On the Prowl

Here we are on the hunt for a job, yet again. Don't worry... I didn't get fired... But my job will be ending in a month. So I  have been hitting the nanny applications hard. So far I have applied for 35 new jobs. And I have had a few bites. The past couple weeks I have had 4 interviews and 2 more scheduled for this week.

One job in particular stands out as being absolutely terrifying! The family has two daughters and they want someone who will speak spanish to them. Now despite the fact that I have no where on my profile listed that I speak spanish they wanted to talk to me. To be fair I have taken 5years of Spanish in high school and college, but I am by no means conversational (what does that say about our education system's language programs... or my inability to learn a language). Anyway, while they seem like a lovely family and in many respects a good fit I am not sure if I can function speaking only in spanish at work.

In a totally different job avenue I have applied for a job at the Goodman Theatre as their Young Performer Supervisor for A Christmas Carol. It would be a great job for me as a stage manager who also takes care of children. It would be combining two of my greatest strengths!! Not only that but it would be great for my professional resume. Unfortunately, due to my improv classes and rehearsals/performances, it would pose a bit of a scheduling problem. But I figure I would apply anyway and just see what happens.

Wish me luck as I am embark on one of adulthoods least fun adventures, The Epic Job Hunt!!

BYOT

Last week I promised I would write a post dedicated to seeing Shrek from the stage manager's booth... To be fair I kept my promise and wrote a beautiful post about how much I learned and how fun it was. But alas, it was all lost to cyberspace..

Because of this unfortunate turn of events I will just say I had a blast, learned a lot, enjoyed the show, and I would be more than willing to talk about it so call me, beep me, message me, email me... You know the drill. But here are a couple pictures for you. 

View from the booth

So a couple of really fun things have been happening in my "comedy" career the past few weeks. 

First things first, a group of friends and I started an improv group. We have rehearsed a few times and performed 3 times at a show called BYOT, (Bring Your Own Team) an "open mic" type situation for improv teams. It has been a lot of fun and we have gotten a pretty good response, which is really encouraging. 

Photo courtesy of Travis

We haven't quite settled on a name just yet, but we have tried out a new one each week including Fare, Prince John III, and most recently Southeast of Wellington. This week we will hopefully be deciding on a permanent name that suites us a unique group of improvisers. 

BONUS: Alli, a good friend from school, visited Chicago last weekend we got to hang out with her and she honored us with her presence as an audience member at BYOT! And most importantly Alli will be moving here in a few short months and we can continue to have wonderful evenings like last Saturday!! 

In addition to rehearsing and performing with a talented group of people that are quickly becoming some of my closest friend, I auditioned for and was cast in a coached ensemble at Second City. So what that means is that I will be rehearsing for the next 10 weeks with an entirely new group of people (who I have yet to meet) and a coach learning a new form of improv. Then come December we will have 3 performances in the Skybox theatre on December 5th, 12th, and 19th (in case you plan to be in Chicago any of those weeks). I meet for my rehearsal tomorrow and I can't wait to see who I will be performing with and what style of improv we are going to do. I am super excited to learn a new form of improv, get to work with another faculty member at Second City, get more feedback and coaching on my improv, get to perform on a Second City stage, and get to put an official Second City group on my resume. 

Look at me taking the improv world by storm... and loving every second of it!! 

It's a Small World

This blog is a prime example of how I like to procrastinate... So to catch you up a bit on my life:
-I started the Conservatory at Second City a few weeks ago and it has been a lot of fun!!
-I am going to start the the program at iO (formerly Improv Olympic) next term (October 13th) which I am pretty excited about!
-We started our own improv troupe... we don't have a name yet but we have had 1 rehearsal and we are going to perform at BYOT (Bring Your Own Team tonight at the iO)
-On September 22nd I am going to audition for the coached ensembles at Second City, which means, if I get cast I will be in an ensemble with a few other people coached by one of the faculty members and then we would get a 3 show run in either November or December. I looking forward to those auditions quite a bit.
Alright, well I think that catches you up on at least the more interesting aspects of my life. WOHOO!

