Alyssa's Journal #3

I am no longer a member of the Stan Morgan All-Comedy Improv Group.

You know us (or maybe you don't) as the "whacky" bunch of "goofs" who spends every Friday and Saturday afternoon trying to make you laugh after a long week in the Prepared Beef Plant. We play over on the small stage at Ornette's. Well, it's not a stage per se. It's a spot on the floor that's slightly higher than everything else. We call it a stage.

Stan runs a tight ship. There are 6 of us up there moving through the improv games that Stan has worked out. Some are relatively straightforward. "Give me an activity that you like doing at night with someone in the dark, preferably in a bed!" "Give me an embarrassing situation that you've been in, preferably involving eating some bad Mexican food and being stuck in a traffic jam!" "Can you Find the Detective?" He made up some great ones.

"Find The Detective" was the best. It involved one of us, alone on stage, stating that somewhere in the crowd there was a real live detective and we would ferret him out. So, one of us would be in the crowd dressed as, say, a clown, a ballerina, a construction worker or an Officer of the U.S. Department of Weights and Measures. We would approach the ballerina and say "Excuse me. Are you a detective?" "Yes. I am." "You look like a ballerina." "I'm in disguise." "Who is your favorite detective?" "Rudolf Nureyev." "He was a ballerina." "He was an amateur detective throughout the end of the 19th Century and the start of the 20th." "Are you thinking of Sherlock Holmes?" [pause] "Maybe I am a ballerina."

It went on like this until the host of the game met one of us dressed in a long trenchcoat and smoking a cigarette. (Or wearing a deerstalker cap and smoking a pipe.) "Excuse me. Are you a detective?" "I'm a surveyor. I work for the county." "You're dressed like a detective." "I'm sorry. I don't know anything about that." "I think you're a detective." "Well, you found me. Perhaps you're a detective." It would go on like this. Eventually, right when the crowd was beginning to go south, the detective would fess up and reveal that the construction worker was a detective in disguise. When the audience got a closer look at the worker's hardhat, they'd see that it read "I AM A DETECTIVE" in block letters. Great game.

During the Friday afternoon show, Stan was beginning to insist that we get a "little more serious about our comedy." We began to start each show with "News of the Day". He would ask the audience for a story that was in the news. He'd get a response. We would then do a ten minute play he prepared on the dangers of drinking milk with too many chemicals in it. No matter what the story was that was Stan's big thing so...

He called it "misdirection". I thought he was being a "fat jackass".

The other games that drove me nuts were "Wallpaper" and "Suggestions".

"Wallpaper" involved us hanging up strips of wallpaper along the back wall and discussing the Communist Political Agenda in modern day China until he said "Scene!". One afternoon, he let us go for twenty minutes. There wasn't a customer in the place by time we'd finished.

"Suggestions" is the one that really drove me crazy. It closed the show. We would take suggestions from the crowd. "Color." "TV show." "Politician." "Movie." "Actor." "Food." "Soft drink." We'd accumulate all this for around five minutes and get the crowd really riled up and excited. Then, we'd say "Good Night!" and the lights would go out and we'd leave. Stan called it "Po Mo Improv". I wasn't convinced.

Last night, we had it out. The show ended at 8:30. It had gone on for 2 1/4 hours. He had introduced a new bit called "My Drunk Uncle". We would ask the crowd for the name of any uncles they could remember who were drunk all the time and we'd construct a short play around an abusive uncle. If we went for a laugh, "Uncle Neil" would hit us. I was pretty bruised by the end of it. The crowd was pretty pissed.

I told Stan after the show that he was ruining the group. (And that he received too much joy from playing the Drunk Uncle.) We had it out. He called me a whore and a piece of filth. I told him that we needed to make the crowds laugh. That's why they came here. He threatened my life and waved a piece of broken glass at me. I told him that his tyranny was ruining what was once a beautiful artistic endeavor. He punched me in the boob. I couldn't take it and told him that I wanted the group together for a vote. He said I was no longer a part of the group. If I came back, he would, personally, make sure that I never walked again.

You can imagine that I will be speaking to Ornette the next time I see him outside of the bar. I just wanted somewhere where I could free my talents. It's tough enough doing anything remotely creative in this town. I think Stan was being unreasonable. Especially when he threatened the lives of any children I might have in perpetuity.

I'll get back to you when this is resolved.