Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Nervous for no reason

So I did it! I'm a performer on the I.O. stage. Last night was my first official show at the theater and it was great! To start off I was really nervous, but not of being on stage or because of it being the comedy club that it is. I was nervous because of my lack of confidence in my team. I knew that individually they are funny, but we've had major scheduling conflicts. The group had only met sporadically and there was one guy that I had never even rehearsed with. I spent the last week imagining the worst... We'd have bad onstage chemisty, some jerkpod on my team wouldn't shut up and would showboat every scene or we wouldn't get a single laugh throughout the whole show or worst off I'd follow Corey's lead and not just hurt my ankle, but fall on my face and break my nose which would be lovely for the wedding. It's weird too, because I usually don't think this way about shows. My tummy may get a little jittery right before I go up on stage, but then I'm fine. Anyways, my lack of confidence was clearly getting to me.

The shows started, we sat around and watched the first team perform. At this point I was actually enjoying myself. I had calmed down and figured, whatever was going to happen would happen. I was just going to have fun. Well, it paid off. We had a great opening, (for the first time), really solid, funny scenes and I was even pimped into rapping about being a virgin. It felt really great and I was totally comfortable with my teammates.
The only weird part of the night was during the dream sequence. Basically an audience volunteer tells us about their day in detail. Taking the idea that what happens during the day comes alive in your sleep, both teams make a dream like scene out of it. The jerkpod that told us about his day was clearly drunk and was clearly trying to be funny. As he was explaining his supposed day, he managed to be offensive to African-Americans, Mexicans, Asians, the military, women, mothers, blowup dolls, people that get high and overall the human race. In the end we made it work by tactfully making fun of his ignorance. It was hilarious.
It was a great night to remember. I can't wait for the next show in two weeks.

-Mo

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You guys rock! Show them IO fools how KC brings it. Congrats!

Steaming bowl o' Calderone said...

Just remember...
1. Your name is Mo
2. Your name is Mo
3. Your name is Mo
4. Your name is Mo

Anonymous said...

Yo, Way to go, Mo. At the show, you know. in Chicago, Whoa.

Anonymous said...

Congrats on your first show! I think I said that over on the City3 page, but hey, worth mentioning twice. Also, your name came up this past weekend in Dallas. I had a workshop with Shad Kunkle. Somehow we got to talking about in Chicago, I mentioned Corey (who told our troupe to meet Eric Hunicutt, which is how his name got brought up in the first place with Shad), and lo and behold, he goes, "Isn't he with Monique? She was in one of my workshops - I really enjoyed her!" So, there you have it. Warm fuzzy moment to round out your weekend. Take care!

Anonymous said...

Aww... wow, Shad. He taught my first I.O class. I don't get to see him around all too often, but there's definately fond memories of him. Even more exciting is the fact that my name was randomly mentioned in Dallas. Did you happen to also use the word jerkpod? This is how we get it to spread people.