Turning off the switch

As mentioned in a previous blog, as an improviser you often strive to react to your circumstances and environment and not edit yourself. The goal is that pure reactionary state where you are simply listening and reacting......... However sometimes the line between perfomance/rehearsal and afterwards can be blurred and the switch is not turned off. Tonight I said something to a good friend that was simply a reaction and not meant. I wish I would have given some more thought to it, it just came out. Just got to get better at realizing my real life circumstances. Well the purpuse of this blog is to get that off of my chest. I don't feel any better, but at least now I might consciously turn the switch off when needed. - Jesse

Improv with us this summer!

So...summer is here...you're looking for something to do...some come on in and improv with us this summer. We are offering a 5-week adult improv class on Tuesday nights starting June 13th. You'll get to learn the basics...and most of the Gated Community cast participates in the class...so you get to work with some experienced improvisors (or not).

Okay...to be honest...I was only writing this blog to kill time...I have been on the phone with Delta Airlines for about 45 minutes...on hold most of the time...so I thought I would blog. I am off now.

But seriously...come check out of adult class this summer...as well as our next show on June 24th in the Atlantic Theater!

Special thanks to PBS's "South Florida Today" for interviewing us last week. That segment should air soon...we'll keep you posted!

Travis

You deserve a good day!

it is another Monday night, and I now look forward to writing at the beginning of the week. I use these blogs to be as truthful as possible about what it is Gated Community does. Even though now only one person reads this, who knows, maybe in the future we will have more blog readers, and they will go back into the GC blog archives and read up on past thoughts. We had a huge turnout on Saturday night (150 people, we had to add chairs!) a huge thanks goes to all of you who came out and supported us! I always feel so blessed to do what I love for a living, and I am also blessed to have our troupe be so successful in such a short amount of time. I owe that success to two wonderful partners, great team players, and a super supportive audience. We are also super lucky to have our own 200 seat theater to rehearse whenever we want! I write this for two reasons, one it helps sometimes to write things down to get true perspective, and also to let those of you who read this know that with all of what we have, and with the place our shows are, I still feel we have so much room to grow as a group and we are constantly trying to improve in all areas of Gated Community. Hearing the feedback, the audience enjoyed the show, but as a perfectionist, I want so much more. Here's why. In January I had the pleasure of watching The Groundlings two nights in a row. This was great because I got to see two completely different sets and both shows amazed me like no other I have ever seen. We are all impressed be something in our lives. Hopefully there is that one thing (passion) that wakes you up in the morning and keeps you up at night. If you are a creative person, you can trace that moment in your life when you saw something that changed you forever, maybe a painting, a concert, a birth, a movie, whatever it was. A thing that made you say, I want to do that! I know to some, Improv might not be an artform, but when done well it can make affect you like a beautiful painting, or a guitar solo that gives you goosebumps. That is my goal, to push the envelope of the artform where it induces tingles, if not side splitting laughs. I beleive that laughter can change the world, and a day with laughter is always a good day. My goal is for us to reach that point in every show. You the audience deserve that, you deserve a good day!......There, I feel better - Jesse

The Mayor and John Kennedy

The GC had quite a productive weekend! Friday morning brought us to Lake Worth to the Atlantis Country Club and a private show for the JFK Medical Center Charter School, which easily wins the company with the longest name award. The show was for the staff of the school, which is a 1st through 5th grade public school that Frank and I visited a few weeks back, and it was quite an impressive visit, as the conduct of the students and professionalism of the teachers renewed my faith in the public school system. The show was a 45 minute best of show that went quite well. We had one of our better "outside" (a show not in our home theater) shows that we have had, as our improvs and sketches both went over quite well. It is always so much fun to bring the joy of improv to an audience who has never expereinced it before! The one "glitch" in the system was a brief scene that we did riffing on the idea of JFK, where we reenacted the movie JFK with "back and to the left", where Travis was moving my head as though I was President Kennedy. We thought nothing of it at the time, as the harold moved on to poke fun at all things Kennedy-Marilyn Monroe, alcoholism etc, but we received an email from an audience member that was offended by the choice. Travis responded to her email quite well, stating that Improv often times has you making immediate choices that as an improvisor you don't think about, and sometimes causes scenes that offend. Oh well, you can't win them all. We actually haven't knowingly offended anyone since Travis and I did a Jesus scene some 6 or 7 months ago and we got a phone call on the following Monday. If we have offended anyone in the past and you are reading this blog, let us know. I am curious. It is never intentional, unless we are hosting an improv and we offend the audience (Frank and Travis)......
Saturday night brought us to Palm Bay, Fla a good 95 miles north of Jupiter. We had a show open to the public sponsored by the City of Palm Bay. The show brought out 75 people, and was our first performance in a gymnasium. The audience was a mix of young and old, and only one person raised their hand when asked if they had ever seen an improv show before. As far as the show goes the crowd responded quite well, (in case you are wondering, we are all intense critics of our shows, and they all have not been good ones - Abacoa Live, Tequesta Country Club to name a few) and we had one of our better harolds of recent memory creating a Palm Bay town council meeting after learning that most of audience left were city counselors, including one gentleman in the front row who reminded us of someone. Travis pointed out a moment later that it was Joe Montana being the celebrity he most resembled, and someone in the crowd pointed out that he was the mayor! Of all the people to put on the spot.... A really fun show and a great road trip! Palm Bay and then the world! Spreading the love...until next time - Jesse

You're Rude!

