DAY 23 - UPSTAIRS GALLERY and iO

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SHOW TONIGHT?

GRIFF: I did a show with a mash-up group at Upstairs Gallery for Daniel Shar’s “Listin’ Up”. I’m still pretty uncomfortable in mashed up situations. They feel like auditions only instead of auditors you get an audience...so it’s better...but I still get in my head. That said,this wasn’t the worst thing ever. Some fun stuff in our show. Jordan Haynes was especially nasty in his attempt to top Connor O’Malley and Gary Richardson’s feat of nastiness in the opener. I just gotta do a lot more of these to get comfortable with it.

JAMES: My Harold Team, Winter Formal, opened for Felt at iO tonight. We were down a couple people, and the house was pretty light for an iO show, but I we still pulled off a good show. It was kind of a strange show for us in that we did a pretty strict Harold. We followed all of the beats, played the games in the right places, and hit the points that we needed to. The show got off to a slow start, which made it harder to get the energy up later in the show, but we got there.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT GRIFF/JAMES?

GRIFF: James is a figment of my imagination at this point.

JAMES: He’s nothing without me.

HOW DO YOU FEEL / WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT IMPROV?

GRIFF: The stand up portion of the show (for those who don’t know, Listin’ Up is half improvised stand up and half improv mashup based on the setlist from a real set the stand up has done) was really interesting. These guys hadn’t trained for this kind of show and were pretty much jumping in completely blind. If they tried to fight it, the set started tanking, but when they let themselves go with it and speak about something true it was hilarious. It really drove home the fact that it is harder to concoct some insane scenario or joke than to begin honestly, or in a comfortable place. Overall this show is a great time and everyone should check out the next one on November 20th.

JAMES: This is going to sound stupid, but freeze tag scares me. I almost never tag in, and am content to watch everyone else be funny. Especially when playing with Felt, BECAUSE IT’S PUPPETS. But in the spirit of this month, I made the decision to get in there and mix it up with those damn puppets. And it was worth it. It’s such a stupid thing to be nervous about, I’m glad I did it.

WHAT PRESIDENT WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE A BEER WITH?

DUGAN: I’m going to say Teddy Roosevelt, only because Andrew Jackson seems like he’d be a mean drunk.

GRIFF: James Madison or Thomas Jefferson because everyone’s forgotten what the Constitution is and I’ll bet they could tell me.