iO Level Four - Week Three

Today in class we focused heavily on openings for our Harolds. Basically an opening is simply a group idea generation for the rest of the piece and can really be anything (from word association, to a scene itself), however the trend currently in Chicago (and honestly it's a bit more entertaining to watch than word association - also it gives you more elements to work with too) are organic group "non-scenic" situations - more on that bizarre phrasing later.

To start off class Bill had us play basically a big game of follow the leader - which is actually a perfect metaphor for how organic openings can work: one person makes a move and the group quickly supports them (the differences are two fold - one there is no set leader, just whoever makes a move should be supported - two supported doesn't always mean copied, though that's a great way to support).

Next Bill let us in on two big myths about opening and gave us a few tips:
Myth #1: We Have to generate information
(Anything you do on stage will provide information that you can use, so don't worry about trying to create some)
Myth #2: We Have to cover a broad range of things/ideas
(Delving deeper into a couple topics will provide far more than skirting over a thousand)

The big pieces of advice were three-fold:
Listen to each other & react to each other
If you think organic openings are "gay" (stupid) the stop doing stupid things in your openings
Don't feel like something has to happen

After this Bill gave us a heads up on a few common types of non-scenic situations that could be used in openings:
Press conference: one player is leading the press conference (he's the sane player) the rest are the reporters (absurd players). All about the Frustration game: group deliberately misunderstands one aspect of the sane player's statement and the group then explores that to death.
Scene/Character Painting: Players lay out details about an environment, character, whatever so the audience can visualize it.
Create Environments/objects with your bodies: Individual players can become objects in an environment - or entire group can become one object
We see Eight (or however many you have): Each individual in the group become a similar character - saying related lines of dialog. Example: We see Eight Pirates, everyone assumes a pirate character - one pirate then says a suggestive line of dialog (I'd like to search your booty) - suddenly it's eight pirates making suggestive comments.

The key with all of these above techniques is that they are there as a training tool - as an actual organic opening can really consist of nearly anything - and by combining elements/ideas of each (say the Scene painting with creating an environment with your body - so as people paint the scene actors step in and become it - or Character painting with we see eight - so after a character is painted one person becomes them and says something, perhaps the rest of the group mirrors that) along with other inspiration an opening is easy to create.

After practicing these Bill ended the class by having us divide into groups and practice doing an opening with three disctinct beats (using one of the above techniques as each beat) and he left us with this final bit of advice: Openings (and entire shows sometimes) are a series of Rooms & Hallways, with the Hallways being transitions.

Annoyance Level Three - Week Six

Class tonight started off with Susan uttering the following: "Tonight is the night we Fuck with you."
The entire class was about challenging us as performers and getting us to experiment outside of out comfort zone.

Susan had two of us hop up and stage and asked a simple question to kick things off: "How do you think you play?"
Which lead to some very interesting answers and a lot of insight as to the differences between how people perceive themselves versus what others perceive (this topic alone is undoubtedly the subject of numerous books, blogs, and god knows what else - so I won't belabor it more). Suffice to say there were some very surprising answers from some people considering what we've seen of each other in class.

We then proceeded to do a number of two person scenes where Susan would give each of us a specific challenge based on what she's observed over the past six weeks and our answers to the first question.
My challenge was to try on Bigger more active characters - almost over the top: think Baby Huey. And I have to say it was a complete blast.
Throughout the rest of the class we were challenged in various ways - both in two person scenes and larger group scenes. And in the end it was all about whimsy and figuring out what we all had the most fun doing and allowing ourselves to do just that.

From the class we took a ton of ideas - here are the few that translate coherently:
The day you take a risk is the day something happens
In scenes you are half of it - Create things - Make assumptions (you have all five senses to discover elements of the scene)
When people ask for help you don't have to give it to them (at least in comedy)
You don't need to know what is going to come out of your mouth Every energy is contagious Sometimes just being agreeable equals comedy
Don't be afraid to play a victim (often it's the victim on stage who is going to get off the most)
So much fun to lose in comedy You have to discover what Whimsy is for you

Annoyance Level Three - Week Five

Tonight's class focused on the dual ideas of speeding up & slowing down as well as talking versus doing in scenes.

We started off with a two person exercise that had the players get on stage - one would be designated the "talker" the other was asked to simply focus on exploring their space and existing in it (aka the "doer"). The major caveat was the "talker" had to keep talking - constantly for the entire scene (about anything - didn't matter). Each pair were given a location to play in (Taxi cab, hospital emergency room, etc).

