the center aisle, a few fire safety lights were on and many audience members provided cell phone lighting. Additionally, a woman was there in one of those huge powered wheel chairs that had a HEADLAMP on it. She provided all of the side lighting that you see in the photo on Facebook. We started the match with Ghost Story with a flash light for pointing at the players like we do at Halloween. We played Radio Play with John Zak as the announcer and the audience provided the rumbling for an earthquake John described by stomping their feet, UNSOLICITED. It was one of the most spontaneous and awesome things we have ever done. The audience had a blast, the players had a blast.

Intro in the DARK

Company member and CSzPhiladelphia Director of Education Kristin Finger (one of those "family members" I mentioned earlier) has a hashtag she lives by: #ImprovSavesLives 

The New Jersey Turnpikes getting ready in the dark - Photo courtesy of Darryl Charles 

The Philadelphia Fighting Amish getting ready in the dark - Photo courtesy of Don Montrey 

I couldn't agree more, though on this night you could amend it to #ImprovSavesLights and you'd get the same sentiment.

Volunteer Player photo - courtesy of CSzPhiladelphia

If you've never seen a ComedySportz match, I implore you to do so. 
If you HAVE seen a ComedySportz match, I implore you to see another one. As I stated above, they're never the same show twice.

If you're in the Philly area check out www.comedysportzphilly.com/tickets/ for details or hit me up and I might give you a couple of comps.

If you're no where near the Philly area, check out www.cszworldwide.com/find-csz-worldwide.html for a city nearest you.

Ground Zero...er...not THAT Ground Zero

My senior year of High School, a couple of buddies and I (including my brother, Erick) started what we thought was a sketch show called "Ground Zero." In reality, it was more of an improv to sketch since nothing was written. The problem was...I hadn't heard of Improv yet, and wouldn't for almost 12 years.

We would get together whenever we could, come up with a plot ("Hey, let's dress as cops") and pull out a camera.

Because I loved the Fishbone song, "Party at Ground Zero," we decided to name the show "Ground Zero." This was 1994. 7 years before a bunch of assholes would board some american plans and forever change the New York skyscape, giving a whole new meaning to the name "Ground Zero."

We had long since abandoned the "show" as well.

Somewhere around 2006ish, I wanted to resurrect it. This time I actually wrote about 20 sketches. However, nothing ever came of it, so those sketches just live on a hard drive, never to see the light of day. All things considered, that's probably NOT a bad thing.

One of the running bits that Jim McCabe and I would do was the:

"From the makers of Howard's End..."

Our immaturity should have gotten a writing credit.

Over the years, I have attempted to convert some of these old videos to a digital format and upload them to Al Gore's Internet Extravaganza! I have gone through about 6 VCRs, none of which have worked. EFF you...old ass technology!

For Christmas this year (about 5 days before Christmas), I told Julie, I only wanted a VCR.
She got me one.
Tonight, I finally got around to hooking it up.

So, for my Facebook friends, I apologize in advance for the #TBT that will be coming your way weekly. I won't pretend this stuff is ground breaking or anything of the sort. But I was 18 years old. So deal with it...