Growing Up vs Growing Old

Tomorrow Salsation Theatre Company, NFP takes the stage at The Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival (more commonly referred to as "Sketchfest") 2017.  We've put together what I consider to be a really good show and I am hoping the audience appreciates the hard work everybody has put into it.  As we're on the eve of Sketchfest, I'm reflecting a bit before going to bed.

Back From The Dark

Salsation has been pretty quiet over the last couple of years.  We had Los Improviachis keeping the name out there but it pretty much became its own monster of an improv team known for putting on really fun, audience interactive shows.  Salsation has been more known for sketch than anything else and as a group, we were tired.  Plain and simple.  The senior members of the ensemble had a lot of changes come into their lives and continuing on in the same manner we had been operating over the years was taxing us to the point that we couldn't continue delivering quality material.  We needed a break and decided to "go dark" vs. just abandoning it since Salsation does have a place in the history books of Chicago improv & sketch comedy for being the longest lasting Latino theatre company doing the art-form.

My break took me into new places within the improv community.  I began teaching, touring, and playing a ton more.  I got to run workshops, attend improv camps, start new teams, showcase my existing teams, and be featured in improv festivals.  With all of the unscripted joy, I knew at some point I would want to get back to doing original scripted work.  With the advent of Improñol and continuation of Los Improviachis, I also started mining more of my heritage.  I started speaking a ton more Spanish and having to incorporate it into my art.  The political season of 2016 made me face some realities about Latinos in this new era that I felt needed to be explored.  All of these things culminated in bring Salsation out of hibernation and into the light.

The Writing Process

One of the biggest changes for this show was that it basically started as a two-man show.  One of the other members of the group was jonesing to be more involved artistically and since I was feeling the pull of sketch comedy, I decided to take a chance on just having some fun.

Most sketch comedy shows are put together in the following way:

• A group of people get together and want to produced a sketch revue
• They might find a director or writing coach to start writing a bunch of scenes.  They also might go at it themselves for a bit.
• They spend weeks getting those sketches up to par with what they find funny.  
• They then get a venue to play and start blocking scenes, memorizing lines, and rehearsing.
• They do the show for 4-6 weeks and then do it again at some point down the road.

I'm leaving out a lot of other things that happen but creatively I feel I've captured the gist of the process.  This takes typically 3 months to put together.  I didn't want to feel that weight on my shoulders because I've been there/done that with this process enough and its exhausting.  I decided to put on new rules for this endeavor:

• Sketches will be written from improvisation.  All improv will be taped and posted for others to review.
• If a sketch was brought in, it'll be table-read by everyone involved then we will immediately re-improvise it (aka known as "drop script").  Revisions will be written based on what major things were memorable from the table read and any new gems gathered during improvisation.  The process is repeated until the team deems it "good enough" to perform.
• Sketches that are not fully completed are able to go into any show deemed fit.  The expectation is that getting these kinds of premises in front of people might bring some goodness out of the people acting them out.

This process isn't novel.  The Second City mainstage productions pretty much does this as their method of writing material.  I found this process to be totally freeing and very collaborative.  Too many times have I been part of shows where I am put in a position to write material only to have my 10-15 sketches completely ignored by a director or a group that doesn't see value in my voice.  This method  would give my material at least a better chance to make it viewable by an audience.   It also makes the process more organic and reduces expectations and disappointment because everything is much more collaborative.

The Results

We started with two people.  We then brought on another once they had heard of the process and the ease of expectations from me which was much more laid back and easy going.  Then we brought on another who was willing to just be a part of it.  With this group of people we were able to put up two shows at Second City with good feedback on the new material.  Then later to my surprise we brought on another person who I thought would never want to deal with another sketch show again after being in the trenches like me for so many years and feeling unheard.  After reconciling rehearsal dates and schedules, I found myself having a really good group of fun, smart people who put their all into putting together a great show for Sketchfest.

What I Learned
Improv (and age) has really helped me chill out on my intensity and need for control in the creative processes.  I've done so much improv that I see how much more fun letting go and going with things can be.  It doesn't mean I'm a push-over; rather, I see that when I don't force things to happen, magic normally occurs.

I hope you're able to join us for the showcase.  For more info, visit http://bit.ly/salsketch17.

