DAY 24 - THE ATLANTIC AND STAGE 773

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SHOW TONIGHT?

GRIFF: Touched a lot of butts. Made a ton of jokes about families getting melted to death in a fire station.  Killed Jonbenet Ramsey at the top of a mountain. Uhhhh yea. I’d say THAT’S a good show. Adam Levin saved the day by setting up this show. He, myself, and Bill Letz did a group scene at the top of the show and branched out from there. We took our time but it definitely wasn’t a slow show. It’s always easy when you play with friends who know what they’re doing.

JAMES: I played in The Funeral at Stage 773 with Kelsey Kinney, Amy Thompson, and Eric Harrington. The Funeral is a form that was invented by Danny Bischoff, and it’s one of my favorite forms to do. The nature of it really forces you to focus on relationships rather than plot. It also facilitates gift giving better than most other forms. Tonight I got to play a kid who was just despised by his father, no matter what he did. There’s something really fun about playing the character that gets kicked around by everyone. It gives you permission to be pathetic.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT GRIFF/JAMES?

GRIFF: James is really good at performing the Funeral because that is an improv show you really have to see to understand. Like, it’s form is more than just an excuse to set up a collection of entirely improvised scenes. You really need to study it to get it. No way I could have pulled that off. They probably did some really experimental edits that someone like me would never understand.

JAMES: He’s not bitter at all and is able to get over things that are out of his control really quickly. He is never the guy to write passive aggressive things, you know, like how a child would if they didn’t get their way? Not Griff.

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

GRIFF: I’ve started having better shows when I take it slow. I need to focus on that. You still need to make deliberate moves and react to each other, but you’ve gotta find a way to be natural about it all. Sometimes I get in my head because everyone around me is saying hilarious lines  and I can’t think of anything or don’t understand the joke (cause I’m real dumb). I shouldn’t worry about forcing a funny or insane line. I say those things naturally and should let them just come to me. Tonight was a good reminder of that.

JAMES: Like I said above, The Funeral is designed to bring out relationships rather than plot. You set up how you feel about another character in a monologue, and then play an everyday scene with them. Rather than following a story, you learn about how these characters get along with each other, how they react to different situations, that sort of thing. I get really caught up in trying to shoehorn clever plot devices and twists into shows a lot. After doing shows like this, it’s good to remind myself that I’m working too hard. Improv is a lot easier than I’m making it.

IF YOU WERE A BOOK OF POETRY, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR TITLE?

GRIFF: Lizard Man, Lizard Mind, Human Heart

JAMES: Jimmy Lightning’s Big Book of Rhymes and Feelings.

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.

DAY 22 - HANG SESH W/ BEST BUDZ WOW WHAT A GREAT ONE!

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SHOW TONIGHT?

DUGAN: Maybe the most fun show of the month. Running Fury consisted of myself, Griff, Adam Levine, Sean Price, Damian White, and Joey Romaine. Out the gate we were a little slow and reserved, but the show picked up almost immediately. It was short also. I can't imagine that the show was more than twelve minutes long. We were playing so hard that I think we would have gotten real tired if it had gone much longer though. Everything was kept (for the most part) within the same world, which satisfied me, and there were hilarious bits to spare, which satisfied Griff.

GRIFF: Another wonderful Hang Sesh. This was the best Hang Sesh so far. All the sets were super short because the Playground was going to explode after 11:20 so we had to get in and out in a little over an hour. everyone played fast and hard, especially in our group. Adam Levin committed harder than I’ve ever seen him commit, Damian White was immediately present and natural in every scene, Joey Romaine was a frantic sweetheart, James played like the master he is, and I just had a blast. Also, Sean Price almost didn’t fuck even one thing up!

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT GRIFF/JAMES?

DUGAN: I think that I'm really starting to rub off on him. I'm sure it will destroy him in the long run. After the show, we both agreed that this was definitely one of the most fun shows that we've had this month. Then the question was posed, was it our BEST show? We both said no, but then Griff said "Why not? What set this one apart?" Then he analyzed the show based on the relationships and connections that we used. He might have just been doing it for my benefit since I've been hitting that stuff hard lately, but I feel like at the beginning of the month he was more concerned with the number of laughs he got in a show. And we still have over a week to go, WHO KNOWS WHERE HE'LL END UP?

