As I mentioned in my last post, my first improv show ever was last night. That’s right — I had never before performed in front of anyone except my kind and generous classmates and teachers. The show was a student showcase, for the end of the winter session of classes at Unexpected Productions. Classes 200 (us), 300, 400 and 500 performed, and we went first. I won’t keep you in suspense. I had an awesome time! I think it went really well, and it was a blast performing in front of a real audience (drinking real beer). My performance wasn’t the best I’ve ever done, but I’m very satisfied.

I wasn’t terribly nervous going in. I was mostly just wound up. The show was supposed to start at 8, but it didn’t really start until around 8:15. Those fifteen minutes were the only time I started feeling a little nervous; I think I let my pre-show energy peak around 8:05, so mild anxiety briefly set in before we hit the stage. But it was fine, and as soon as we started I felt great. I’ll have video of the whole show up soon, but in the interests of getting this up I’m only including the scenes I’m in (sorry guys!).

Johnny and Lisa started with a great Scene by Numbers with the suggestion of “a spider.”

Next, Brad, Charles and I played Chain Murder Endowment. I introduced it and did the first endowment to Charles, then Charles did the second endowment to Brad. I explain the whole thing in the video, so I won’t rehash it here. But basically it’s a game where you try to get another player to figure out your suggestions, communicating only in gibberish. Then the second player does the same for the third player (often compounding any misunderstandings made in the first round). It’s great fun.

Next up was Movie Review, which you all know is my, ummm, favorite game. Brad and Tony played the reviewers, and everyone else acted in the “movie.” I think it went reasonably well. This is the one in which I’m least pleased with my contribution, but as a team I think we made it work.

After Movie Review, Charles, Lisa, Tony and I did a Tag Team Monologue.

Following the Tag Team Monologue, Johnny, Nancy and Tony did a very nice scene in Quadrants. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in it, so no video for now (it’s coming, I promise).

Finally, we closed the show with a Growing and Shrinking Machine including everyone in the class. I love Growing and Shrinking Machine when it works, and I think this one worked fairly well. We’ve done a few in the past couple of weeks in which multiple people completely forgot a scene (including me), so I was really glad that didn’t happen in the show! (This video is on YouTube, because MySpace kept crapping out when I tried to upload it. Blame MySpace for how long it took to get this posted.)

Overall, it was an awesome experience, and I can truthfully say that I can’t wait until I get to do it again. I might even invite more people than just Becky next time. I’d like to publicly thank Jennifer Eolin for her encouragement — there’s no way I would have been up there last night if it weren’t for her. And thank you also to all of my other friends who have been encouraging me! You guys are awesome!

To close, here’s a picture of our class taken right after the show.