Explore and heighten: the process continues...

We completed blocking on two more sketches, and are now off-book on seven of the scheduled 10. The ability to get away from reliance on looking at the scripts for lines allows for a whole new level of scene development to take place. The writers have finished building and populating a world, and establishing a story. Now the actors use their talents to breathe life into those characters and make them interact with that world. It is an amazing thing to watch, and gives one a profound respect for the craft of acting.

It was particularly interesting to see how improvisational skills can be used effectively to help the actors explore the basic goals of their characters, as well as their relationships to other characters. We saw that whole Second City approach put into practice right before our very eyes with impressive results.

Well, for the writers it's now one weekend off for the Fourth of July. For the actors, it is another week of memorizing lines, and thinking about how to take their new personas to places we can only imagine.

--A.J. Correa




Jessica and Andrea warm up...




















Michael to Regan: You forgot the batteries.
















Kyle and Jessica discover modern relationships are very complicated...

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A collaborative process

We're still in the relatively early stages of preparing the show. So far, Mary has blocked 6 sketches, which means all of the writers have had an opportunity to see our work up on its feet. Still to go: 4 more sketches, 2 songs, and any blackouts that make the cut. So there's a great deal of work to be done before we're ready to open.

It's been a kick to see the staging evolve and how much the director and actors bring to the process--how they flesh out the characters and the worlds we've created.

--J.P. Stephenson





Worship at the Church of Comedy?












"Those massive arms--that's a good look in a man."

















Someone needs a brewski.














You say libido, I say libido.




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Another opening, another show

Six writers, six actors, a director, a music director + 8 weeks of rehearsal = a sketch review, opening August 4. We're students of the writing program at Chicago's legendary Second City, and our show (title to be determined) will be the culmination of more than a year's study and hard work. We're now in the last class of the sequence, which involves producing a sketch review that includes some of the sketches we've written and revised over the previous 4 terms. We cast the show at the end of the 4th term--we've got a great cast (the photos above show most of them)--and have started blocking and rehearsing. Our director is the incomparable Mary Scruggs, the head of the Second City writing program. Laura Kessler is our music director, and will be composing the music for two songs that will be in the show.

A couple of the writers in our class have also done some acting/improvisation/stand-up, but for the rest of us, producing this show is a new view into the performance end of things. It's been a fascinating process watching the director and actors morph words on a page into some pretty zany characters. Today we observed the Second City approach in the flesh, as actors improvised on aspects of one of the sketches to help clarify the characters and their motivations as a tool for further revisions that the writer will make to the sketch.

--J.P. Stephenson

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