Last Thursday was a long day, but a good one. We had the last Royal Fools improv show of the year, and after that, I had been invited by some students to go to a party at a house for about an hour, followed by a midnight showing of the superhero movie The Avengers.

The Fools show went off well. I was a little anxious about the audience, as it was a pretty evening out and there were other CVCA events going on that night. When we started the show, it looked as if there were about sixty people in the theater, which is a small crowd for us, but they were enthusiastic. People must have kept coming in, though, since I finally noticed a little way into the show that the theater was pretty full. I’m guessing we had over one hundred people, and they were really into the show. It was pretty spectacular.

The show was the longest show we have ever had – it went about an hour and forty-five minutes. Most shows go about an hour and fifteen minutes. This show went long because I try to let the students pick the games/skits they want to do, and they are very good at not picking the same games. As such, we had sixteen games for this show, when twelve or so is more normal. Plus, I always throw in a game for the graduating seniors, where I throw them a party and I have to guess what quirks the individual students have. I was pleased that even though the show went long, we never lost the audience.

The show itself went quite well. There were one or two moments where the energy and laughter ebbed, but that is pretty good for a show that long. The students felt it was the best show they had done, and on the whole, I was very pleased with what they did. It was pretty easy to play to an audience that was so energetic; I think after eight years of doing this, we are finally consistently getting improv-savvy crowds who know how the various games work, so they are quick with suggestions and quick with laughter.

Some of the games from the evening included:
– A slide show of the best pizza places in Italy
– A scene about a giant mechanical rabbit
– The tension between two siblings as one could throw a lacrosse ball and one could not
– An angry customer returning a fur coat to a store
– A short-order cook struggling to keep up with the pace of things, and the restaurant owner dying from a broken leg
– Justin Bieber giving a press conference on how he roasts marshmallows
– A musical chairs game about love in a lamp store that involved a genie
– A man being forced to marry a woman because she misunderstood him (while her hands were played by another Fool)
– My giving a party to four seniors, including a man who loved all Disney princesses

A good show indeed. After the show, we always have a social time where the audience can munch on snacks and chat with various Fools. I use this time to clean up, and I was pleased that even though the show ended at 8:45, by the time I was ready to go at 9:15, everyone was leaving. That was fortunate, because I wanted to get to the student party.

A couple of weeks ago, a few students invited me to a student party that was then going to go see a midnight showing of The Avengers. After mulling it over, I decided that when a bunch of eighteen-year-olds invite a forty-one-year-old to do anything with them, he really needs to go. I figured it would be a small party of eight or ten people, and then we would go see the movie. How wrong I was! There were at least thirty students at the party, and we met up with more at the theater, so that there were probably forty CVCA students at the movie, and me. I do have to say I felt pretty honored to have been the only adult who was with the group. The party was pleasant – there were food and lots of fun kids whom I know, and the evening was warm and pretty. We spent about an hour there, and then headed to the theater so that we could get there at about 11:00 so we could get good seats. It was a good thing we did get there early; the center seats were mostly taken, so we sat on the right-hand side and in the back row.

I had never been to a midnight showing of a major film before. It was a fun experience. The audience was full of superhero nerds who cheered loudly anytime anyone in costume came into the theater. It was also the first time I had been to a 3-D film, which I liked okay. I’m not sure I’m so into it that I will go out of my way for more 3-D movies, but that is what the students wanted, so I went along with them.

The actual film was great – one of the best superhero movies I have ever seen. It had a great balance of action and humor, and it was fun being in a theater where people cheered and laughed in all the right places. I headed home right after the movie, and got to bed about 3:00 am. Yes, I had already planned on taking the next day off, which was a teacher in-service day, so there were no students at school anyway. I do like being around students – they make me laugh, and I laughed a lot on Thursday.