Dramatic Actress turned Underwear Sales Lady

This is Ricky Anderson, SAC's president. He's been in the troupe the longest and has the most experience. I always love going on stage with him because I trust him. That's one of the most important rules to improv -trust your partner-. It isn't always easy to do if there is tension or if the person you are improving with is known to ... talk over you, cut you off, not give anything information to scene, negate everything you try to say, or just stand there. Luckily Ricky does none of these things. We have built a great friendship in the last year and frankly... he's one of the funniest people I know. -----During practice this week, Ricky asked everyone why they did improv. It was a simple yet thoughtful question. We stood in our back line formation and slowly poured a little more of our souls into the group.
"So Katie why do you do improv?"
Well, I never thought I was very funny. I have been doing theater most of my life and have always been type-casted as the dramatic actress who can deliver a good cry. But somehow, I bloom inside the world of comedy. Improv is my expressive outlet each week. When I am frustrated, tired, annoyed, or sad, I pour all of my energy into purging those emotions on stage. I let go, which is something I can rarely do in my every day life. I am not as uptight and calculating. Most of the time I don't even notice the crowd there, because although there is a high that comes from making other people laugh, I do improv comedy for me. Doing things that make me happy has become an important mantra in my life. "Katie, what is going to make you happy?" Sometimes, I am too busy taking care of everyone else, that I forget about myself. However, no one expects me to be anything in SAC. I don't have to be the caretaker, the strong one, or the woman who keeps it all together. I let go. I jump around, make strange noises, dress up, and pretend to be someone other than myself. In one show I can be a western pregnant girl, a gangster rapper with a lisp, a chinese woman who sells sexy underwear. All of these characters and lives I would never get to be or live if I did not to improv. I was surprised at how most of the members in SAC answered the question with deep personal meaning. Improv let some have a group of friends that didn't find them "weird," others found making people laugh intoxicating, and some just could not see themselves not doing improv comedy. I guess that's the beauty of it all. Even with such different answers, we have one unified goal. "To create art."

"It's Not Mine."

Picture this as my wardrobe for a skit in SAC: One very hot pink dress over my black uniform, two very high pigtails on either side of my head, a cheetah headband with a huge pink bow in my hair...one VERY LARGE baby bump featuring my pregnant stomach, and two moon pies stuffed inside my bra.

One of our improvisers, Robert Slack, rewrote Miley Cyrus' popular song "The Climb," and called his version "It's Not Mine." Basically I was a 16 year old pop singer who gets pregnant and my boyfriend says, "It's not mine." ...classic, and sad, I know.

Beginning of the Song...

I can already feel it. I think I'm pregnant.
There's a voice inside my head goin' "you stupid idiot."
I'll start lactating. Food I'll be craving.
Lost without direction. I feel like puking.
But I. I gotta be strong. And watch Juno all day long.

I'm gonna hear a baby's rattle
I'm gonna change him when he goes POO.
I'll get fat like a piece of cattle.
I wonder what my honey would do.
I'm sure he'll just smile and hug me
Bu I know what he's saying on the other side.
"It's not mine."

Even when I have no idea where one of our troupe members wants to go with a sketch, backing them 100% is half the task. I acted out this song like it was job. Although, my best friend Lauren said after the song was done my boyfriend turned to her and said, "Wow, that just really freaked me out, did that freak you out?" I suppose it was a little ... out there, and maybe it made some people uncomfortable, but oh well, that's just the name of the game in comedy.

DOWNSIDE OF THIS SONG: One verse in the song mentions my intense craving for moon pies and french fries. Therefore, other cast members were feeding these items to me. Now, I had never had a moon pie before, but they are absolutely disgusting and I almost wanted to vomit on stage. Not to mention the stale french fries from McDonald's were not exactly the first thing I wanted to eat. This experience reminded me of a theater camp I went to sometime in high school. I had to do this exercise where they blindfolded me and put something in my hand to eat. What ever was given to us we were suppose to eat it and then make a delicious face and really sell it to the audience. This was suppose to prepare us for commercials or any type of acting gig that would require us eating something we did not particularly like, but as actors we were suppose to "fake it." Unfortunately...I cheated during the game. I know, I know. I should kick my 13 year-old self. But I mean really? Would you want to drink or eat vinegar and ketchup mixed together with who knows what? I think not. I guess I would have been more prepared for my moon pie experience though, which is exactly what recalled this memory.

Overall, our show went relatively well. I think there was a drag in energy though. This week did not seem to be anyone's good week and I certainly know it was not mine. It's always a huge hurtle to perform at the end of the week when you are absolutely exhausted. Sometimes I just get to Thursday night and all I want to do is pass out in my bed and only wake up to eat, but usually an hour or two the adrenaline starts kicking in and I feel much better.