Moving on, 3 weeks ago I had a really cool opportunity to talk to Jayme, a Second City Touring Co. stage manager and watch her call Summer in the Second City.

First of all, the theatre world as we all know is pretty small. Jayme had David Grindle, the executive producer of USITT (United States Institute for Theatre Technologies), as a professor in College, who also coincidentally enough visited NAU this last spring to have some seminars and workshops on stage management and just professional theatre in general. I was talking to David Grindle about my plans to move to Chicago and study improv but that I didn't want to stop stage managing and he told me to find Jayme and talk to her. I tried really hard to contact her but couldn't figure out how, and then magically an opportunity to meet and talk to her fell in my lap!

So with that crazy coincidence on my mind I met Jayme who was awesome, kind of quirky, really fun, big personality, really down to earth and willing to help me out. We met over coffee and talked for a little while before going up to the Up Comedy Club and getting everything set up for the show and then I got to sit in the booth with her while she "called" the show (I put called in quotations because she sat in the booth and completely ran the light board by herself and the musical director controls sound completely on their own without contact from the stage manager). She gave me her book to look at before the show and then said I could just follow along with the show if I wanted to. So I got watch the lights and effects of the show while getting to follow along with the cues in the script. I had an absolute blast, the show was a lot of fun, and sitting there in that booth I realized that I could do this job. I have the skills to do what they do.

View from the booth in the Up Comedy Club

Jayme said a lot of the same things that Kimberly said about working at Second City
Here are some things that seem to be a general consensus:
-You are kind of the mom for the show, you have to make sure that you get everyone where they need to be and when they need to be there
-Second City is an incredibly supportive community to work in
-The people (actors, staff, etc...) are really great
-Second City seems to hire based a lot on personality and ability to keep your cool, rather than your knowledge of technical aspects and ability to design lights or design props...

Jayme comes from an opera background and she said that she likes Second City because it is nice to work with a smaller company where you have more hands on responsibilities and technical responsibilities. She said that she likes have some control over the lighting and technical stuff. When on tour she is entirely responsible for those things and since often you just have to play with submasters for lighting she said that "she feels like a DJ" while controlling the show. It is definitely a job with a lot of responsibilities and stress (but what theatre job doesn't have stress) and Jayme says that it is so worth it in the end.

We had a little bit of time for her to look over my resume and give me a little bit of feedback on it. She was impressed with my resume but gave me a couple of tips to make it a little bit better.

I had a lot of fun talking to Jayme and getting to see the show with her.

BYOT tonight!!

And look for a post tomorrow about Shrek the Musical!!

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)

fun. Times

So because I got busy, Chicago got hot, and a lot happened this will be a long blog, but it will be full of fun. (like the band) times, friends new and old, and exciting news.

First off an update: The Cozy Corner got a sign! Being bored and unemployed has given me time for arts and crafts.

Jenna Visited

A good friend (Jenna) came to visit and spent 4 days with us, which was super great getting to see an old friend. It just felt right that she was here hanging out. So now we will pester her to move here for the next 2 years, that way she can visit permanently. On the Wednesday that she arrived we went downtown and checked out Taste of Chicago, where I ate my first ever churro... crazy I know. 

I also got free/cheap alcohol because the woman working at the Budweiser tent was clueless. That being said we hung out for a few hours in the sun on the lawn waiting for the fun. (like the band)  concert. 

The concert was fantastic! They were super chill, they played all their hits plus a couple of songs I had never heard before that were absolutely beautiful. I don't know what more to say about it, it was just kind of a perfect day and a wonderful concert! I had an incredible time. After the concert we had time to make it up to the Navy Pier to watch fireworks... we stopped by The Bean and Millennium Park on the way. It was a long walk and we made it just in time. Nothing better than a great concert, cheap alcohol, and fireworks.

