Who's Got Next..... Yeah!

So I made it to New York safely and soundly - even the flight went surprisingly well (except for one moment where we dropped about 30 feet as we passed over Pennsylvania - "we hit a little speed bum back there" was the only acknowledgement the pilot gave to our near death).

Anyway about five hours after I got in Rick and Danny finally made it to the city after and epic 19 hour drive from St. Louis (during which Danny managed to sleep through all but two states and roughly 17 hours). While I was awaiting their arrival I bummed around the city a bit and managed to catch a very interesting interview with the founding members of the UCB (the group who made this whole festival possible) at the theatre.
Words of wisdom from the comedy masters include:
In regards to if you can teach some one to be funny: "Picture in your mind a bunch of thin people and a bunch of fat people telling the same joke. What group would be funnier? Fat people right? You see there are some things that all the teaching in the world can't help."

But, seriously they had some really great pieces of advice on the whole improv scene - from why improv shows struggle on TV to how while anyone can learn to improvise it takes a special type of person to master it.

Afterwards when the gang finally arrived, we headed back over to the theatre for the open cage match: Who's got next (a series of 3 - 1 minute sets where two teams would perform and the audience would vote who stays and who goes). We invented a new form at McDonald's 5 minutes before the show called bodies (we get up on stage have an audience member point and whoever is pointed out collapses - a scene then commences where the other improvisers must justify that body's presence). We finally got up there towards the end and both Rick & Danny collapsed letting me improvise a 3 minute set by myself with two comatose bodies... it naturally centered around date rape.
It was fun to be in a show with a bunch of improvisers where no one was taking themselves seriously at all. Some highlights include: Ju-Jitsu prov (2, then 4 improvisers trained in Brazilian Ju-jitsu fighting each other while trying to keep a scene going) and many more.

Anyway that's all for now I must revel in the little sleep I shall get tonight because tomorrow the marathon begins.