"Yesterday It Had These Blisters, And The Day Before It Was All Blue And Nasty, And Now, Look, There’s Ants Coming Out Of My Foot!"

We had a Second City show this afternoon, and I cannot at all convey to you how much I love having an audience to perform for. Everything from the pre-show jitters to the final bow and post-show hugs, I love it all. It occurred to me as I tried to pep myself up for the show that I really had no idea what was going to occur on stage. I knew I would be in two scenes, each with two other actors, and that we’d get an occupation from the audience for the first scene and a first line of dialogue for the second scene. That’s it. No idea. Holy crap.

The first group to perform was set in a space ship and centered around the procreation of the human race and sperm donors and people upset with each other and the ship’s eventual crash. Hilarious. Then we go up there and get an occupation: podiatrist. Without hesitation I grab a chair and play the anxious person in the waiting room. Actually, I was planning on being the patient in the examination room, but cues from one of my partners told me we were in the waiting room. We started the scene non-verbally, looking at each other, me staring at my foot and looking at my watch, fidgeting like crazy. And then the scene just went. Having my roommates in the audience subconsciously inspired me to have ants coming out my foot. It was a good scene. We had connecting relationships, defined characters, and fun. People laughed. Awesome.

Second scene I did was funny, but not in the way that we’re going for. We found ourselves playing caricatures instead of characters. We said we were roommates, but we had no real connections. Somehow the scene incorporated homosexuality, the church, and Alex Trebek. Wow. We did our job as entertainers, but we felt dissatisfied as performers.

But, we did a show. We had no idea what was going to happen, and we just went with it. What a great feeling! To get some instant feedback via audience laughter is truly amazing. Sure, we messed up here and there, but that’s why we’re taking classes. I know I could have done things better. I feel I started the caricature-ness of our scene, and should have worked more to develop the relationships. But I also felt had a really good scene, a feeling that was confirmed by audience members. And how cool is that?!