The next day (Thursday) we went to the beach with Jenna, because you know we have a lake and a bunch of man-made beaches. It was a beautiful day, the water wasn't too cold, but quite refreshing. Travis found some geocaches, I read some of Ellen Degeneres' book, Jenna read Harry Potter en español, and Megan and I went swimming and we all soaked up the beautiful sunshine. (I might have soaked up a little too much considering I am still recover from my sunburn from last week). 

While Jenna was here we also discovered a park called Oz Park with statues of the characters from the Wizard of Oz and dedicated to the author of the book.

And of course, Jenna couldn't visit Chicago without seeing some Improv. We went and saw Improvised Shakespeare at the iO. Not only was it some of the best improv that I have ever seen, but it might have also been the best Shakespeare I have ever seen. It was absolutely hysterical and I would definitely go see it again. We tried to go see the free improv set at Second City, however it started at 1:00am and that would have posed several problems. So Jenna went to Second City and bought a t-shirt. 

After this whirlwind of 4 days we had to say goodbye to Jenna, but hopefully she will be back to stay ;) 

The Week That Hell Took a Vacation in Chicago

This past week has been so incredibly hot! Now I realize that Chicago is hot and humid, but this was crazy! When the weather says it's 92º but it feels like 99º and the humidity is over 90%, that's when I get cranky. With no AC we have to find things to do just to get out of the heat, like go to the movies, sit in McDonald's, go to the grocery store, eat a lot of ice cream, and take freezing cold showers about every 2 hours. 

Megan got an AC unit just in time for the weather to become bearable. But now at least one room in the house will always be cold no matter how hot it gets outside. 

My Birthday

I don't know about you, But I'm feeling 22... Everything will be alright, if we just keep dancing like we're 22... (your welcome for getting that stuck in your head for the rest of the day). There didn't used to be anything particularly special about turning 22 until Taylor Swift wrote a song about it. 

Anyway, I didn't do anything super crazy or extraordinary. On Wednesday night before my birthday Megan and I went to the Roger's and Hammerstein Celebration at Millennium Park. We got Panda Express and set up a little picnic and enjoyed songs from Sound of Music, Showboat, Oklahoma, South Pacific, and a few others I had never heard of. It was a lovely night except for the fact that it poured for about 20 minutes and a lot of people didn't have umbrellas and got soaking wet. I had an umbrella and I still got pretty wet. 

The whole thing was pretty great. People had whole little tables set up with full dinners and glasses of wine. I loved just looking around at all the different types of food that people brought. I had a blast and the music was great!

On my actual birthday, it was ridiculously hot, so Megan and I went to see The Heat (to get out of the heat) and got dinner at Costello's, where Megan works and food is free. We then had class. It was the first time I cried because of improv class. We had a substitute teacher who really frustrated me and made me think too much, but at the same time challenged me and taught us a lot. Yay! The good and bad things of crazy older men who were a significant part of making Second City what it is today. 

After class, like usual, we went and saw the free improv set with a bunch of kids from class. As always they were fabulous! After the improv set Megan and I with a few of our new friends Nathan, Jessie, and Velin went to a bar across the street and got drinks and hung out for a while. 

All in all, I would have to say that it was a pretty good birthday and I don't know about you but  I'm feeling 22. (I had to do it again). 

In Other News

I got a Job!! Working for a Stage Manager... as her nanny, but still!! I'm getting paid and I now personally know a Stage Manager in Chicago, connections can be found everywhere! 

So look at my job stats: 

101 Nanny applications

13 Rejections with no contact 

7 Email only conversations

5 Phone Interviews

9 Interviews in person

1 JOB!! 

All things happen for a reason. I am hoping this job will not only benefit me in that now I have a job, but also connect me to theatre people in the city. 

Unfortunately it is only till the end of November, but that gives me time to find other work! 

I also get to go home to Colorado for 4 days in August for a friend's wedding and to see family. The acquisition of a job and the generous donation of my parents have made it possible for me to go home for a few days and I am super excited. It also means that I get to be home for my little brother's birthday. As my Father so poignantly put it "Spend $300 to save $5 on shipping." 