What basically ended up happening in all of these scenes was the audience began focusing more and more on the person exploring their space instead of on the "talker" (ok I'm tired of putting that in quotes...so I'm stopping - I don't know why I started).
Also the other player ended up slowing things down a lot - not acting in slow motion - but being more deliberate in their choices and seemed to have a much more even energy than the person just talking.
In short the person just talking became much less interesting the longer the scene progressed.

The rest of the exercises in class basically just centered around varying the energy both inside scenes and between back to back scenes.

From this class we took these ideas:
At the start of a scene do something - anything.
Examine the energy of the scene before yours - Decide to match or contrast that energy.
Control the energy in a piece (show) don't let it control you.
Don;t look to the audience to tell you that you are ok - Don't say or do something because of the audience.
Express yourself.
Your characters are whole people before you ever get a partner to play with.
Feel free to let anything remind you of anything in a scene.
Watch for the frustration of "when is it my turn to talk..."
If you are already showing the audience something - you don;t have to talk about it too.
We look at your energy not the rightness of your object work.
Your strength will become your weakness - so always seek to make your weakness your strength.

Videos (aka I'm a Dirty Dirty Whore)

Hey all - so as I'm a shameless human being (and as this blog has very little integrity anyway - much less coherence). I'm posting links to a few video sketches I've produced while up here in Chicago. Watch them - tell your friends - hell tell your enemies and strangers on the street. Hopefully you'll enjoy them.


Friendship Test:


Sketch about two friends engaged in the ultimate test of their friendship.

Love in An Elevator:


Sketch about an incredibly awkward encounter between two co-workers in an elevator.

What Did You Say?:


You'll be asking yourself what exactly he said (or at least what they heard) when you see this short sketch about a fight which breaks out over a slip of the tongue (to date perhaps the most random thing I've filmed).

St. Patty's Day Shenanigans

So truth be told I really just wanted to use the word Shenanigans in a post title (is that so wrong) - though I actually do have a rather amusing story to tale about an encounter I had Saturday night.

Now wait a second, Monday was St. Patrick's day - how dare I talk about another night considering the post title, well (in case you didn't know) seeing as this year the holiday fell during Holy week the official celebration (the parades, river dyeing here in Chicago, et al) happened Saturday so it's all kosher.

So the majority of fake St. Patty's day I actually spent fairly sober and in one of two of the improv theaters up here in Chicago. I started off the day at iO where I had class managed to grab some dinner afterwards and fight the Wrigleyville crowds to make my way up to the Annoyance where I had to help run tech for a show from 7pm - 10pm. After the show (which ran a little long, but otherwise went very well) I spent the next two hours making up for lost time hanging out in the wonderful bar attached to the theater (go there sometime grab a drink catch the show, you'll thank me - go on a Saturday, you can either catch the show I work on at 8pm - or at 10pm there's the funniest Burlesque show you'll ever see with loads of Beautiful and talented ladies...and at midnight you can watch a bunch or rather drunk and hilarious guys strip and perform).
Anyway I ended up running into a fair number of people I knew while celebrating, about half of whom were scheduled to perform at midnight back down at iO.
Well when they left for the show I followed and continued the celebration back at that theater until I was booted out the door around 3am when they were closing.

And now on to the weird encounter:

So I'm walking home through Wrigleyville (which has just been ravaged by hundreds of drunk people wearing green) rather out of it from all of the celebrating when suddenly I hear a voice from across the street yelling at me: "Hey, hey wait up..."

I stop and turn and it takes me a second to spot a woman running across the street towards me. Well I wait for her to catch up to me trying to figure out who the hell she is. She gets to me and it's pretty dark on the street and I just can't place her for the life of me (I assume I have to know her because what stranger would call me out on a deserted street at 3am unless they were mugging me).
We start chit chatting, basically her asking me "Where I'm running off to so fast.." and I have no idea who she is (I'm thinking maybe someone from a class, another intern at the theater, random high school friend I don't recall). And then finally I tell her I'm heading home which is when she asks:
"Well am I invited Big Guy..."

So at this point I take a step back and really look her up and down .... definitely a fair bit older than me, knee high boots, fishnets over tights, short leather shorts, coat a little ragged and she's playing with the zipper (mind you it's 3o degrees out), bad make-up ... oh shit clearly she's a prostitute and not even an appealing one at that.