GRIFF: Loves tha bits.  Jams committed hard to a scene in which Sean and Adam were sexually harassing each other, which led to James getting sexually assaulted while still playing his game of “guy who can’t believe anything that’s happening”. I’ve seen this raw joke…game play/just goofing side of Jams poke through his cold shell a few times and I really wish it would happen more because it is great. (I think he gets it from me?) He usually approaches a scene with a level head and it is fun to see him be completely unreasonable and ridiculous.

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

DUGAN: When we went onstage, I thought that we had between 20-25 minutes, but in reality we didn't even get to 15. I did a scene up top, and then got in on a group game, but I was on the sidelines the last couple minutes. As soon as the lights went out, my thought was "If I'd known that we only had that much time, I would have gotten in on that last scene". But the more I thought about that, the more wrong it seemed. The scene didn't need me, I certainly didn't feel compelled to enter it, everyone was doing great without me. I'm glad that I didn't know that the lights were coming soon, because I would have forced my way onstage for all the wrong (selfish) reasons.

GRIFF: Best friends is the best way to go. 8th Grade Girlfriend had an amazing set as did Professor Wings. Both were very carefree and impulsive. No one was calculating or worrying about the next move, which I see in Harold shows a lot and while that can be impressive, it isn’t as delightful to me as when I see someone surprise themselves.  This month (and this show in particular) makes me wish independent teams were taken more seriously by the larger comedy theaters. There is amazing stuff happening here that just needs someone behind it. And an audience. We really need an audience.

HOW MANY HAIRCUTS DO YOU THINK YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE?

DUGAN: Something, something, Sean Price blah blah.

GRIFF: Pubic hair cuts? Thousands. I'm Griffin Wenzler, saying good night to all those sexy children out there.

DUGAN: I only go by my last name and I don’t give a shit about consistency in the formatting of the text of this blog.

GRIFF: That’s for sure.

DUGAN: Also, I only get one haircut a year, you know, like a homeless guy, so I’d have to say twenty-six.

GRIFF: I keep a pretty regular hygiene regimen, so about fifty or so.

DAY 21 - UNDERGROUND LOUNGE - LASER IMPROV SHOW

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SHOW TONIGHT?

JAMES: We weren’t sure what we were going to do tonight. We didn’t have a show scheduled, but we took a shot and dropped in at the Underground Lounge to see if there were any slots open. Chris Fair, the Laser Man himself, swooped in and took us under his wing, letting us play with him. Now, four people (the delightful Michael Gau joined us as well) behind the canvas on the Underground Lounge stage can get a little crowded. I think that the show itself was fine, especially considering Griff and Michael had no idea they were going to be doing this and had never played the lasers before. There’s a lot that you can do with this form, I think if we ever do it again, we’ll let our imaginations run a little more wild.

GRIFF: Chris Fair’s Laser Improv Show is the most unique interaction between audience and performer I have ever been a part of. We stood behind a paint soaked curtain and drew the scenes and characters of the show. There were four of us tonight, (Michael Gau, Chris Fair, James, and myself) so it got kind of confusing. Sometimes one character would have three different voices. There are long pauses that feel like a problem if you’re used to seeing shows with just people and not laser drawings. I started to get a feel for the style right as the lights got pulled. I would love to the show again and take my time. There are some great chances for relationships to be built and pushed in this medium. I think we barely dipped into that tonight. I wish I had spent more time helping create other people’s stuff rather than trying to push the show forward. By design this show has to go slow and be allowed to breathe.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT GRIFF/JAMES?

JAMES:He needs to learn to trust his instincts. Of course with such a brand new and unusual form like this (for those unfamiliar, you stand behind a canvas and shine lasers on it. The canvas is treated with a chemical that causes the laser to leave a mark that fades slowly. So you literally draw the characters and scenery while voicing them from behind) you’re going to need some time to figure out what works and what doesn’t. But still. A  lot of the time when we talk after a show he’ll say how he regrets certain moves, or he’ll ask if it was okay that he did other things in the show, or if he was being too heavy handed. He’s a funny guy, he just needs to believe it.