Coming Up

The weather in Chicago is going to calm down :)

Auditions for Second City's Conservatory are this Friday and I am super stoked. 

So stay tuned for more posts (hopefully not so far apart and so long). 

Happy Fourth of July

Here was our plan for how today should go:
-Wake up
-Go to the grocery store and get cup cake papers
-Make lunch
-Make Freedom Cupcakes
-Eat dinner
-Go down to the Navy Pier to watch fireworks
-Come  home set off some of our own fireworks
-Go to bed

Well as you can imagine it didn't go exactly as planned.
This morning things were going great. We went to the grocery store and got the rest of the stuff to make cupcakes and we got fireworks. We get home and decide to make lunch and realize that we have no bread, and almost no other kind of food to eat....
So what better way to celebrate America than going to McDonald's for lunch. Ok.... so not too bad... so far

We make Freedom Cupcakes, which were delicious.

We all got ready to go downtown thinking if we got there an hour and a half early we would have no problem getting near the Navy Pier or along lake somewhere to watch the fireworks. (This was our first mistake)

We found ourselves in a mob of thousands of other people trying to make their way to the Navy Pier. It felt incredibly like trying to get into Times Square for New Years. The traffic was a mess, there were people everywhere, whole streets were closed down. As we get like a block away from the Pier we just hear this police officer yelling, "They shut it down! Move west! The fire marshal shut it down!" I was pretty convinced they would't actually shut down all of the Navy Pier and not do fireworks just because their was too many people. So we just started walking north. Every police officer that we came across were all saying the same thing, "Navy Pier was too full" "You can't go past this point" "They aren't letting anyone into the pier" etc... (It actually sounded and felt a lot like those end of the world movies where thousands of people are all moving together trying to get to some place that is supposedly safe only to get turned away) (Note: I looked it up, over 100,000 people were turned away from the Navy Pier and the fireworks show).

Finally we found a street that wasn't blockaded by the police and we walked all the way to Lake Shore Drive (just about a block or so north of the Navy Pier. And the only place we could sit to watch fireworks was on the median in the middle of the highway... So we sat up on the median along with hundreds of other people.

Tons of people were crossing the highway trying to get to the other side to sit, and I swear it looked like zombies. Groups of people would just run out in front of the cars, climb over the other median, run out in front of the cars going to the other way and climb of the next cement wall and then drop down onto the sidewalk below. It was insane.

I tried to take pictures of it, but my camera isn't great so this was the best I could do.

People lining the median next to us. 

Waiting for the fireworks to start. 

People running across the street to jump over the other median. 

All the people on the other side of us. 

Fireworks! 

So we ended up have a relatively good view of the fireworks. The trees were blocking all the low ones but everything else but pretty good.

After the fireworks were over we decided to find a bar and wait for things to die down before we headed home. We found this bar called Pippin's and we sat outside and drank some beers.

We got up to leave and started walking towards the Red Line station. There was all this commotion and a couple of really loud bangs... which could have just been fireworks (or something else... anything really, we have no idea). Anyway, there was a ton of police right at the corner where the Red Line station is. It was insane how many cops there were. They were making sure that people kept moving, but none of them were saying what happened. So we go down into the station and there is close to 200 people in the station milling around and yelling at each other and still even more cops. So Megan, Travis, and I just went through the turn stiles and got on a train and went home.

If anyone can figure out what happened we would love to know (It was on the corner of State St. and Chicago Ave).

Anyway after we got home safely and entered good old Albany Park that sounded similar to a war zone because of the incredible amount of fireworks going off consistently. We decided to light some of our own fireworks, which turned out to all be the kind that smoke... should have read the labels better.

Megan lighting her first firework

Travis and of course.... his puppet! 

Everything aside, I would say it ended up being a pretty successful 4th of July away from home in a new city:
Made freedom cupcakes
Saw fireworks
Drank some beer
Got the shit scared out of us
Lit our own fireworks
Got safely into bed as it sounded like the world was ending around us.