The first thought that goes through my head is: If a cop pulled up right now there would be no way in the world to explain my way out of this. My second though was what kind of shabby prostitute has to run down a potential John on the street by yelling for him to stop? My third thought was how out of it do you have to be to not recognize you're being solicited by a damn prostitute?

I let her no that I'm sorry but she is not invited back and turn to leave - only to have her follow me about half a block trying to hard sell me on inviting her home (note to the kids: the more desperate a prostitute the more likely she has an STD...and a drug addiction).


So I've finally encountered my first Chicago Lady of the Night and on fake St. Patrick's Day - I feel more and more at home here all the time.

iO Level Four - Week Two

Today in class we continued our exploration of the Harold - and actually this week jumped a little ahead of the syllabus.

After the typical warm-ups and a few open scenes to shake the cobwebs off - Bill told us we were going to roll some dice and jump right into working a little with third beats.
He got a third of the class up and basically let us know we were going to be doing a spineless Harold: a Harold sans the groups games in the middle.

The format would be as follows:

• An opening of three distinct monologues inspired from a suggestion
• Three distinct scene inspired by those monologues
• A second beat scene for each of the initial scenes
• A third round of scenes inspired by both the initial scene and it's second beat

One of the things we wanted to focus on was making the third and final scenes for each sequence be a scene that was inspired by both of the preceding scenes - instead of merely another second beat of the first scene (also that the first scenes weren't linearly inspired by the monologues: monologue A relates just to scene A, Monologue B to scene B, etc).

The biggest key in making sure that the third scenes were not just alternate second beats of the first scene was two fold: First be willing to drop your ideas of second beats for a scene after a second beat happens, Second look at the type of inspiration the second beat took (was it very literal/narrative or very tangential - if literal/narrative the third scene should probably take a fairly literal/narrative based inspiration from the first two scenes - if tangential it should probably be a tangential inspiration).

After everyone in the class got to be in one of these Bill changed it up a little bit. This time around he got four of us up and told us we would perform one initial scene and then two second beats and two third beats. The catch is - the order would go: Initial scene, Second Beat A, Third Beat A, Second Beat B, Third Beat B.
Obviously we were to take two very different inspirations for each of the second beats.

From this class we took these ideas:
Narrative & Plot are a trap in improv
In a Harold if the Second beat was tangential, perhaps the third should be as well (Likewise if the second beat was narrative based, then maybe the third should be too)
The Third beat should be inspired by both the first and second scene
Be affected by each other and really react to what your scene partner says & does
As characters you can be at odds, as actors you must always be together
You can always hold on to your characters - but you have to be willing to throw out your premises
Play the Distraction (put a spot light on the peculiar behavior or "mistake" and run with it)

Annoyance Level Three - Week Four

At the start of class the other day we worked on something that traditionally might be seen as an anathema to "good" improv to many people: Scenes & Situations where you don't automatically have a shared past with the other characters. For those of you who might not know one of the so called rules of improvisation is that you should know the other character in the scene (have a shared past of some sort) - some schools even go so far to suggest a period of time (at least six months) - this is done primarily to eliminate the start of most scenes being an awkward: "Hello, nice to meet you" or "Who are you" while at the same time automatically making it more likely that the characters on stage will care about each other (or at least be able to make assumptions on how they feel towards each other).

Well the first exercise we did instantly put us in a situation where that might not necessarily be true - though that was only one part of the exercise.
Three chairs were set up on stage and Susan let us know that all the scenes would be taking place in an airplane - we were told that we could know each other in the scenes, but were encouraged to experiment with each character being strangers to one another.
The key in these situations as we quickly found was to establish something strong for ourselves (namely a character/ point of view) as soon as possible so that we could comfortably exist in the world of the scene. The input from our scene partners still added to our own vision of our selves, but it was far easier to interact as strangers especially as all the scenes started in silence.

After this exercise - which produced some very entertaining and fun scenes - we moved on to a slightly different take on the idea.
This time four chairs were put up (we were told we could use them or not) and Susan let us know the following scenes would take place in a teacher's lounge and we were the faculty at a school. This time the focus was on shared experiences - something I've mentioned in my Counter Productive Lover posts (in regards to some of the earliest rehearsals: namely the conversation pieces). This was actually something that came about in the Airplane exercise as well - since we were all passengers on the plane and not a mix of employees (flight attendants) & passengers there was no instant status divide and we were all starting out on basically the same page in many ways.
The same thing was true about these scenes - since we were all faculty and not a mix of students and faculty and parents or whatever - we were less likely to focus on our superficial relationships (or even the setting - in this case school - related material) and instead simply interact as individual characters.