Improv Tip: How Do I Know If I Had A Good Show?

In this installment, Nelson provides his philosophy on how to determine if he had a good show or not.

For more, visit his website at http://nelsonv.blogspot.com

When Not Being On the Bandwagon Helps You Out

Ever since around the 7th/8th grade, I began an attitude of exerting my individuality.  My whole life until then, all I really wanted was to blend in and be accepted just like everyone else.  Now, I want to be accepted as the individual I am.  As a part of exerting my individuality, one of the things I do a lot is try to avoid hype wherever possible.  I automatically want to hate whatever is currently popular or the "in" thing to sport or do.

For example, Pulp Fiction came out in 1994.  When it came out, EVERYBODY was recreating pivotal scenes from the movie or talking about how bad ass Samuel Jackson was in the movie or how Quentin Tarintino was a gift from the filmaking gawds and how revolutionary his movies were.  Hearing all of that, I automatically knew I was going to hate this movie - not because it in itself was a bad movie - but rather because I wanted to be different from everybody else and that meant espousing the opposite opinion on everything.  In order to avoid all of that, I decided to just not see the movie until I felt I could judge the movie on its own merits.  It took me 21 years later to finally watch it.  Yeah, it was a good movie after all.

I'm currently doing the same thing with Hamilton.  I've purposely avoided listening to the soundtrack, mixtape, or going to the theatre to see it (however, I almost auditioned for it during their last cattle call...hey, it's a paid gig!).  It sounds absolutely awesome and very much in the vein of the two things I like - hip-hop and theatre.  However, with the circles I keep, I've had to endure countless Hamilton references, social media rants and raves, people acting out scenes from the show, and folks telling me that it will change my life to see it.  All of those things engaged my avoid-at-all-costs mechanism and thus I've been ignorantly living in a Hamilton-free bubble for the last year or so.

I decided to audition for a show based off Hamilton recently.  I figured that since it was by a local improv company known for fantastic improvised long-form musicals, I would have a decent shot at maybe throwing down with them (many of whom I've worked/studied with).  So, I went up the city to check out this audition to see what I could do.

While waiting in the lobby, I listened to people talking about Hamilton with the same reverence and enthusiasm as I was accustomed to.  Once they were all done, I mentioned, "I haven't seen it yet nor have I listened to the soundtrack."  As soon as I said that, I felt like I got written off by those folks - not in necessarily a conscious way - but rather in a "Dude, why are you even auditioning for this?" kind of way.  We went in and I hoped for the best :)

I ended up having one of the best auditions I've had in a while.  We did a lot of things I ws already exposed to or that my skills let me answer the call for.  My favorite part came when the director asked "Who has seen or listened to Hamilton?"  I was the only person auditioning who wasn't raising their hand.  The director took a look at me and said, "Don't worry. You'll get it" and proceeded to describe what he was looking for.  He was right. I totally got it.

It's cool to get recognized for skill even when you weren't necessarily on the wagon with everyone else.

The Future of Our Country Will Be Led By The Likes of Kanye West

2016 has really sucked for America.  We lost Prince, Alan Rickman, Abe Vigoda, Gene Wilder, Mohammed Ali, and Pat Harrington (look 'em up!).  Black people (and other unpublicized people of color) who have been victim to corrupt police state final broke through to mainstream status when the media had no choice but to cover their stories and force all Americans to face the fact we as a nation have a race problem.  And, of course, most of all, we have a reality star as our President-elect who alienated so many people along the way during his campaign that the country has canonical proof that we're divided as people.

And then there's Kaney West...

Kanye has been speaking his mind ever since he started his career; he's outspoken and feels he's the voice of a generation because his artistry is "genius" and thus gives him an advantage over everybody else in all subjects including politics.  He's been outspoken about how blacks were not a concern to the Bush administration during Hurricane Katrina, how blacks are not welcomed or respected in the fashion world, and his feelings about how racism caused Taylor Swift to win an award over Beyoncé.  It would appear that Kanye is in tune with how race plays into our every day lives (or at least within his reality warp bubble) - until now.

