Photo by Michelle Edwards

The Phoenix Improv Festival is, I have to say, the friendliest of all the improv festivals I've been to. For example, every ensemble gets a "den mother" assigned to them -- a local who will pick them up for the airport, get them to the shows, and fulfill requests like "take me to a tattoo convention" or "we need a construction hardhat and some Jagermeister". Also, everyone gets a gift bag that, in addition to the usual info sheets and maps, always has something handmade and special. Last year it was coloring books and this year it was finger puppets. (Note to self: take picture of awesome finger puppet.)

Last year, we took the Chicago Neutrino Project (with plenty of assists from Detroit and local folks) out to the festival. This year, we didn't get/have to do any such thing, because there's a Phoenix Neutrino Project. Graciously, in the Neutrino Nation spirit, they let Shaun, Greg, and I sit in with them. I don't know how the show went (they promise a Google Video of the show sooner or later) but I can tell you that I had the most fun and felt the most relaxed I've ever felt doing a Neutrino Project show. It was so awesome to just sit back and trust that other people were running the show.

Friday during the day Jose, the friendliest of all the friendly Phoenicians, organized a surprise trip to Fuzzy's Pizza. Oh, you.

Friday night we had our Bare show. Bare has performed at every PIF that has had non-Arizona groups (that is, 5 of the 6 PIFs) and we've got, if I can say without modesty, a bit of a reputation in Phoenix. We do always try to bring our A-game and to consciously try new things. We had worked out a format for our show over the few weeks before the festival, something that involved a fair amount of sitting around talking. At the last minute, we realized that we had been scheduled to open for Bassprov, whose whole (excellent) show is two guys sitting around talking. So, it was back to the drawing board, since we're not dicks. (Really, we're not :-) We tinkered around with our ideas a bit and ended up coming up with a modified Living Room. It was crude and vulgar and bickery and went, as best I can tell, pretty well.

This year, not only did I take pictures, there's a Flickr group so you can see everyone else's pictures as well.