Austin Improv

[quote="Justin Davis"]
GGG: Shana's character choice cracked me up. The fact that it was a musical show, but she went with a character who had no rhythm was awesome. One of my favorite moments came when Mo (as her mother) was trying to explain what it meant to be Little Ms. Peanut. Mo said Shana's character (Mo's character's daughter) was nothing more than an empty person without the title (I think that's right). Shana said, "Oh, I thought you were going to say I was just a shell. You know, cause of the peanut."

ha....i totally forgot about that. Merlin does it again...

For me, there were lots of great moments. Watching Sean Hill get up and jam with ONB on Wed., producing a long lost harmonica...hanging backstage with Audrey Sansom during the American Standard show on Thursday night...doing the amazing Silver City Pink show, and watching Jenny and Amanda playing 2-square...the 'best of' Edmond Bulldogs montage...hanging with my Knucks outside just before the show starting and realizing that Owen Edgerton was one of the great hosts I'd ever seen...

But there are two things that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

One, bringing Sean and Lampe up on Sunday night. Made me cry. The significance of that moment, and getting the people who were in that room on that stage in front of those people is the culmination, in a lot of ways, of the entire journey I've taken as an Austin improvisor. My past, present, and future all in one place at one time.

Two, the crowd on Sunday night. When Shannon and I were playing with the hand signals and making different groups make noise, I literally could have done that all night long. I must tell you that there is nothing more satisfying on Earth than having hundreds of people who all want nothing more than to have a good time together coalesce for a couple of hours as a family and give themselves over to the show.

Thank you everyone for a lovely time.

Thanks to Shannon and Jeremy for making me still feel like a part of the family.

Thanks to Vines for the awesome light work during the Knuckleball show.

Thanks, as always, to the staff and volunteers who work a mostly thankless job for a very long time to make the festival happen.

Thanks to the community for being such a big part of this.

And I wanted to take a second to thank all of the people who made it out to Los Angeles for OoB West, and who obviously talked well of it, as I heard nothing but positivity regarding our little festival the whole time I was in town.

Thank you all for welcoming me home, and I look forward to seeing you in Los Angeles in May.

Mike

I changed my mind. My new favorite moment was Mike D's amazing, unexpected, and fictional soft-shoe dance number:

The entire Maestro show was probably my favorite, and it'd be hard to come up with a single moment...
-24 players! 24 players!!! 24 PLAYERS!!!
-All of the enthusiastic Mikah fans in the audience, cheering loudly and proudly.
-Round 1 seemed to be composed entirely of 5s (except one game which scored a 4, but the players decided to give themselves 5s anyway).
-The scene involving a talking, as the suggester called it, "Jack-O-Lantern". It was only two lines long ("Don't you feel bad?" "HOLY SHIT!!!"), and when scoring, the audience shouted, "No," during points 1-4, giving a massive unanimous 5.
-Kacey's attempt at the Alphabet Game, resulting in one of the very rare 1's (and a unanimous 1 at that) in Maestro history. ("Y are you yelling?"/"Washing machine is broken." "Y?")
-Joplin's shadow puppet sex, silhouetted behind the projector.
-The "little more inappropriate" round He Said, She Said.
-Bill's game-winning Volovian Anthem ("STEEL!!!")
-Andy's sarcastic, "We do a lot of improv in Austin," speech to a massive crowd of improvisers, who quickly boo him.

Also, I do believe the Shakespearean act by Impro Theatre was the perfect closer-outer.

Also, Available Cupholders rocked the house with their kickass narrative involving a group of intertwined characters in a meat freezer. Everything was quotable.

"AHG!! MY FACE IS STUCK TO THE FROZEN FLOOR!!!"
"Maybe it's karma, you prick!"

"If you shoot that gun in here, the freezing gas will explode!"

"Find a small girl, kill her dad, and... uh... put her in a meat locker... ?"

"Maybe we should suck on some frozen sausage!"
"He just took his pants off, so it's only a matter of time."

"I have a cellphone!"
"It won't work in here! *dramatically* Nothing works in here."

And who can forget the classic moment, now in VividImaginationvision:



(Note: I updated the image 3 times. Here's the final product. First just had the image, second had mist, third has mood lighting/reflections.)

