Today, Whirled News did a special improv show at the high school where Nick teaches Drama and Improv. As usual for these kinds of things, we wanted to be extra careful about language and content.

Nick: [via e-mail] My principal pulled me aside today to let me know that a few kids in the school who are outed Republicans/Conservatives/etc have been getting blasted by other kids lately and really made to feel like shit. Anyway, he asked if I could tell you guys to try to aim jokes at both sides during your show.

In the school auditorium, in front of 400 students and about 30 teachers, we did a totally clean show (the only possible eyebrow raiser was Megan doing a scene about a woman trying to get other people to take her cervical cancer exam for her, but it was more tastefully done than you might guess). Political balance ended up not being a concern because none of the articles the students cut out were about the election.

Doing these kinds of shows can sometimes be a drag, more work than fun, but today's was a real pleasure. They were a great audience and we gave them a tight, funny show. One of the articles we used was from the school paper, inspiring us to do a series of scenes about the school itself, which, of course, killed. Everyone seemed happy.

Although, at one point, I looked out into the audience and glimpsed a teacher standing off to the side repeatedly shaking her head back and forth, as if thinking to herself, "No. No. No. This isn't right. No." For a moment I worried that we'd somehow slipped up and offended the teaching staff, but I later found out that she has some kind of nerve disorder.