Happy Monday

Anti-Cultural Society

So on Friday night I did my second to the last show with The Anti-Cultural Society at Donny's Skybox, directed by Sean Cusick. I finally got my lines down in every scene and then completely dropped them in the one scene we didn't run through but Kevin Sciretta was there to pick up the slack and I don't think anybody noticed. Meanwhile in the other scenes I was so comfortable with my lines that I started throwing in all kinds of new lines, and getting some laughs. It was the first time I've actually had fun in one of those shows, as one is apt to do when one's lines are finally memorized and you can just perform. Next week, last show, stop on by.

Very Nude Rent Party

And then, completely warmed up, I went to the Rent Party which was either a huge success if you talk to the audience or completely fell apart if you talk to Schadenfreude. The acts were great, Pimprov went over very well, the Pajama Men brought some amazing new material, and there was a lot of variety from Deb Downing-Grosz's Spanish Guitar-wielding Contessa to Michelle L'Amour, who took off all her clothes. That's one of Michelle's gigs, she dances and takes off her clothes. In the "completely fell apart" department we never set up very well why she was doing it, so we just looked like heels who wanted some nudity in the show.

The environmental bit of the evening was great, but not well rehearsed. We "went public" with Schadenfreude stock and had a pit full of Schadenfreude Mecantile Exchange workers doing all the bits about those guys being coked up and ordering more stock as each sketch raised the stock or lowered the stock. Then we "bombed" with Kate's bit where she makes fun of Rita Rudner and plays Karen Keller who does so poorly she has a mental breakdown onstage and starts applying lipstick saying "pretty pretty, pretty dreamer." So the stock tanks and then we've got to do something. So I suggest that it's Friday, that I'll do Short-Haired Chick Friday onstage, making the mistake that anyone in the audience reads our website, two different audiences I now realize. Nobody knew what I was talking about. So I pulled a bystander, Michelle L'amour, out of the audience, completely dressed as Snow White from her performance on America's Got Talent. I thought it would be funny to pull a "random" out of the crowd and they happen to be dressed like Snow White, people were confused. Then she takes off a lot of clothes. She did great, of course, very sexy, and unique for a Schadenfreude shwo, but our setup was bad, nobody knew why we were having a woman take off her clothes.

Thanks to everyone who came out, surprise visit by Sara Tolbert, our first intern from 1999 and looooooong time Schadenfriend, hadn't seen her in a while, buut it look like we'll be seeing her at Lollapalooza.

Sunday Screenwriting
We took another stab at the Alderman screenplay. So rough. I think it's in good condition, I sleep well knowing we've got a great script and then we hit it and it's so rough and it really looks like I haven't been monitoring it at all. I'm the leader on the project and I've let the reigns drop. We probably lost two hours with simple shit that could've been fixed on my own. So I'm loading in some rent party footage and then going through the script with a fine tooth comb so when we meet next on it, it will only be story concerns, which it won't be. We have three more days and then we're done done. August 9th, that's it, last day. We have to set an out time on this or we'll still be working on it in September. And we have to write a book. And Lollapalooza, and I'm moving to L.A. on Sept. 16th.