Chicago Mission Accomplished

I did a week long intensive at the famous Second City Improv Theatre School this last week. It was a wonderful and amazing experience! I learned sooo much about improv and acting (which I don't have that much experience with) Second City is the place where lots of SNL cast members are graduates from. (John Candy, Tina Fey, Mike Meyers, more...). During this week, I learned how most of the sketches on SAturday Night Live come directly from exercises formed at Second City. Many writers who wrote for Second City were later writers for SNL. We watched footage of sketches from the early 90s which sounds EXACTLY like it was written for Phil Hartman but stars another unknown actor doing the same character. Improv is amazing, intelligent and challenging. It keeps you on your toes and forces you to listen extremely hard to the other people in the scene. And it is funny of course, crazy and unpredictable because most improv pulls random suggestions from the audience (different places, words, time periods, etc) to incorporate into their skits. So, no I don't really want to do stand up comedy, but I want to be a performer in a Second City type of ensemble, and Chicago would be the PLACE where I could have a shot at it somehow. It seems like the type of city that embraces folks that do not fit in the mold, LA is the type of city that only embraces the mainstream, unless your way of not fitting into the mold has been made mainstream (like 'alternative rock' music).

This marks the third time I've been to Chicago and yet it feels all new again. People here still drink pop from the pop machine! Chicago is a huge city where people live in high rises stacked on top of each other or in a row of Victorian homes on a tree lined street. Oprah chose a high rise! (a huge one apparently, isolated on one side of the Lake). Chicago has seemingly affordable rent, awful cold snowy weather most of the year, but a nice and peaceful Great Lake to go boating or exploring on someone's yacht! I didn't really have time to do much else besides go to class and some social activity at night with friends to destress. I didn't even end up working but once because I would have to wake up at "normal people" hours to get to class on public transportation. There was a 24 hour Starbucks right where I was taking class! We don't even have one of those in LA. After 11pm, the only chance you have of getting a latte would be if you pressed a button on a gas station coffee machine!

I had an amazing time in the Windy City once again. I noticed that rent was seemingly comprable to parts of LA. It's just that the weather is freezing snow on the ground blue in your face cold 8 months out of the year. I miss working and seeing clients! I'm now in NYC resting. Looking forward to working more in the big Apple. Hopefully it will be just as great as it was last year!