Off The Cuff

Wednesday was the big day. The day I was supposed to make a fool out of myself in front of the three judges and five people who accidentally wandered into the theatre. But I didn't. I actually made a fool out of myself in front of three judges and 30-40 people. Yes, that's right, there was inexplicably a small, but real, audience for "Off the Cuff" from Mary I, at the Irish Student Drama Awards. They must have been on a dinner break from the real drama. If any of you know improv, we did a fairy tale, marathon/freeze, and two pyramids. For the rest of you, suffice it to say that we just had a lot of fun. It was an eerie feeling to be onstage and to have people genuinely laughing (because of me, not at me, you smartass). Even eerier to be going on stage making up your script as you go along, but that's the challenge of the genre. After we finished our 45-minute show, we went out in the lobby right away to stand before the judges to get their feedback, American Idol style, with half the crowd sticking around to hear as well. Two of the judges were impressed by what we were able to do, and offered some good constructive criticism on what we could do next time to make it better. The third judge must have been one of those on dinner break from the "real" stuff, because he was clearly unimpressed and possibly even sickened by it. You know, the kind of guy who treasures his Shakespeare, Becket, Yeats, Joyce...all that proper stuff that has been around for ages. He struggled for words, but here's some highlights he was able to spit out, slightly paraphrased for your enjoyment. "Those games are what any actor will do when they are warming up." "Improv comedy? What about more of a dramatic take on it? You don't have to limit yourself to comedy when you are improving." "It wasn't really something that you would bring to ISDA." "I have a giant stick lodged in my rectum and sucked horribly when I did improv, which is why I carry this vendetta against it and its originality." Okay, so maybe I made up that last one, but that's what his body language was saying. Hearing him say all that, though, actually made the experience even better. Before we came, we knew we'd run into some hard-case like that. Watching him squirm trying to find words was worth the price of admission. Performace-wise, we actually did just about as good as we've done in our month of practices, but it was never about going to ISDA to win anything. We were there to have fun and support each other, which we did. Some of the people who overheard the judges' review actually came up to us afterwards, though, and said to ignore that hard-ass; they loved to watch what we did and thought it was very well-done. You won't see me on the stage at Second City anytime soon, but I had a fantastic time and plan on continuing with the improv group here.