Opportunity Knocks

My Mom always says, "Ask and you shall receive." Nobody wants to admit it, but since I am an adult now I can appreciate it, my Mom is (almost) always right.

Upon my arrival in Chicago and attending just a handful of shows at Second City varying from end of term student shows all the way to The Mainstage I noticed they all had something in common... they all had a stage manager. I then thought to myself, who better to stage manage an improv show than someone who stage manages and also does improv. So I sent a couple of emails out; one to the Second City administrative offices, and the other to their internship program. Many days later (long enough for me to forget about the emails) I heard back from both of them with some really exciting stuff.

The internship program at Second City said that they do not currently have a stage management program but because enough people have expressed interest in it they are thinking about developing one. So that is something to look forward to in the coming year. YAY!

I also got an email back from Joe Ruffner the producer of Touring Companies and Associate Producer of all Second City Theatricals. He gave me the contact information for two Touring Co. stage managers. Both of them were incredibly willing to meet with me, answer questions, look at my resume, and even let me sit in the booth during a show.

I met with Kimberly on monday who is currently the stage manager for Green Co. She was super helpful she talked a lot about what makes a stage manager at Second City different from your typical stage manager. Not only is the stage manager responsible for running rehearsals and the show, but for designing the lights to mirror the archival videos, designing/finding/building necessary props for the show, driving the van, set up at each venue, keeping track of which sketches are being used for the show, keeping track of new sketches and new sheet music, ability to "stay calm even if you just drove the van for 10 hours and the venue has nothing they promised they would have." She said "you are the Mom and the Dad for the show, the director doesn't travel with you and you don't have any ASMs or crew." Pretty intimidating.... but also something that I think I could definitely do. She went into a lot of detail about the typical tour schedule, pay, rehearsal schedule, etc...  She also raved about how great of an environment it is to work for Second City, everyone is super understanding and helpful, due to the fact that Second City has this improv mentality of well that didn't work so let's try something else and "yes and..." At the end of the meeting she said that if I ever want to send her my resume or cover letter to look over before applying to jobs she would look over them for me. She also said that she would be willing to send my resume on to some storefront theaters in the city if she knows of positions that are available.

WOOHOO!!! So meeting number 1 went so well and I got so much great information from her.

I will be meeting with Jayme tomorrow, she is the stage manager for Blue Co and is currently stage managing Summer at The Second City so she is letting me sit in the booth with her during the show and listen to her call the show and see what that looks like. So I am very excited to get another perspective and get to see the "stage-managers-eye-view" of a show.

More to come on that meeting later.

Lastly, remember how I am the nanny for a Chicago Shakespeare Theatre stage manager... Well, she arranged for me to get to sit in the booth with the stage manager for Shrek next Saturday!! Plus she said she will try and continue to get me backstage for different shows as opportunities arise amongst her friends and colleagues (potentially Wicked when they come to town this fall).

I am really looking forward to meeting and talking to these people, getting to see two totally different kinds of theatre being called from a stage manager's perspective, and the possibility of more opportunities like this in the future!!

So like my Dad always says "It's not what you know, it's who you know!"

Funny People Live Better

Did you know that funny people live better? Yep, according to advertisements on the "El" for Second City, funny people live better. I am not exactly sure how they conducted their research to come to that conclusion.... but from personal experience I would have to agree.

I bet you are wondering what I have been up to in the past few weeks since its been a while since I posted. If you have been on Facebook you know that I auditioned for the Conservatory at Second City and I got accepted!! Which is super exciting and just makes me feel like my life is kind of starting! I am finding something that makes me super happy and I am able to continue doing it.

I might have cried a little bit when I read this email!! 

Megan, Travis, and I all got accepted in the Conservatory. What is great is 7 out of the 8 of us who auditioned got in and so we get to continue this process with some of the friends we have made in class. 

