My Improv Weekend in Maine
Last weekend I went out of town to teach a couple of Slow Improv workshops at the 2 Day Comedy Festival in a little town in New England called Kittery, ME.
I had not flown to teach at an improv festival in almost 10 years.
I used to do it all the time before my daughter was born, and I had forgotten how much fun it is.
The improvisers came from all over New England, and they were all so excited to be there. I can get so high off their enthusiasm that it usually takes me a couple of days to come down from it.
One of the most satisfying parts of the trip was seeing how good these improvisers were and how the training in the rural parts of the country keeps getting better. I was impressed they were playing at a level that used to be only reserved for the larger improv cities. This was not always the case. When I traveled to improv festivals and training centers on a more frequent basis 10 to 20 years ago, you never knew what you were going to get.
Another special part of the trip was the showcase on the final night of the festival. There were several improv groups, and for the final show, they did an Armando where I got to be the monologist. An Armando is a long form of series of improvised scenes based on a monologue that is given at the top of the show. I was in the original cast of the Armando at iO Chicago, back in the ’90s. It was named after a real person, Armando Diaz, who is now a brilliant teacher at The Magnet Theater in New York. Armando would start the show with an honest monologue, and the cast would improvise scenes based on what came out of his mouth that week.
When I was asked to join the original cast of The Armando, I had taken a couple of years off improvising, and I was insecure and frankly, terrified, to be playing with some of the best improvisers in Chicago at the time, and I felt out of my league.
I was rusty and did not have much confidence. If it wasn't for a couple of my friends encouraging me to stay, I would have quit. I am not kidding. I would say the first year, I played a nervous, low status character every week, because that was how I was really feeling.
A lot has changed since then, thank God. You wouldn't have liked me 30 years ago. I didn't like me 30 years ago. I am in a better place in my career and personal life. I have a family that loves me, I have friends that love me, and on occasion I love me. And performing the monologue that night, I had a deep sense of gratitude for Armando.
Gratitude for the fact that people are still doing this improv form and I am still doing it 30 years later in a small town in Maine. That I have gotten so good at teaching that people want to fly me out to learn from me. That I love what I do.
It helped that the show was really funny, including the monologuist. The cast did a great job of going deeper with my monologues, improvising my insecurities and vulnerabilities in their scene work.
It was a great weekend.