Lovin’ Fools – a Hit!

 Friday night was the first-ever off-site, non-CVCA-venue Fools show. After the first Fools show of this year, back in December, a CVCA alum (and wife of a CVCA teacher) approached me and asked if we would mind being the entertainment for their church’s Valentine’s Day get-together. I was surprised, but quickly said I would think about it and run it past the students. They were pretty excited about the idea, and so we landed an extra show for this year.

I also now have an assistant coach. One of the Founding Fools asked if she could come back and help coach. Since the Fools group is now 10 members, I accepted the offer – it will allow me to split the group in half and get the individual students more stage time in practice. Mer and I gave the new coach, Clarice, a ride to the show. We chatted about coaching things and got to the church about 6:00, with the doors opening at 7:00 and the show starting about 7:15 or so.

Our friends had done a great job – the basement fellowship hall of the church was looking pretty classy. There was black fabric hung around with white lights draped behind them. There were about 10-12 tables in the hall covered with black tablecloths and candles. At the front of the hall there was a small stage that was in the shape of a T – a broad back portion with a small thrust stage sticking out. The stage was about six inches off of the floor and was made of bouncy plywood. There was a small office on one side of the stage that we were allowed to use as a hang-out room (a green room), as well as for an isolation chamber for the various guessing-game improv skits. Finally, and amazingly for us, there were two small red-tinted spotlights illuminating the stage. It was a nice set-up.

The various Fools showed up by 6:15 (except for one who was stuck in traffic), so we went over stage notes. People started trickling in about 6:45, and so we found a room in the upstairs of the church where we could warm up. We headed back down to the fellowship hall around 7:00, and we ensconced ourselves in the “green room” until we were given the thumbs-up at about 6:15.

The room was pretty full – probably about 60-70 people. It appears the Fools have a bit of a cult following – we did not advertise this show at all at CVCA, but there were still about 25 CVCA people in the audience, including a fair number of students. The crowd was very enthusiastic and was much fun to play to. They needed some extra prompting to give us suggestions to get scenes going, but I think that is due to not being familiar with improv shows and how they work.

The show itself went pretty well. There were only a couple of games that either lagged or went long. Since we played a total of 14 games, that is a pretty good percentage! We had several crowd-roaring moments, and most of the show was laugh-worthy (in a good way). Some highlights:

– a “new choice” where a basement was infested with a dinosaur
– a super-fast “interrogation” where the criminal nailed that she had stolen paper clips with Rapunzel in the White House
– a “genre rewind” where the character had a sore tooth and a crazy dentist and had to perform the scene as opera
– a “good, bad, and ugly advice” where one character was a nasally geek/nerd
– a “musical chairs” where a man forgot to get his girlfriend a diamond ring for Valentine’s Day, and settled on getting glass rings instead, and they ended up in a zoo in China
– a “political debate” that got my friend Nate on stage (since he goes to the church and works at CVCA), where we debated belly button lint and number two pencils

The show did have a half-hour intermission, so I don’t think it felt too long. We went about an hour and fifteen minutes (I think).

After the show, we headed over to the house of one of the Fools – she lived only a few blocks away and invited us back for pizza. 7 of the 10 Fools could make it, and so we caravaned the short distance over. Clarice, Mer and I ate pizza and chatted with a couple of parents and grandparents upstairs while the Fools headed to the basement. After we finished eating, Mer and I and Clarice headed downstairs to see what was up. The various Fools were chatting while a couple played Halo on an X-Box. We joined in the small talk, and then I was forced to play Halo for the first time ever, happily against another Halo newbie. I lost 3-2, and it was universally agreed that we were pretty sad players. I then played another Fool at Rock’em Sock’em Robots. I lost that too, so I lost both new school and old school games. I must be getting older.

We’ll have another Fools show back home at CVCA in March. I hope it goes as well as our Friday gig.

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