GRIFF: James is very confident and not overly self-critical. He knows when something could be better, but that never stops him from enjoying himself. He moves through a show like water in a creek, whereas I sometimes feel like I’m just running through the creek splashing water everywhere and killing fish. James handles that very well and I need to focus on getting there. I think it comes from his four years more of experience, but also just his general demeanor in life. He doesn’t struggle against things.

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

JAMES: This is less about improv as an artform and more about the improv community, and it’s a little sappy. It was amazing that tonight we just wandered into a place, and were able to get onstage and do a show. We weren’t booked, we didn’t know who the other acts were going to be, we just kind of threw up a hail mary and hoped for the best. And it worked out. The Chicago Improv community has been so supportive and helpful through this month. I can’t imagine that you’d be able to do this 31 Day challenge in any other city.

GRIFF: For me, this show was an exercise in seeing what happens when you don’t commit fully. If you jump in and try to make a joke with laser drawings you are stuck with the consequences for at least three minutes while it fades. By the end of the show our canvass was filled with dim scribbles and the bold outlines of the last things said. It looked like Pollock…but if Pollock liked to draw penises, werewolves, and castles. It’s actually a great representation or metaphor for the audience’s experience and the show at large. If you can look back at the trails of the sub-layers of the laser drawings of your show and still understand what everything is, then you’ve probably had a very focused show. I need to do more shows that have like three great drawings rather than fifteen stick figures of me with muscles and a huge penis.

THREE WEEKS DOWN. WHAT DO YOU WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING RIGHT NOW?

JAMES: A nap and some peanut butter. No, peanut butter before the nap.

GRIFF: Acceptance and love and a spot on a Harold team and a TV writing job where everyone’s like “Yo that dude’s hilarious” and then they decide to fire the current cast and replace them with me. All of them. We can use split screen like in the Parent Trap. Then I win an Emmy for best guy in anything ever.

DAY 20 - EXTENDED PLAY

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SHOW TONIGHT?

GRIFF: We had fun despite the lack of an audience. It sucks trying to get performers to laugh. You can’t rely on that to feel good about yourself.

JAMES: It’s always tough to play to a small house. But it’s something that you really can’t avoid unless you’re TJ and/or Dave. Tonight we played to just the other teams featured in Extended Play, and it was a quiet house to say the least.We played with Ryan Nallen, who worked a magical duel into the show for the second time (I like this guy’s style), and Anthony Oberbeck, who I could have watched do magic tricks with an invisible knife for an hour. I liked the show because we stayed true to the stuff that I’ve been wanting to work on (keeping all of the characters in one world, making them relate and interact with each other), and the other guys were making me laugh. THere was one point when we basically had two different scenes going on at once, which bothered me. One of us should have given up the focus, and it probably should have been me.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT GRIFF / JAMES?

GRIFF: He’s able to have fun and make himself laugh regardless of the situation surrounding him. James enjoys improv more than performing. That sounds weird. I mean as far as priorities go, improv is way up there, then enjoying himself, then his mustache, then the audience. Wish I was there.

JAMES:I don’t know how Ryan did it by himself when he did this month of improv back in January. Being able to talk about the show with Griff afterwards and compare it to other shows that we’ve done is one of the only things keeping me sane right now. So that’s not really something that I learned about him, but I’ll watch closely tonight for something more interesting.

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

GRIFF: When you’ve got nothing you have to focus on the other players. I wish I had done that harder and jumped in full force rather than feeling like “No one is laughing. This must not be fun”. It is really hard to make an empty room laugh but you can definitely make yourself and your friends happy. Also I learned how much I truly love Anthony Oberbeck and Ryan Nallen. They are two of the most solid dudes I’ve ever met. That’s what I learned about improv. Make friends. Don’t be a dick.

JAMES: You have to make it fun for you, especially when it’s a small house. When you’ve got a huge crowd that’s really into it, you can get caught up in the wave of energy and just ride that through the show. When you’ve got little to no audience response, you need to find the energy in the other people you’re onstage with. At one point we turned the show inward and that’s when it got really fun for me.

WHAT’S THE REAL LAST QUESTION TODAY YOU DIPSHIT?

IF GRIFFIN WAS TO DISAPPEAR FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH, WOULD ANYONE NOTICE AND/OR CARE?

