Sunday, February 24, 2008


Diplomat Motel rehearsal at Sheil Park.

Chicago park district buildings are a blessing and a curse for improv teams (and, apparently, shady-looking real estate seminars). They provide a cheap space to rehearse in, but they're sometimes poorly run. It's hard to find a time when an entire group of performers can get together to rehearse, so it's frustrating to find out your room reservation has been lost.

Trupe: Who answers the phones in these places? I think a random kid runs in off the basketball court and pretends to work here. They go back to their game without writing anything down. "Throw me the rock!"

Our reservation was lost today. Young (who thanklessly arranges rehearsal spaces for us) was so upset he stormed out of the building. Once we got it figured, and finally got a room he had to slink back in to rehearse with us.

Trupe: There are few park district buildings left in the city that Young hasn't blown up in.
Young: None. There are none.

Then Trupe brought up what may be Young's least favorite story. "The time he yelled at the deaf guy who works at Gill Park."

Young: When you say that it makes it sound like I yelled at him because he's deaf.

We joked about it a little longer then started to warm-up for rehearsal.

Young: Oh man. I feel like I need to take a nap. I burnt off all my energy with that rage explosion. I'm literally exhausted.

3 comments:

Arnie said...

Oh yeah... the Oscars aired tonight. I fast forwarded through most of it. For the first time in a long time I had actually seen (and enjoyed) most of the main nominees, but each year I find it harder and harder to care about the awards.

I like what my L.A. friend, Natasha, had to say about the show on her blog:

"There was a time when I would get inspired and teary eyed when Oscar winners would say, "Don't give up on your dreams!" Now I find it very annoying. Please. Who are you to tell me not to give up on my dreams, guy from Once?? Maybe I want to give up on my dreams, ever think of that? What? No, this isn't depressing, I'm asserting my free will! So you made a movie for $100,000 and you're telling everybody else to do it because YOU won an Oscar? You know what I call that? Irresponsible! If you drank a crapton of beer and got in your car with no incidents would you tell everyone to go drink and drive because you made it out unscathed?? Do you know how many people are out there going into debt now because of your insensitive remarks?? Just keep your advice to yourself and enjoy your award, big guy! Okay, hey, it's okay. Yes, I think your song is beautiful. Jeez, you still need validation? You won the Oscar!"

Young said...

Trupia also arranges rehearsals for the team. And I'm an idiot.

Carrie said...

This made me laugh so hard. I remember it like it was yesterday