After this we moved on to playing board games (well not literally). Three people were asked to get on stage at a time and were then given a game to play: Chinese checkers, Kerplunk, Trouble, Monopoly, etc. As in the above two exercises the scenes never became about the games we were playing but far more about how we were interacting with each other through the game. If we were patient and supportive of person's move or angry and irritated by - it got us focusing on each other instead trying to develop plot or create a "funny" scene/situation.

From this class we took these ideas:
Check out why you enter a scene - often your impulse to enter is an impulse to edit
Watch out if you ever find yourself trying to "fix" things in a scene
No matter where you are (Second City, iO, etc) you've got to take care of yourself on stage
If you find that out that you are not connecting with your scene partners add to something they are doing
If you love your characters time passes and you'll bring them back naturally

iO Level Four - Week One

The other day was the first class of level four over at iO for me. This is the level where the great inner secrets of the theater finally begin to be revealed and we tackle the mythical beast known as "Harold."
What is the Harold you dare ask - well it was a show format created by the late Del Close which, in it's original form, was basically a compromise between the often chaotic open improvised scenes Del liked doing and a collection of short form games which his partner was familiar with (and helped pay the bills). Honestly entire books have been written on the subject and while I've read most of them (and can give a pretty nice history of the Harold) I'm not going to try and transcribe them here so suffice it to say it is the signature form of iO and for more information check out the improv encyclopedia article on: Harold.

The Class:
Class started off today with us talking about what makes a good Harold. We as a class decided on the following:

Good Harolds:

• Transcend the form
• Are clear and specific
• Have strong characters
• Are filled with performers that are having fun

Now trust me there are many teachers and performers who would scoff at this definition of a good Harold (especially the first item) and want to add lots more to the mix, but realistically at the end of the day this is all you need in my honest opinion (funny how these are actually the qualities of a good show, and don't comment on the structure at all - except to basically say not worry about it). Realistically in a lot of ways the Harold basically came about because people found it damn hard to teach people how to improvise by getting a group up on stage and saying do something (at least it's hard to get that to be consistent). Now don't get me wrong as a teaching tool is amazing and I love performing them - but in the improv world there are a lot of people who get a little too hung up on the form itself to the point where the structure starts to limit discovery and exploration instead of fostering it (which it was meant to do).
End Rant.

Anyway on to the class itself - today we focused on second beats of scenes, which is a huge part of the Harold - and something I love working on.
Quickly a second beat of a scene is basically just a fancy way of saying a new scene directly inspired from a previous scene. There are all kinds of ways to find inspiration for second beats - from the very literal to the very tangential.
An example of an incredibly literal second beat would be to see the exact same two characters return from the previous scene just at a different period of time (days later, months before, etc). An example of a very tangential second beat would be to see a scene inspired by a phrase someone said in the previous scene (or involving an object that was in the previous scene, or creating a character in the second scene based on the body posture of one in the first, etc) - basically anything is fair game.

Personally I usually prefer finding inspiration that falls somewhere in the middle (although I love skewing toward the tangential side from time to time). I just feel that if you end up with all very literal second beats of scenes (especially where both characters come back) you are not only limiting who can explore those scenes but also limiting the number of points of view you can bring to bear - for me at least I've always liked when the second beats try to move as far away from the first scenes as possible so that in the final act you are given more to work with (and more opportunities for connections). Though I've been in and seen shows where the characters came back again and again - and I loved them (but that was because the characters were so strong and interesting themselves).

We started with simply having a third of the class up on stage. Then two players were asked to step out and start a simple scene - inspired by a suggestion.
After this scene was over the players were asked to burn through as many possible second beats to that scene as possible (really as time allowed, as there were two more groups to go). Doing this we got to run the gambit of literal and tangential possibilities (hammering home the idea that almost anything can serve as inspiration).

After everyone had a turn at this - Bill again had a third of us hop us and this time we were to have two initial scenes. So two scenes inspired from the same suggestion but otherwise unrelated to each other back to back.
After they were done the players were then asked to perform as many second beats as possible for the scenes - but alternating back and forth (meaning the first second beat would be from scene A .. then a second beat to scene B ... the a second beat from scene A ... then another from scene B.. etc).
This was done to more closely resemble how it would work in an actual Harold as you do three initial scenes back to back and then only get to do a second beat to them after a group game - so you have to be able to remember and hold on to your inspiration.

