Tonight is the show. ON THE MAIN STAGE IN MCCOMAS. Improv, sketch, stand up, a new Good Commitment video sketch and more. You won’t get more laugh for your buck anywhere else. 7:30pm. One Show. $5 tickets. Due to construction, the balcony will be closed. Get there early.

With the Good Commitment video, we’ve already filmed parts of it and we’ll film the audience doing certain things before the show. Then Graham will edit it together during the show and we’ll debut it at the end.

The Lab Rats haven’t had a main stage show in over a year so tonight promises to be special. Be there.

Don’t miss the Lab Rats in action this Friday night at 7:30pm on the main stage in McComas Hall. It’s going to be a great show. Ticket reservations have been pouring in! So reserve yours now! The grand finale will be a scene performed barefoot, blindfolded and on live MOUSETRAPS. I wouldn’t miss that if I were you. Senseless pain is always entertaining.

I’d also like to take a moment to say how proud I am of the Lab Rats and the Southeastern Comedy Arts Festival. We actually pulled it off. Everybody had a great time. I just think it’s amazing what a bunch of college kids that haven’t actually been to a comedy festival before can pull off when they pull together. SECAF ‘07 will be even better, I have no doubt. BTW, we won the Eggbowl of Comedy!

This weekend! September 29th and 30th! The first ever Southeastern Comedy Arts Festival will be held in McComas Hall on the campus of Mississippi State University. The hosts are Lab Rats Comedy of Starkville. We’ve been busting our butts to pull this off and we want YOU there to laugh YOUR butt off. It’s going to be two days of comedy goodness featuring comedy troupes from all over the southeast.

Attending will be:

• Atlanta’s JaCKPie
• Columbus’ Mission Improvable
• Hattiesburg’s Stage Monkeys
• Jackson’s Off Kilter
• Memphis’ Wiseguys
• Oxford’s LaffCo
• Starkville’s Lab Rats

Friday night at 7:30pm will feature the Southeastern Idol show. There will be improv, sketch and standup in an American Idol/America’s Got Talent format. Saturday afternoon at 3:30pm will be the Egg Bowl of Comedy with Starkville’s Lab Rats facing off against Oxford’s LaffCo in improv. Saturday evening at 7:30pm will be the Improv Cage Match, a tournament style competition between the Lab Rats, Off Kilter, the Stage Monkeys and the Wiseguys.

Tickets are $5 per show or $12 for the entire weekend.

Mississippi State’s improv/sketch comedy group the Lab Rats are ready to make you laugh, guffaw, chortle and hopefully wet yourself this Friday night September the 15th in the Lab Theatre of McComas Hall. First show is at 7:30pm and the second show is at 10pm. Tickets are $5 per show AND you get a free pass into the Southeastern Comedy Arts Festival on the 29th and 30th.

Don’t miss it!

I had auditions Monday and Tuesday evening for the fall semester show here at Mississippi State University. It went fairly well, at times I felt good about it and other times not. I was cast as the President. One of the greedy corporation types who is responsible for the sorry state of affairs in the world today. Sounds about right. I think it’ll be a fun role to play.

You may remember my What Now? lament. I guess that question has been answered.

I still have two video projects on the table but I’m finding it hard to squeeze them in. It’s not looking good for this week. I have my first call tonight for Madwoman and then short form improv rehearsal at 9pm. Tomorrow night is our first football game so I won’t have any theatre stuff to do. I thought it would be an excellent evening for a date night with M. I’m leaving town Friday morning and won’t be back until Monday sometime. I’m playing in the Southern National Championship. My first disc golf tournament since early this year. I’ll probably suck but I hope to have a good time.

Richard Simmons on Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Here’s a clip from the RWS Vaudeville show. This is the Bucket, or in this case, Aquarium game. I’ll explain in the video. Oh, and the ending joke was a call-back to a previous game where Lily and I burnt down The Grove in Oxford (Oxford is where Ole Miss is located, our in-state rivals. The Grove is where they tailgate on gameday).

14MB, Quicktime

So last Friday I had the improv show. I was really nervous at the beginning of the week but by Friday I was just ready to make the funnay happen.

Highlights from the show:

-First game was Questions. In this game you and your partner are basically only allowed to ask questions to build the scene. If you make a statement or a non sequitur or repeat a question, you’re out and another person takes your place. (Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead, anyone?) Anyway, the setting, which was provided by the audience, was Hell. I’m about third in line and when it’s my turn, I open with “Is that a snowflake?” The other person says something to the effect of “What’s going on?” I comeback with “Did Mississippi State win a game?” Booyah, instant comedy. Actually for my first joke it got pretty good laughs (since our football team ain’t so good. When I say good I mean sucks.) Getting a big laugh early on relaxed me somewhat and gave me a bit of confidence.

-Will and Lily making out in Half Life and being in every other game together. They are both high energy people and they were fun to watch. After intermission when we came back into the lab theatre, Will and Lily went around the back way and were behind the “backdoor” in an embrace. So we all walk in the “front door” and the back door opens and there they are “caught” in an embrace. It was funny but I think you probably had to be there.