My fave moment:

At mini golf, seeing an deeply scared improviser being chased at high speed around the course, by a barefoot ghost waving a golf club.

you saw the ghost?!?

DAVID LEMPE RATTED ME OUT! He told my local Austinite I brought along that I was going around telling everyone to give her a high five.
You almost blew it, David! And although he ratted me out, he was the only improver at the party who met my challenge, and was successful in giving her a high five! I must admit it was a difficult challenge, she was swinging either hula hoops or glow balls most of the night.

One of my favorite lines was from Trip 5s. Jared Brustad's character was an avid Harry Potter fan. He got control of the college SADD group, kept the acronym, but changed the meaning to: "Slitherins Are Diddly Dumb."

I also love the game coney, or Dan Akroyd, or get the cone on the pole, or whatever you call that game

April had to put me in the car kicking and screaming. Luckily she was smart and brought some pretty earrings to distract me.

Thanks for a very delightful weekend, the fun never stopped.
.

my favorite non-improv moment...

Tricking Troy Miller into drinking a beer bottle filled with water twice in about 2 minutes at SVT and for the 6th time in the last 2 OoBs (4 times last year at the Double Tree). This was WAAAAAYYYY funnier than I can describe in words...sorry. Ask me about it the next time you see me.

my favorite stage moment was seeing Sean and Lampe get the recognition they deserve - thanks Mikey and Shannon!

Some of my favorite on-stage moments were watching Carrie Clifford balance out Dave Razowski. It was great to watch her carefully pick her moments to steal the show (not in a glory hog kinda way - in a perfect timing/give the show what it needed kinda way). I was blown away by Impro. I have seen and worked withthem before, but that was my first time to see improvised Shakespeare longform - UH MAY ZING!!!

Lastly - hats off to the locals!!! What a talented community we are all a part of!

katrinagren wrote: I also love the game coney, or Dan Akroyd, or get the cone on the pole, or whatever you call that game.

Dan Akroyd! and he appreciates you support more than you know!

improvstitute wrote:Tricking Troy Miller into drinking a beer bottle filled with water twice in about 2 minutes at SVT and for the 6th time in the last 2 OoBs (4 times last year at the Double Tree). This was WAAAAAYYYY funnier than I can describe in words...sorry. Ask me about it the next time you see me.

Now I do not get what the trick is here Ted. So he drank water. If he did not know he was drinking water, great trick. If it was something other than water, fucked up trick. But it was just water. Lame trick.

Asaf wrote:

improvstitute wrote:Tricking Troy Miller into drinking a beer bottle filled with water twice in about 2 minutes at SVT and for the 6th time in the last 2 OoBs (4 times last year at the Double Tree). This was WAAAAAYYYY funnier than I can describe in words...sorry. Ask me about it the next time you see me.

Now I do not get what the trick is here Ted. So he drank water. If he did not know he was drinking water, great trick. If it was something other than water, fucked up trick. But it was just water. Lame trick.

He thought he was getting beer and then would take a sip and realize it was water. He would get upset and call me terrible names. A little while later I would bring him another or have someone else bring him another or, like last year, have the bartender give him one when he ordered a beer. The trick was finding new and inventive ways to convince him that it was beer so that he would take a sip. Does that make sense? The fun in it was also having 10-15 people around the room that were in on the joke and were all anxiously waiting to see if I could pull it off again. LOW BROW and JUVENILE - but loads of fun.

Perhaps it is not your cup of tea. DON'T BE HA'IN!!!!

TexasImprovMassacre wrote:

katrinagren wrote: I also love the game coney, or Dan Akroyd, or get the cone on the pole, or whatever you call that game.

Dan Akroyd! and he appreciates you support more than you know!

'Aykroyd' is the spelling. Please honor Elwood responsibly.

Aykroyd... The point is,
I'm gonna put a pole up in my back yard and go steal some orange cones.

katrinagren wrote:Aykroyd... The point is,
I'm gonna put a pole up in my back yard and go steal some orange cones.

Did anyone see Chris Allen's amazing goal? It had to have been the best coneball shot so far.

we should have him mark the pavement from where he made it.