Basically Awesome Opens!
This morning was my Conservatory Orientation. As I was trying to find a seat in the mainstage theatre, I found myself quiet literally running into my friend Katy, who was in my improv classes D and E, and who is also in my Saturday night show, Mockupations. She was there with a girl named Jenny, who has never taken a class at The Second City before, but who came here from... um... New York? I think. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that she's in the Thursday night class, so we'll be classmates for the next... million years or so.
At any rate, the first person to talk at my orientation was Anne Libera. Why should you care? Well... remember that writing five show I was in over the summer? Her brother was one of the writers. He wrote the "rough" wheelchair sketch I was the lead in. Yeah. So I feel like I know her, at any rate.
Then we were asked to split up into programs. I went into the etc theatre with the other Conservatory students. There we were talked to by Norm Holly, the head of the Conservatory program. He was very matter-of-fact, but I also think he's fair, and worthy of great respect. He's kind of a "That's the way it is" kind of guy... and part of me thinks that's exactly what I need after a year of "you're doing well enough" kind of stuff. Does any of that make sense? So my morning was filled with a "it's about time" sense... and I'm excited and nervous to start classes on Thursday.

But, more importantly for TODAY, tonight was Basically Awesome's Opening Night! We got together really early in the afternoon to run through the show a couple of times. We even ate Subway together for dinner. Oh bonding! Whatever. When it became time for the performance, we were VERY nervous. And it didn't help that we were the second group on the bill... having to wait backstage in the green room for forty minutes... not knowing when their show was going to end... and having to be ready to take the stage and set our props in about two minutes.
About the show... the dance scene and the songs went really well. For some reason, people just REALLY love a funny song. Another thing I found interesting about the show is that the Dave Convention scene went really well. The scenes that I wrote, however, did not go so well. Ehh... I'm learning that I'd rather perform than write. So my performance went well, I think... and that's all that matters to me.

After the show, we went across the street to Corcorans. Keith, Sara, Adam, Dave, and I went over there with two of Keith's friends from Aurora. It was an interesting time. We saw our Level C instructor Claudia with half the cast of the mainstage show. She asked what we were up to... and seemed happy that we were still together and working together. I would love to be able to see the mainstage show SOON... but we'll see. At any rate, like I said, it was an interesting time. Sara likes to ask weird "would you rather..." questions. I have a feeling that the questions drive Keith insane... but we were humoring her. The director of AD's Cut and Mockupations, Aaron, showed up and sat down with us. He seemed REALLY into the questions, so we were able to humor Sara for a while. And Aaron and Adam seemed to really hit it off, which is honestly something I thought would happen if they ever got a chance to hang out. They're both really cool, laid-back, kinda guys.
On my way out, I had a guy at the bar stop me to tell me how well he thought the show went. He was a friend of one of the performers in Poppyseed Lane, the other show on our double bill. He actually wasn't the only friend of someone in Poppyseed Lane who thought we did well... I had someone talk to me right after the show, who thought we put on a pretty funny show. I guess, all in all, I felt pretty good about it after everything was all said and done.

Top Ten Posts of 2004: #10 Post - March 12th, 2004. If I was rich
I don't know why I like this post so much, but it's just one of the many mental exercises I put myself through in 2004. *shrug* I guess everyone likes to think about what they would do if they were just so filthy rich that they didn't have to work, and they could do whatever they wanted. And I honestly think a lot about what my house is going to be like when I'm older and I build one. That's one of my little life goals: building my own house. And I'm dead serious about the secret passages too, dog.