Oh, and Monday we did shared environments (you know, silent scenes where one person starts an environment and people join and add to it when they figure out where it is), because we did that again tonight. That's part of why I'm keeping this journal - it's just notes for me for the future.

After our usual warm-up (Follow the Follower, which Rob has titled "Pigeons. Or Orgasm.") we did the shared environments exercise, and ran some "opening snippets" a few times, and then jumped into running the show serveral times.

After we ran the first iteration of the show (event - "bridal shower", the story ended up with a fire claiming the life of the groom's other girlfriend while the bridal shower took place in an illegal bar/casino/strip club-firehouse. Wacky, but it all made sense at the time) and Armando gave us some notes, there was some concern expressed about the "rules" of the form. Armando refused to define the form much more than he already had, so we wouldn't feel trapped by having to fulfill requirements that we aren't inspired to reach, and free to shape the show as we are inspired that night. Liberating, but daunting at the same time (Jason Pardo used to tell us in the Hartford Whalers, "just do good work").

We ran the show a few more times ("Hurricane" and something else) and then Armando told us that we were right on track, especially because we had a month to rehearse without him. He was joking, but he scared the shit out of us by dead-panning a shocked "oh, crap" when he reminded that show opens two weeks after he leaves (January 5! Come see the show!). But I, for one, am feeling a lot better about the show than when I wrote "I wonder if we're going to make it". We put up stuff tonight that I wouldn't have been embarassed to perform on stage, so with two more rehearsals, it'll only get better.

Also, I had been thinking that we aren't rehearsing that much, but Shaun pointed out that the last show he was in (Free Mason Jar) did 2-hour rehearsals once a week for 8 weeks, which seems pretty standard for a lot of improv shows, for a total of 16 hours. We're doing 15 hours (plus two rehearsals after Armando leaves) and we don't need to reprise much from previous rehearsals, because only a day has passed.

Only two more days. Yippee!

P.S. Shaun wanted me to be more subtle. So I'll just point out that he's a handsome fellow.