A Reflection on Auditions

This was probably the only audition I have ever gone into that I knew I was 100% prepared for. First of all it is an improvised audition so there is only so much you can do before you walk into that room, because you have no idea what your scene partners are going to do or what your suggestion is going to be. Not to mention we had done two different audition prep days in class, once with out teacher (who was also going to be one of the auditors :) ) and a substitute teacher (Michael Gellman, who incidentally was also the first person to make me cry here...). I felt pretty prepared, we had done work with 3 person scenes, played the fastest craziest game of freeze, and even worked with Ryan on what to do if someone in your scene just totally "steamrolls" the scene, more fondly known as "shitting the bed." 

Needless to say I have never wanted something more, felt more prepared, or been more nervous walking into an audition. And after the audition we all kind of just went, "eh.... well that happened." The general consensus amongst my classmates was that it wasn't our best improv and definitely wasn't our worst. Mostly, when I walked out of the audition I just thought, "Well in September when I have to re-audition, I will be so prepared!" 

But, good thing for me and my nerves, I wont have to audition again... Until after Level 2. 

A Reflection on Class

So the first 4 weeks of class were the equivalent of completing Improv for Actors 1, which was taught by Ryan Archibald who was so chill and encouraging! Ryan was a lot of fun because we all got to a point where we were joking around and having fun, while also improving out improv skills quite drastically. I don't know how often he says this to classes, but he changed our curriculum to catch up to us, and told us that he really enjoyed our class and hopes that he can work with all of us again in the future :) . 

Our brief run in with Michael Gellman, who has directed at Second City since 1980 and actually was one of the leading faculty that developed the program I am in right now, was incredibly intimidating but I learned so much in those few hours. He substituted for our class twice and the first time he walked in dropping F-bombs and commanding us to move chairs and tables and then started us with all these (Bob Yowell type) warm ups and exercises that ended in all of us feeling a little bit like it was the first day of class all over again. This was my birthday and at break I cried because I felt like I was in my head too much even though he told us not to be. However, he gave us so many tiny tid-bits of advice to quickly start and scene and develop a character. The second day we had him he it was definitely less of a shock, it also helped that he walked into the room and said "Wow, I was a total dick to you guys last time, wasn't I?" Anyway, he really got us ready for auditions and I think helped us all out a lot in terms of developing characters and relationships. (If you wanna read a little more about Michael Gellman's improv advice I would look at this article: http://boilingpointimprov.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/lessons-from-the-masters-volume-1-michael-gellman/ )

Our teacher for the second half of class is Megan Huvde who is such a sweetheart and is super good at giving really direct comments to individual people to help them specifically get better. We have only had 2 classes with her, but already I really like her and think that the last 3 weeks of class are going to be really fun. 

Conquering one of My Worst Fears

So I absolutely HATE singing in front of people and if you don't know a lot about improv, 9 shows out of 10 there is at least some singing... soooo..... I knew that at some point I would have to buck up and try to get over my fear. 

That day came a lot sooner  than I thought and completely unexpectedly. Apparently they build in one day of musical improv to class. So that was surprising.... but I did it... I sang 3 whole lines of improvised dialogue in front of my whole class, and I didn't die. 

While it still terrifies me, at least now I know that I can do it and it will only get better from here. 

Let Them Eat Chaos

I know that this post is already really really long. But I wanted to talk briefly about the fact that Megan and I went to see Let Them Eat Chaos (The Mainstage show at Second City right now). We have seen this cast in the free improv set almost every Tuesday and Thursday, so I already loved them. But seeing the actual sketch/improv show just blew me away. It was fantastic, they tied together themes of "being someone to somebody," living in a world of  personal disconnect but connection through social media, and a few other current issues while also just having fun. So theoretically this is the end goal. To get through the conservatory and work my way up to being on the Mainstage or E.T.C stage in a few years. It was cool to see what we could be doing in a few years right after finding out that we were accepted in to the conservatory. 

Podcasts

I have been listening to some podcasts with people who are prominent in the improv scene here in Chicago. 

These are ones that I have listened to that I really liked: 

Improv Nerd Episode 28: Norm Holly (Norm Holly is the guy who ran and facilitated the auditions.)

The Poor Choices Show Episode 187: Ryan Archibald (my teacher for 4 weeks)

The Poor Choices Show Episode 196: Edgar Blackmon (in Let Them Eat Chaos, he is soooo talented)