November 30th, 1996
Pickle
Second City doesn't name their shows until 3 weeks before they open, so
I've decided to call this show "pickle" as a working title. It's easy for me to type and
I'm sure it has some inner meaning. I didn't want to keep calling it "the show"
The Show
I've decided Pickle is annoying so I will just call it The Show
How I'm going to do this....
I'm just going to type shit and throw it up without censoring myself.
Why?
Because that's pretty much the way I am in life
Trouble
That's what I get in a lot of being this way
Care
I really don't
The Show as of November 30th, 1996
We are now finishing one month of working on the current mainstage show.
So far it has been a breeze. The improv sets have been productive, as have the rehearsals.
There's a difference in the substance of material and how funny it is. We're getting a
higher "hit" ratio on our scenes than we did in Citizen Gates. Speaking of Citizen Gates,
it is no longer that. We have replaced 5 scenes with 3 new ones and two improv games.
If you want to get rid of a scene in a Second City show, you can always replace it with
a game. Audiences love them and it usually maintains the energy of the show while the
scene that will eventually take its place is being developed. The three new scenes are
working well. (Gosh at this point I was going to describe the scenes but I don't think
I would want to give them away for anyone who hasn't seen them.....hmmm....(tapping
keyboard)......................i won't. I'll just say I'm pretty much pleased with them. The only
problem with them right now is that they seem a little too "second city" for me and
the cast. "What the hell does that mean?", you may ask but probably didn't. Well, it means
that over time Second City (along with about every other sketch comedy show you've seen
on television and stage) have adapted patterns of style, structure,theme and ways of getting
out of scenes that show up time and time again. These current scenes have those qualities.
It's the very thing that Second City, along with other places like The Annoyance and Improv
Olympic here in Chicago, are attempting to explore and challenge. Challenge is a harsh
word....evolve. Pinata did that, as did Gates, as did a number of other shows over the years
in Chicago. I truly believe that Pinata was the ground breaking consequence of a decade
of fucking with form and structure all around this city.
Blah Blah. I do that sometimes,
too. (Go off on shit).
Anyhows, that's where we are thus far. We have three new scenes in the show and
they're funny and they look just like three little good Second City scenes and that's good.
The scene working is all that matters. I know (and so does the cast but it's easy to
forget sometimes) that these scenes will never appear as they are when the show opens.
As a matter of fact, they may not appear at all. They are three of 35 scenes that are currently on the boards for possibilities. As a note, in a show like this,
about 10% of the scenes you consider show up on opening night. It's kind of like a film
that way. The shooting ratio of a Second City show is about 10 to 1. It annoys me when
anyone I work with forgets that....that is to say that they assume everything we're working
on right now will be in the show opening night. Thankfully, no one in this process thinks
that way....yet.
For those keeping score, the names of the new scenes are Ice Cream Cone, Country, and
Grandma's Records. That's all for now, see you soon.
Go to.....