Not really. But it is the name of our next show on May 20th. Go back to the gcimprov.com page if you need to order tickets...which of course you do ;)

Yes, you're rude! It will be a fun show with new improvisations (of course) as well as all-new and original sketch...and some song parody (two if you're lucky). So, be there!

Jesse elluded in his last blog about how we came up with a sketch the other night while warming up for the Seminole Ridge show. That is the great thing about creative collaboration. The three of us were just warming-up and having fun...and a new sketch just happened! It's so much easier than sitting down with a blank screen and trying to create the funny. I guess a parallel would be trying to draw up an offensive set in basketball from scratch. When, if you just observed a game or practice, it would be so much easier to see a play develop in front of you.

Jesse also mentioned the bachelors weekend trip. Lots of fun! My version of the fishing trip goes in the books as one of Travis' "Worst 5 experiences of My Life." I am not being dramatic here...I am serious. I have never been in so much pain...but I can explain that at another time.

Well...I need to run. Jesse's beloved Heat are getting stomped by the Nets right now...yikes! The Nets are dangerous right now...which doesn't look good for Miami. But, plenty of time left in this game.

Travis

Bachelor Party....no fire trucks

The four male members of GC spent an awesome weekend in Islamorada (the keys for those not in the tropical know) last weekend to celebrate the upcoming marriage of Frank in June. the weekend was our last before he leaves for Italy as we have shows every weekend until he leaves. We left early Friday morning and spent the afternoon snorkeling off of Key Largo and had the pleasure of viewing a shark, a morey eel, lots of lobster, barracuda, and more tropical fish than you can imagine! Saturday morning could go down as one of the worst half days of my life............we booked a fishing guide for 6 hours, spent $800 dollars and our boat (our good friend Jeff Harding and I, and some shoeless jackass guide) caught no fish! OK we are in the fishing capital of the world! and catch no fish in 6 hours, what the f*#@! we traveled 30 miles, let me repeat that 30 miles, in a 18 foot flats boat in 30 mile an hour wind and choppy seas out in the middle of nowhere. there was more than once i thought that we would capsize and never be seen again.

Other that that debocle (did i spell that right?) it was an absolutely excellent weekend, we danced, bowled twice, hand fed tarpon, played more poker than should be humanly possible, farted, watched basketball, caught the most beautiful sunset in the world, and became certified navy seals. That last part i made up as an inside joke, but the rest is true. We had the pleasure of being joined by Patric Cambra, the world's greatest mime, and the afore mentioned Jeff Harding, a very talented singer/songwriter. 4 improvisers, a musician and a mime = a weekend of great fun. We came back with two sketches for our next show and a new game involving a juggling ball, two glasses and potential pain in the private area. I would divulge more, but we plan on getting a patent and you will soon find it in a store near you. We did get some priceless video footage that will probably end up in a future show. The name is ether going to be Ball Ball or Smack a Sack, keep your eyes peeled. All in all it was an awesome time, and i am a lucky guy to have such great friends. I hope that Frank will remember the weekend forever and that he had half as much fun as I did! - Jesse

Seminole Ridge.....then the world!

we had a great show the other night at Seminole Ridge HS in BFE, actually i love road trips, even if they are only 20 minutes away. we performed in a brand new auditorium in front of a very enthusiastic crowd of drama students. the improv was very good, and our sketch went over surprisingly well. it was nice to work with students who appreciate the art form, and a few of the students came up and did a freeze and a moving bodies, and quite well. Our improv was nowhere near as good as SAK (inside joke) but i felt as though we took some risks and created some funny scenes. the most memorable being Travis and I doing a scene where i was a refrigerator and he was debating whether or not to get "purple stuff, soda, SunnyD" and i said to him, "I hate when you come inside me" his later response was "i only put my meat down here, and my cheese up here" nether comment was intended to come out the way it sounded, lets just say that the kids got quite a kick out of those comments. we had a very good talk back session with the audience afterwards and i hope we inspired the students to follow through with there dramatic aspirations, as proof of three guys who can do it and make a living doing what they love! the quote of the night from one student was, "dont kill me for asking this, but do the three of you like girls?" we replied yes of course, but it must have been that refrigerator scene that made her ask that. we also came up with a very funny bump sketch in warmups, look for axl in our next show.
Jesse