Gimprov!

You Make Me Smile – Aloe Blacc

To be true, it has been a mighty, mighty, mighty week of art club. Gems and masterpieces cropping up all over the place (You never do know!). Make art all the way! Art on! People who don’t get my gibberish seem to be getting a tad annoyed by all the abstract art comments. Well, apologies, that those folk did not get it. Perhaps I have been a tad too abstract. Perhaps. Blame the art. And the spray paint fumes. Although, always good to smell a bit of paint. Anyways, good news for those oddly annoyed. Last night, unfortunately, art club went into a hiatus. Boo. Bring back the art. Bring back the freedom. Tut. So, in an attempt to keep the buzz from art club flowing, there was only ever one option… Try something else new. And that indeed I did do. God loves a tire. And a trier. Which is why I went along to a class earlier today. More an audition. Good old improv…

Some. Most. All?

Here’s an insightful nugget for you… Sometimes, most of the time, I don’t really know what I’m doing. Seriously. Just trial and error. So, never hurts to try new things. Perhaps they will be a step in the right direction. Perhaps not. If not is the case, just as long as it doesn’t turn into a Bucket incident, there shouldn’t be too much emotional scar tissue left behind. Ergo, no harm in trying. So when my friend asked me would I be interested in checking out an improv class at Groundlings, I said dance on. Improv classes are always being recommended to me, in the form… He went there and look, now he’s here! She went here and now she’s all over over there! They used to live next door to there and now they have their own show! All of these facts are amazing!!! You should do improv… Ok so!!!

Think... BIG!

Buckets to choose from. Improv. UCB. Second City. Groundlings. Four buckets to choose from! Apparently, at the moment, Groundlings is the best(?). Not sure why. Maybe because she from SNL is on SNL? Not sure who she even is, to be true. Or maybe because PeeWee Herman went there. Who knows. But it’s flavour of the month. So that is why it was top of our list. Off we headed this morning. Bright and early. 9 bells. I am selling out to my late night ways. Tut tut. Get to the school. Two buddies et I. Headed inside. Loitered aboot the foyer area. Which is where I heard the first faint sound of ding-a-ling-a-dring. Bells. Started. Tingling.

Walls in the reception area were covered with photos of past students. Recognised a few in the area I had a look at. Phoebe from Friends. Stifler’s Mum. Can’t remember the rest. I clearly remember the style of the photos though. All kind of looked a bit gimpish. Perhaps a bit harsh. But all over the top poses, twisted smiles, contorted faces, borderline demented clowns. Dressed up, drugged up, who knows, all over the top. Big. As in BIG!!! If that makes sense. So that was the first bell. Did a bit of mingling while the bells were tingling. Chatting to one nervous girl. Who had never done improv before. Very nervous. Shy. Awkward. First time? You’ll be fine! Mingled on until we were waved into a room.

Here For The Fine Women...

Stage style set-up. Everyone take a seat in the audience kind of thing. Hey there, how’s it going, teacher went through the basics. Two hour audition, to see if you get into the course. Audition run in a class form. Rar diddy rar. Have fun. Relax. Nice and easy. All 12 of us invited up on stage. All told to just be yourself. One key thing: Don’t try to be funny. And that should make it a lot of fun! Don’t be funny… No worries there buddy! Went around and introduced yourselves. See who’s a gimp or not. Most seemed sound. And then we got to the guy next to me… Hi, I’m Tucker, and I want to do improv as I hear the women that do it are fine. Or something to that effect. In the serious-no-I’m-joking-no-I’m-actually-serious-tone. Well done, you ape. Then the ape next to him decided to try and be funny and say the same thing except to change ‘women’ to ‘men’. Which the gay teacher found great. One plus for the Irish ape. Time to nail/walk this class/audition!/?/!