This was a really fun class session as we were finally able to just run with a fair number of scenes and the tendency to think about what you wanted to do (that always comes up for me in exercises ... especially when your fifth in line and there's no suggestion) was eliminated.

We took these ideas away form class:
Second beats can be either very literal or very tangential - if the characters in the initial scene were very strong/interesting it'll probably skew more literal
Second Beats are the Entire team's responsibility - not just the two players who were in the corresponding initial scene
Second Beats should be able to live on their own - if a person walked in just as a second beat scene was starting they should still be able to watch and enjoy it
Characters are more important than premise
Don't worry about trying to make a scene fit into the show - just take inspiration from something that already happened and have fun with it.
If you actively try to have a message or a deeper meaning in your piece you'll come across as condescending
If you relax and have fun, while keeping your mind open connections will happen naturally
"If the whole is to be art, the parts must not try to be"

Annoyance Level Three - Week Three

This week class was all about Heightening: a term that I've seen confound numerous improvisers and improv teacher a like when asked to define it. It's almost gotten to the point in some improv classes of becoming a buzz word that people throw out with out fully understanding what it means.
So to call myself out I suppose - what is heightening exactly? First I will relate a direct quote from my teacher Susan: "There are a million different ways to Heighten."
Now to take the easy way out and borrow from the improv encyclopedia:

Heightening is adding information, to build upon what was built before and by others, to deepen character and emotion, to raise the stakes...

Now what the hell does all that actually mean? Good question - well the first part is easy: adding information - seems simple enough right, but what information exactly? Does adding any information to a scene heighten it?
Well the short answer is: kind of. as Susan said - there are millions of ways to do this out there - and technically just adding more information to a scene is one of them.

However, I feel probably eight times out of ten when talking about heightening in improv it refers to the latter half of the text book definition: deepen character/emotion and/or raise the stakes. And this is definitely what we focused on in class today - and so I'm going to throw my opinion on heightening out there.
When it comes to heightening character of emotions - the simplest explanation of what that means (at least as far as I'm concerned) is to realize what you are doing & do more of it. Sounds almost too simple right? Well the key is to realize what you are doing - emotion wise, that's fairly simple: you're angry, find thing to make you angrier - you're depressed, end up suicidal.
Character wise it can be a different story especially when you think about heightening your behavior (this isn;t the only aspect you can heighten of course - though for me at least I find working with behavior more satisfying, and often more practical in scenes).

The real trick with this of course is to make sure you don't just end up heightening you're behavior laterally (what the fuck does that mean?). Well for example say you start a scene by putting Purell (that hand sanitizer crap) on your hands and then before you open your breif case you put some Purell on it to clean it. Heightening this pattern of behavior laterally would just see you covering more and more things throughout the scene with Purell - going to kiss a baby, Purell it - about to get in a car, Purell it - etc. All well and good, except eventually you're going to run out of things to Purell and then there's no where you can really go with that. Instead if you recognize Why you might have put Purell on your hands and then brieffcase at the top of the scene - you might have decided that you're OCD, or that you're just terrified of germs and suddenly you have opened up options to yourself that don't directly involve Purell yet still heighten that original behavior. Also it's far more fun to play an OCD character, or a character terrified of germs than "guy who puts hand sanitizer on things" - especially if you end up in a long form piece where that character might come back again and again.

The Class:
We started off with and exercise I have dubbed: Holiday Dinner.
Four players hop up and sit in chairs as though they are around a table. Susan let them know that they were to be eating a holiday dinner together. The group must begin eating in silence and after a while are allowed to talk and slowly discover who they are to each other.

During this exercise Susan would often side coach people to revisit the choices they gave themselves at the top: if a player started off very happy and agreeable, no reason not to stick to that (and heighten it) even if the topic of conversation turns dark or negative.

After this exercise we moved on to a two person one which I am calling 1st Date:
Two players up on stage - they are told that they are on a first date with each other and to start in silence and naturally find out who they are.
Again the focus is on heightening the choices that the players make organically at the top of this scene.

From this class we took these ideas:
Be careful of falling into the trap of just heightening laterally
Specificity is so important
Once a character transforms in some way - the scene is over
If you can ask Why after something you do - answer it
If you as an actor are feeling a certain way - you can use it
We love what you are doing & hate when you suddenly stop/change it
There is no better idea than your idea

I almost got into a fight this week...