-Getting fondled in my first show. I was a prop in Living Scenery. In this game two people act out a scene and two other people are the props for the scene. Well I was a toilet and the other prop, er, person Derek was a wrench. And you know, uh, wrenches fiddle with nuts and bolts and stuff and well, uh, my nuts got fiddled with.

-I fell down or died a lot and by the end of the night, by knee was sore from where it was breaking my falls. Note to self, need a new falling technique.

There were other funny moments, but I can’t remember them all. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to the next show (probably February).

In other news, Story Theatre opened Tuesday morning. Having an actual audience (and children at that) made it so much more fun. For some reason I can’t quite identify, I didn’t feel very good about my performance on Tuesday. We did another show today and I felt a lot better about it but I can’t really put my finger on a reason.

I’ve learned sooo much in the last several weeks as we’ve put this show together. This is my first play and it’s been absolutely great. Our director Kevin Kern (also my teacher in the acting class) is very knowledgeable and he knows how to teach it to his students and cast. I’ve also learned a lot from the cast. They’re all younger than me by *ahem* a few years but they all have more stage experience than me and it’s been cool to learn from them. They’ve been totally awesome and have included me in their, uh, social interactions, which I appreciate.

If you are in the area you have two more opportunities to see the show: Thursday night the 17th at 7:30pm (general audience) and Friday morning the 18th at 9:30am (school children show).

I’ll be sad after Friday cause they’ll be no more shows or rehearsals. I won’t get to hang out with swell theatre MSU people much. But I’m looking forward to the next opportunity which is coming up in December at Starkville Community Theatre: auditions for Terror By Gaslight. I had so much fun and met so many great people at SCT over the summer for my first experience on the stage with the musical revue that I hope to get a part in the show cause I know it’ll be another great SCT experience.

Ok, that’s it for now. Harry Potter and Walk The Line open this weekend, I think. Gonna try to see ‘em both.

tomorrow night I’m Runnin’ With Scissors.

Yep, my first improv show is tomorrow night Friday the 11th at 7:30pm at McComas Hall in the lab theatre. I’m totally excited and a little bit nervous (everytime I think about it, I poop a little in my pants). I mean, I might freeze up and won’t be able to speak. Or maybe I won’t be funny.

Ok, haha, that’s ridiculous. Of course, I’ll be funny. Heck, if I can’t think of anything to say, THE CLOTHES ARE COMING OFF.

Which reminds me of one thing I’ve learned since I got involved in theatre lo these 5 months: theatre people will take off their clothes at the drop of a hat and with no provocation whatsoever. Interesting tidbit for ya there.

Anyway, there will be another show at 10:00pm. I’m not in that one so you’ll want to come and see both, obviously. Drive, fly, run, tricycle, pogo stick: whatever you gotta do to get here and see the show. You’ll need to clear any excuses with me prior to the show

Otherwise, you’ll be hearing from me.

In acting class today, we studied improvisation. There are rules, well not really rules, but guidelines when doing improvisation. After thinking about it a bit I’ve decided to incorporate these rules into not just class and improv practice but everyday conversation.

So here’s some of them for your perusal.

Yes, and This means that when someone says something to you, you reply in the affirmative AND with a statement of your own that raises the stakes, so-to-speak. You’re trying to build a metaphorical ladder, so someone makes a statement, you say “Yes, and” follow up with something that is a rung higher. This way you are both contributing to the scene and it’s going somewhere.

So, if your boss says I think you are doing a fine job on project XYZ, you respond with Yes, and I’m so good that I’m totally kicking the collective office asses of everyone here, so you’d better watch your back and your job. Just an example, apply it to where you see fit.

No questions This follows along with the first guideline. Both people need to contribute to the scene, if one person makes a statement and you follow it with a question, you are putting all the creative burden on the other person.

This one could prove difficult in Real Life, but there are ways around it. Instead of Will you help me move this really heavy couch?, just say Here, grab the other end of this couch and move it. That way it eliminates that “gray” area people have when thinking about if it’s a good idea to help you or not.

Don’t say No If someone makes a statement, don’t disagree with it or you’ll kill the scene. Also, you don’t want to get into a situation like I am holding a banana. No you’re not. Uh, yes I am. No you’re not. Yes, yes I am. Are not. etc etc

Hmmm, sometimes I need to say no, you know? If someone says Here, grab the other end of this couch and move it. I’d be all Uh, no. But if some chica caliente (or chico, to be fair to my wife) says Can I have a three-way with you and your wife? of course I should say No, but according to the new rules of conversation, I can’t! Yes. Yes you may.

Off the top of your head Say the first thing that comes to you, don’t listen to that little censor in your head that says “no, that’s stupid, don’t say that.” Usually the first thing you think of will be the most interesting.

Boy, oh, boy could this one get you in trouble. But hey, you gotta practice the rules to get better at improv and why not practice in everyday conversations? So when your wife/mother/or significant other asks if you want seconds of the meat loaf they made, just let fly the first thing that pops into your head Are you serious? I ate the first helping to be nice. If I have to eat any more of that excrement my stomach will secede from the digestive tract and create its own union at Shoney’s down the street.

There were more, but I’ll stop here. I don’t want to inundate you with new rules for your life all at once. Let me know how it works out for you.