I’m not really sure where this whole improve obsession came from. I guess it must have started with “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”, the US one, that came on when I was in high school.
For some reason I wasn’t there on that day during my freshman year in college when they had a ‘Clubs Fair’ out on one of the lawns. But one night, probably walking to dinner, I did see a poster that was about how the first meeting of Improv Club would be coming up. So I decided to go.
I got there and was immediately put to a scene involving buying a pencil from an oddly shaped fat girl. The scene went on way too long, and it was embarrassing. But thrilling.
I stay in the club. Members come and go. Somewhere around my junior year I become president. We put on shows. People come. I speak the famous line as The Bird Lady: “Don’t use lipstick, because it’s made out of fish and fish are the biiiiirds of the sea!”.
I finish college. Move to LA. Still love improv, but am too busy acclimating to LA life with the current bf.
Years pass. The bf and I break up. I start being told by two people in my life whom I think are very funny that I should get into improv. ‘Why now’, I wonder out loud to my best friend.
“Don’t you need a certain amount of tragedy to be funny?” she asks.
Ah. Of course. The breakup.
So I wait to get my hands on some cash and, voila, start taking classes at UCB.
I do a show. It goes well, I start another class.
Now this class is almost over. The show is next week. I can’t afford to sign up for the next class. Well, it’s not that I don’t have the money, it’s just that it would be irresponsible to spend what I have on improve classes before I get a job.
So . . . a job is a means to do improv.
Sounds good to me.
For some reason I wasn’t there on that day during my freshman year in college when they had a ‘Clubs Fair’ out on one of the lawns. But one night, probably walking to dinner, I did see a poster that was about how the first meeting of Improv Club would be coming up. So I decided to go.
I got there and was immediately put to a scene involving buying a pencil from an oddly shaped fat girl. The scene went on way too long, and it was embarrassing. But thrilling.
I stay in the club. Members come and go. Somewhere around my junior year I become president. We put on shows. People come. I speak the famous line as The Bird Lady: “Don’t use lipstick, because it’s made out of fish and fish are the biiiiirds of the sea!”.
I finish college. Move to LA. Still love improv, but am too busy acclimating to LA life with the current bf.
Years pass. The bf and I break up. I start being told by two people in my life whom I think are very funny that I should get into improv. ‘Why now’, I wonder out loud to my best friend.
“Don’t you need a certain amount of tragedy to be funny?” she asks.
Ah. Of course. The breakup.
So I wait to get my hands on some cash and, voila, start taking classes at UCB.
I do a show. It goes well, I start another class.
Now this class is almost over. The show is next week. I can’t afford to sign up for the next class. Well, it’s not that I don’t have the money, it’s just that it would be irresponsible to spend what I have on improve classes before I get a job.
So . . . a job is a means to do improv.
Sounds good to me.
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