GRIFF: No, because everyone was still in shock from the brutal reenactment of 9/11 performed by James Dugan (editor's note: James kept changing his name to the word "me" here because he's afraid of truth). Singlehandedly. In New York.

JAMES: Hey man, my dad reads this blog (im a butthole) keep it clean (I eat children’s poop).

GRIFF: He’s gotta grow up sooner or later and see the monster his son has become.

JAMES: I think I’d be concerned until I got hungry and thought about other more important things.

GRIFF: Let’s just post this. Truce?

JAMES: Truce.

DAY 19 - BYOT

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SHOW TONIGHT?

GRIFF: Real dumb fun! I love BYOT! We played with my new friend Derrick. Everyone was on board with the rageaholic bluegrass band “Blood Diamond Mine”.

JAMES: Good. Got up there, had a good time, wasn’t ashamed of what I did even if it was crazy. There was one helluva missed edit in there that set us back a ways, but other than that, a perfectly fine BYOT show.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT GRIFF / JAMES?

GRIFF: The bluegrass thing was a bit James did. It was hilarious and I think one of the first times I’ve seen him just out and out go for a joke. Or at least the only example I can think of. He’s a funny dude and it was fun seeing him just be that. He’s devotee of the craft. A true savant. A master, a lover, a slave, and a brother.

JAMES: The suggestion was “Diamond Mine”. I initiated by making us members of a band called “Diamond Mine”. Griff heightened it by saying that he wanted to rename us “Blood Diamond Mine”. If that’s not friendship, I don’t know what is.

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

GRIFF: Nothing. Just tried to get as emotional as possible and see what happened. That seems to be the way to go. Doesn’t need to be yelling though.

JAMES: When there’s already someone asleep on the table in the front row, don’t worry too much about subtelty.

HOW MANY PUSHUPS CAN JAMES DO?

GRIFF: Not enough.

JAMES: Enough.

DAY 18 - BUGHOUSE - KNUCKLEBALL

 OUR FIRST REVIEW!!!!!!

 
"Hot bits. Definitely some hot bits..." - David Yontz

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SHOW TONIGHT?

GRIFF: One of our best shows yet. Started off a little rocky as far as what the hell was going on, but it picked up once we established some emotional stakes. I had a great time letting loose and felt like myself onstage rather than trying to figure out what to do. I really love these Bughouse shows and everyone should come to them.

JAMES: I don’t think I’ve had a harder time keeping a straight face onstage. The things that were coming out of Griffin and Alex Nichols’ mouths were such gold. Usually at the Bughouse we strive to do a mono-scene, but tonight we just ran. My only complaint about the show was the reset moments after a sweep. There was a lot of empty stage before anyone came out to initiate anything. However, when an initiation was made, it was strong and propelled the scene somewhere, so maybe it’s worth it to take a second rather than just saying anything to fill the space.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT GRIFF / JAMES?

GRIFF: James plays scared really well. There was a point when I punched Alex in the face and turned around to look at James and he was literally shaking. He looked like a frightened mouse. Also, James and I have very different guidelines for assessing a show. James is on this big “we can do more than just funny shit” kick right now whereas being as funny as possible is my end goal. James thinks of things that help the show be better, easier to play in, and ultimately funnier. He handles thematic or tangential connections between scenes really well.

JAMES: One of my favorite things to do with Griffin is to call out the weird physical stuff he does. A couple days ago he played a guy driving a carriage, and his whipping of the horse turned into what looked like him doing a drum solo. Something similar happened tonight, and when I called it out, he didn’t try to justify why he was doing what he was doing, he just did it harder and faster. I think he’s all grown up and knows how to Yes And on his own now.

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

GRIFF: These smaller groups always turn out better. Mashup groups are hard to navigate unless you already know the folks/are comfortable with them. When you are with your friends, and your friends are good, and your friends have similar goals, you will have a great show.

JAMES: The same as before. It was a really fun and energetic show, but I felt like there was more we could do. Just something to tie the whole show together to give it that extra push. Even if we had just called back something from the beginning. I might be turning into an improv snob…

WHAT TIME PERIOD WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE STUCK PERMANENTLY IN?

GRIFF: June of 2076

JAMES: I’ve got a plan on how to get rich if I can get back to the early 90s. Only ask me about it if you have a time machine that seats two.