ACT III?  Nah, I don’t think so.  Why?  Because all the cool kids from ACT II are waiting until the fall, and we have SUCH an awesome crew – really, a solid bunch of friends – that I’d hate to miss it.  So I’m making the social decision to delay that one.

But dhat dhon’t mean I’m dhoing nahtingk.

Shelley Mitchell?  Maybe.  Voice / Singing classes?  Maybe.  Audition / Monologue classes?  Maybe.  Joining / starting an improv group?  Maybe, but least likely – most of my regular improv friends are either already betrothed to other crews, or they moved to LA.  So obviously, I’m not really sure yet what I’ll be doing from an education/craftwork perspective.  And there’s always the option to just take a break – but it sounds like the day job is about to pick up a solid pace for the next 2-3 months, and I need my creative outlet more than ever when the job picks up.

But, as many of you know (including my Mom), I’ve been toying around with stand-up material for… well, an embarrassingly long period of time.  But this summer, I am definitely – YES, DEFINITELY – going to put together a set for an open mic night and just get up & do it already.  In fact, I just got home from the library (one of my favorite places, in spite of the occasional waft of urine smell coming out of the bathroom) where I put together a set list & started to whittle down one of the beefier bits I’ve written to-date.  That’s an important step-until today, I didn’t really know how to go back into old material & figure out what works & what doesn’t.  Partly because I didn’t want to admit the first draft wasn’t perfect, but mostly because I had no idea how to edit my own work.  (Amazingly, I still graduated high school & college.)

But I think I found a way to do it, and am hopeful it’ll be as effective as it is simple.  Now the trick is to keep doing it, keep writing, keep rehearsing, keep exploring.  And in a few months (maybe even for my friend Joan’s b-day soiree), I should have a set.  Which, from a ‘personal accomplishment’ perspective, is going to be HUGE.

In the process, I may put you & your wisdom/humor/polite criticism to work & post some recordings here.  That would do a bunch of things at once:  add content to this awesome site; update you on the progress; force me to make progress; and give me another avenue for polite criticism/feedback on the material before I actually do the equivalent of shining a spotlight directly on my insecurities/psyche/penis in front of a crowd of complete strangers.  I think that might be a really good idea… comment if you’d be interested in listening.  I’ve already been pretty open with some new stuff via Twitter, but doing a 10-minute stand-up set that was written 140 characters at a time, while potentially awesome, is almost certainly NOT going to feel like a cohesive piece of anything.  (I do think there’s an opportunity for someone to write a LOT of hilarious stuff based on their tweets & their followers’ tweets… Conan’s writers made some pretty awesome Twitter comedy (around 20:00 in this clip) earlier this week.  Let me know if you see other funny Twitter stuff!)

That’s all for now, kids.

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