Our first Royal Fools show of the year was back on December 11th. Royal Fools is my improv comedy group that I coach at CVCA, and this marked the sixth year of Fools being around. Amazing to me, but I am glad of it.

My assistant coach (and Founding Fool), Clarice, came over to the house before the show. Mer made a very good casserole, and we chatted about the show. I headed over a tad early to get things set up (make sure we have enough chairs on stage, get a table for refreshments, that sort of thing).

We have a good group of Fools this year – a group of 12, which is the biggest ensemble yet. I actually limited the group to grades 10-12 (I used to allow ninth graders to join) because the group is as big as I would want it to be. I’ve turned away 2-3 people who wanted to join after the year had started as well. I feel like we are getting pretty established as a group.

This particular Friday was busy – there was a home basketball game, and there had been a sophomore class skating party, and I think something else was going on as well. So, I was very pleased when we ended up with an estimated audience of about 80 people. As usual, the audience was very supportive and good-natured.

The show itself went well. We made a few mistakes here and there (yes, you can make mistakes in improv), but we did not tank any games. There were some pretty spectacular moments as well:
– a political debate about Santa Claus, and the revelation that the red-wearing guy is really “Commie Claus”
– a superhero called Concrete Boy, who filled in the San Andreas Fault using himself (and in the process falling on his chest without catching himself at all)
– a proposal of marriage voiced by “Do I have to?”
– a dancing wombat

We debuted two new (to us) games. One is called “Showdown at the Improv Corral” (or Showdown for short). In this game, two teams of three square off against each other, and go back and forth trying to outdo the other team by creating more interest in saying a single phrase over and over. It’s a concept in improv called “heightening.” The game went over quite well, but Clarice and I need to figure out a good, short way to explain to the audience what is going on.

We also introduced a game called “Salesman” where a Fool tries to sell a random object to two separate people who really don’t need it. In this instance, the salesman had to sell a nosehair trimmer to a yo-yo expert and then to a soccer star. The audience enjoyed it, and I think we will do even better next time (now that we have seen how it will work on stage).

The Fools came through with food this time, and so the hanging out after the show was festive. That was a good thing, because the show came in pretty short for us (just under an hour). Most of our shows are about 75-85 minutes long, so I was glad to have food available for people to hang out and chat.

Once everyone was gone and we had cleaned up (about 9:00), Mer and I grabbed our friend Dubbs, and met our friends Rachel and Nate at Coldstone Creamery up in Hudson. We ate too much ice cream and had a good time chatting. All in all, a very successful evening.