EXCITING NEWS: Jeremy Lamb, an executive producer of the Improv Festival, asked SAC if we wanted to compete in a regional bracket of the National College Improv Tournament in Austin. We would compete against other college improv groups and the winner will go to Chicago to compete in Nationals sometime in spring. We are discussing the possibility of competing this Tuesday. This should be a really wonderful opportunity to grow and learn from other improv groups out there.

Oh the adventures of SAC.

I always have to anticipate something blowing up or just going plain wrong. Considering the fact we perform in the BLUU Auditorium, we have to compete with several activities to keep our time slot at 9:00pm. But every once in a while, even when we have the auditorium reserved, things don't go as planned....

At 8:00pm last week, I promptly show up in my light blue tie and black dress pants and shorts, and what do I see? A PARTY GOING ON IN THE AUDITORIUM. There's hundreds of people, loud hip hop music blasting from huge speakers, and I think COOL! WHERE CAN I JOIN THE DANCE PARTY? Then reality sets in...I don't think this huge fiesta is for the members of SAC...who are these people? Why are they in the auditorium an hour before show time?! How do we get them out? AGHHHHH!!!

Now, I'm not talking about a few hundred CALM students tapping their feet and bopping their heads to the music as they gracefully sit in the auditorium stadium seating. I'm talking about everyone UP FROM THEIR SEATS, CLAPPING, BREAKING IT DOWN, AND GETTING CRUNK. There are signs and confetti everywhere and lots of lots of body odor. WHAT WAS GOING ON????

We learned that the multi-cultural fraternities and sororities were having an event and a certain someone...who is the head of coordinating activities at the BLUU...who I will not name...but who may happen to always ACCIDENTLY forget to tell SAC what is going on...came up to our president Ricky Anderson and me, to say that this event was scheduled to be outside, but he wasn't sure if it was going to rain, so he made the EXECUTIVE decision to make the event in the auditorium. -PS. it didn't rain!-

Oh now..that's just HILARIOUS. You mean that even though a YEAR AGO today SAC gave the BLUU a calendar of all the dates we needed the auditorium, and even though they APPROVED IT, and this was not one of the dates we had CONFLICT with, this (unnamed man) just EXECUTIVELY decides to give me a heart attack. Well that was just great. Because not only did I have to be pushed by the crowd to the front, but when they promised to end at 9:00pm. They definitely did not.

Luckily, most of our audience waited outside while we desperately tried to tackle the massive amounts of people. Not to mention, this 40 year old man (who said he was their advisor), who had some how grabbed the microphone that we needed for our show, went power crazy with the MIC! He's rapping and making jokes and just living up the spotlight. At 9:20 with my ever so polite manners, my 5'2 self walks up to this 6'6 350 pound man, to kindly hand over the mic to me. He says he's not done using it...I walk away cringing as I watch him put his whole mouth on the mic and spit all over it....yuck.

UPDATE: This week show, we were told we had to perform in the BLUU Ballroom, where the stage only fits 3 out of 7 performers, and we have to re-work all our technical equipment. Now, what's so funny about this scenario is that absolutely NOTHING was going on in the BLUU Auditorium. Not a single sole or even a mouse could be seen.....that certain BLUU Auditorium man who makes such great executive decisions..watch out. You are not on my favorite list.

Our First Show

Senseless Acts of Comedy has been my creative outlet for the past year. With six main stage performers and two alternates, I tried out without considering the possibility of being casted.

Me?...Good at making up scenarios and situations without a script? Impossible. ......Or so I thought.

Somehow, I was cast as a main stage performer. Every Thursday at 9:00pm in the BLUU Auditorium, I would be creating art. Practices were long and challenging. The group had a lot more experience with improvising and I often struggled with wondering if I could hold my own. The weeks pasted on, and show after show, my skills improved, but I still felt unsettled. In the middle of the year we had a sudden change in leadership. Two of our improvisers and our host had been offered a professional improv gig outside of TCU. The performance was the same night as SAC...they made their decision.

Thinking everything would fall apart, we had to recast and do it fast. Things were looking pretty gloomy, but all of sudden I was surrounded by new faces and we were all working together to put on the best show possible. The rainbow definitely came after the show. The group dynamic actually became better and I felt less nervous and 100% more confident in my abilities.

This year is the beginning of a new SAC. We advertised heavily by giving away free popsicles during lunch time. I also talked to countless numbers of freshman during the activities fair. This would be real test if SAC would survive this year. The activites board said we needed about 60 students to show up or we could not keep our space in the auditorium. I nervously shook my legs back stage, hoping the room would be filled and more importantly hoping that we could make a whole lot of people laugh.

Most performances, I try to completely forget that there is an audience in front of me just ...waiting. Waiting for me to say something funny, waiting for me to have nothing to say, waiting for there to be awkward silence proving improv can only be done by actors in Whose Line is It Anyways? ...It's definitely worse when my boyfriend or close friends come to show. If the audience is made up of strangers, they won't have the same expectations of me. I won't have to face them when I leave the stage.

We had about 120 students show up! Pretty good, for the first week of school where most students can't think of anything but hitting the best party.