It was Thursday night and I was hanging out at the Annoyance theater after my class - just minding my own business. Anyway I walk up to the one open spot on the bar to get myself a drink and to my right is the short, clearly very intoxicated guy counting out cash on to the bar. There's a stack of one & twenty dollar bills and after he gets them both into a pile he mutter something and slams his fist into the bar itself.
Now I can't help but look over at this - and of course as I am he catches my eye - and in true drunk ass hole fashion he immediately asks me what the fuck I'm looking at.
I tell him sorry, just heard a noise and start to turn back. All of a sudden he gets this really intense look in his face - very angry, nostrils flaring, balls up his fist and points at me with his other hand and asks me real slowly:

"Were you born and raised in Peoria, Il?"

... Admittedly this question takes me a back - as in my long history of encounters with drunk assholes never have I had one ask me such a specific question. I tell him nope, I'm from Kentucky originally (I have to tell him twice before he understands) and as soon as he hears it all the anger just leaves him. He pats me on the shoulder and tells me "Oh good, cause you resemble some asshole I know who's ass I've wanted to beat since fifth grade."

I think that's the last I'll see of my drunk diminutive friend as we go our seperate ways, now bar friends - me 90 degrees to my left facing the bar, him to the box office. Low and behold I hear a commotion behind me and I see this guy standing at the ticket window his bic lighter in hand keeping two of my friends at bay as if they were Frankenstein's Monster. They had apparently been too close to him in the line for tickets, and so according to them he had threated to set them ablaze if they didn't back off.

The guy ended up be escorted out by two cops and while he was being escorted by me he gave me this look that I could tell meant next time we met it wouldn't matter where I was from ... unless of course he was sober.

Bad Decisions...

How can you tell when you've made a series of bad decisions? Well perhaps the easiest method is to look at the circumstances you currently find yourself in and decide whether you're happy or unhappy with them.

So the other day when I awoke in my foyer (read: the three or so feet of space that separate my apartments front door from the front door to my building) at around six in the morning to slightly below freezing temperatures & the sound of my cat meowing from inside my place - I deduced that the night before I had clearly made some bad decisions (as I was definitely unhappy).

It would not be until after a number of hours had passed however that I would slowly begin to piece together exactly what lead to me awaking basically outside with icicles on my eyelashes and an all to familiar pain behind my eyes.
Cut to around 10am. I awoke from my bed, my cat sound asleep beside me, my head clearly outside in the street being run over by a bus (at least if my nerve endings were to be believed).
After a handful of Advil and prayers to every deity I've ever heard of - I settled myself down and tried to piece together where it all went wrong the night before.

I recalled that I had been out with a couple members of my improv troupe - we had grabbed dinner together and were heading off to see the show of another troupe member as it was cheap, her last, and... BYOB (bad decision the first).

The three of us stopped at a liquor store along the way - the original plan, from what I can recall was to grab a six pack or two of beer and head out ... however when we walked in there was a wall of whiskey starring us right in the face... it was on sale (bad decision the second).

We got to the theater the plastic bottle of whiskey sitting nicely in it's black plastic bag at our feet. As the lights went down - one of my friends unscrewed the top and we started passing it around... and we didn't stop until the lights came up again (bad decision the third).

After the show I recall vaguely making a trip to the bathroom - congratulating performers - and then a problem arose. Who was to take home the half empty bottle of dirt cheap booze? Most people were walking ... at leas to the El and with the weather cold and the distance rather far, no one really wanted to carry it. It was so cheap we could have just thrown it away... but we didn't (bad decision the fourth).

I can't recall exactly the precise circumstances, but I do remember the words "kill it" - then a fire in my mouth - down my throat - in my belly. Then the next thing I knew was the cold - the sound of a cat meowing the only clue as to where I was.

I found out later from a friend of mine who works at the theater that he, along with my fellow team member who's show it was, had driven me home after I killed the bottle.
Apparently my sense of direction had gotten a little blurred and the trip took near an hour as we searched for my place. At one point I directed them to the wrong street and I hopped out making a bee line for an apartment that wasn't mine.
In the end, when my place was finally found, what apparently must have happened was they watched me walk inside the building and wave goodbye - only for me to collapse, once they were out of sight, to spend the next six hours suffering from my bad decisions.