Kanye decided to rant at a concert earlier this week.  Check out the footage below first:

Kanye West told a crowd of people that he would've voted for Donald Trump - IF he had voted.  Many people booed him for making this statement based on the principle that many feel Trump does not have their best interests in mind.  Kanye further tried to explain that he didn't necessarily would've voted because he agreed with his policies, but rather he feels kinship with how Trump ran his campaign and eventually won - it was "absolutely genius - because if fawkin' worked" - and he "fawks with that".  Here are my problems with this logic:

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda...

Trump ran an 8th grade president of the student council campaign:
- "NO HOMEWORK EVER AGAIN!"
- "FREE PIZZA ON FRIDAYS!"
- "GUM CHEWING WILL BE NO LONGER BE AN OFFENSE!"

This is promising people things you cannot personally deliver but sound good.  Oh, let me translate the statements above into Trumpese:

Can't be any clearer...

- "WE'RE GOING TO BUILD A WALL AND MEXICO'S GOING TO PAY FOR IT!"
- "OBAMACARE. WE'RE GOING TO REPEAL IT, WE'RE GOING TO REPLACE IT, GET SOMETHING GREAT. REPEAL IT, REPLACE IT, GET SOMETHING GREAT!"
- "DONALD J. TRUMP IS CALLING FOR A COMPLETE AND TOTAL SHUTDOWN OF MUSLIMS ENTERING THE UNITED STATES UNTIL OUR COUNTRY'S REPRESENTATIVES CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON."

Lots of promises with no real, transparent plans on how to do them. 

Kanye, you respect the "game" being run and figure that is more important than the results of having that game run on everyone?  Your narcissism and megalomania then knows no bounds.

You got knocked the FAWK out!!!

I Will Choose Freewill!

Kanye didn't vote. Granted, that is a vote in a way (as Rush says, "you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"); however, it's difficult to take him seriously as he chose to not vote - not even for Trump. The fact remains he didn't vote for Trump (or anybody else). To me that knocks him out of the conversation of having any valid point to really make. It'd be like someone saying "If I had trained hard enough, I would've totally kicked Mike Tyson's ass in his prime." The truth is you'd get your fat ass knocked out in the first 10 seconds of Round 1.

What would Hall & Oats Do?!!

You're Out Of Touch. I'm Out of Time.

Kanye seems to be a bit out of touch with the plight of the common black person (or person of color in general). Later on in the rant he basically told his fans to stop talking about racism.  He said, "This world is racist, OK? Let's stop being distracted to focus on that as much. It's a fucking fact. We are in a racist country."  The intent behind this statement was have blacks stop dwelling that it's racist and be motivated beyond identifying the problem.  However, the message was not conveyed this way but rather asked blacks to stop talking about racism all together and accept that it's "just the way it is".  I instead would rather have blacks continue bringing up race.  Obviously we as a country have tricked ourselves into believing that we made it further along in race relations than we actually have.  We need to keep talking about it until we have no choice but to accept it as a whole society and move to end it.

His position as a celebrity, multi-millionaire, and part of the Kardashian Klan has skewed his perception of the real world for many of us.  Part of his appeal was that he was (at the beginning?) somewhat down to earth with his approach to music.  However, lately, he's gotten more obnoxious condescending, and narcissistic in his pursuit of his art that he's alienating anybody who could actually relate to him in a real-world sense.  It's a big reason why I'm not  fan - as much of a narcissist as I am, I can't fathom to be at his level of self aggrandizement.

What scares me now that Trump is office is that we collectively are willing to follow versus lead.  People like Kanye West are ready to take advantage of this fact.  He will help lead this nation in the future.  Is that what you want?

Oh, and remember, he's running for President in 2020...

Jumping from Lily to Lily

Lilies of the Field opened last night with a strong pace, great acting, and lovely story.  

I have to admit that this production has been more advanced than other productions I've been a part of.  We started rehearsals in August.  By September, one of the major players had his lines pretty much ready to go by beginning of September.  The rest of us worked dilligently on our lines from then and did a really good job of embodying our characters and motivations.  We were able to take 4 day haituses amd come back even stronger than before.  We even included a first time actor into the fold and get him up to speed.  Most productions I'm a part of

Tonight we should have over 100 people in the crowd.   I'm going to bring even more energy and passion to the show to more people tonight!

For more information on Lilies of the Field and to get tickets, visit http://bit.ly/vtclilies.