One Noise Fits All... Mmmmmmmmwwwwwuuugghhhhh

Unfortunately, that would be my last plus of the day. Warm up… Walk around the stage and make noises and be ‘big’ and be a character… Rock star!… Tow truck driver! Now everyone! Look up to the top row of the audience and just rant! Let it all out!!! Ok!!! Why the funk am I here?! These seem to be like the people I wrote aboot it in my book that I wasn’t too much a fan of… Singing, dancing, prancing along. All that book gibberish! And now I am one instruction from bursting into a song! Oh sweet Jesus. I don’t think I’m a fan of this apeness!! And so on. Until we moved on to improv story telling. Teacher throws out the idea… ‘A guy walks into Banana Republic… ‘ So you start, go! Quickly jumps to you. Then over to you. Back to you. And everyone is enthusiastic! Just happy to be alive!! Being ‘big’! Arms waving. Jazz hands flailing! And so on! And a great story is told. The plan, at least. Quickly reverts to sex. Or violence. Or brutal-ness. One gimp then came out with… “So I threw her to the ground and nudged her face with my foot?”. I mean… Seriously? What a gimp… I am. Tut. Gimprov!

I'm A Narc. Not A Steward...

Next part of the fun… 3 minute improv scene up on stage with a partner. Yay. Sounds like so much fun. Here is was revealed that the nervous girl outside who never did anything like this before, actually did do it a few times in Chicago and two classes in New York. Which was just odd. Why lie?! Gimprov? Perhaps. So two at a time went up to do the scene. Teacher shouts out characters. Lawyer and a client! Ye just won the Olympics! Something else brilliant! Go!!! Tucker the Gimp from earlier proved himself also to be a bit of a nutter. And cemented his gimp status. I was last up. Save the best. And all that. Does not apply. Be an airline steward and the two of ye are… Starting zoning out during instructions. Thinking about how I was not a fan of this at all. Not that it was just because of it being something different. Out of the comfort zone and all that. More that it wasn’t my style of humour. Or purposely going big and being a gimp too much, was not my favourite thing to do. And zoned back in when I heard… ‘And go!’ Which is when my wall fully went up. And the audition crumbled down. Motion cruising. Yeah. Ugh. Wuu. I’m last and have gone up twice so I think that’s it? Horrendous. But are we finished? Done? Over? Yes?! Mighty! Good duckaduu!!!

Actually. I Really Like It! Don't I!?!

Happy to get out of there. Dissect it with my two buddies. Weren’t the greatest fans either. Not what I had fully expected. Didn’t really get any kick from it. As opposed to say, stand-up. Still though, might be good to do still. For the sake of doing it? Get out there. Could be a good route to getting onto SNL? Or something like that. Everyone started there. So I should maybe try the same? Rar diddy rar. When do we find out if we get the nod or not that we ‘passed’ the audition? Later today. Cool cool. Must bounce. Voice lesson on. Voice coach said it could be good to do. Actually, it would be good to do. You should do it! They would be a fan of your humour. Do it! You know what… I will do it! Pumped to do it! This could be mighty after all! Good call everyone! Good shout to try out for it. Wuu. Let’s do…

Do Not Pass. Go.

Email notification. Groundlings… Hey hup! Confirmation time! When do I start?! Scan read… Rar diddy… Scan down… Eh… Pardon… ‘You did NOT pass’. Do not pass go. Do go home. You are not good enough for gimprov. Balls. Dirty whures. Surely that’s a mistake? Surely?! Right? Went ‘big’ with the not, did ye?! Re-read… Balls. Obviously. Like a rejected ape, after I found out I didn’t get asked to come back, I wanted to do it even more. Obviously. Out of spite. Obviously. Or else maybe I’d go to a different one! I’ll show them! They made a huge mistake!!! Do they not know… Actually. Stop being a gimp. You don’t even like SNL… Oh yeah. As in not at all, at all. So why would you try to be like them… Oh yeah. Plus, that was an ape-ish class anyways, wasn’t it? With all their ‘big’ humour. My humour is way better, isn’t it, it is, shur it is… Not really. You ape. Just different style. Better to know than to wonder what if. No need to worry aboot it so? No. You ape. Get over yourself. Ok. Good call. You know what would be another good call… What? Cull this rambling gibberish! Gimprov off! Ape on!!

Tags: Aloe Blacc, Ape, Art, Big, classes, Gimp, Groundlings, Improv, Rejection, SNL, You Make Me Smile