Things I Find

patbaer:

Here’s the deal, for the two people who contacted me about last night:

1. They interacted with an audience member. It wasn’t preplanned. Three on Three improvisers should feel free to interact with the audience if the scene calls for it. Apple reacted more than another audience member might, and they used it. In the same way I wouldn’t penalize a team for a drunk audience member taking the stage, I didn’t penalize Boywonder.

2. No one on Hot Sauce told me Adam was sick. They didn’t say anything to me at all. I found out when he “got the suggestion” (he couldn’t actually hear anyone). There were only two improvisers on stage. You need three. They knew I wouldn’t like what they were doing, but instead of dropping out of the tournament or asking me to make an exception, they did it behind my back. If they had told me in advance Pally was sick and needed to fill his spot, I would have made an exception. I’m not heartless. But I also don’t enjoy being lied to.

Side note: Judges knocked off so many points for HS only having two people, they wouldn’t have advanced anyway.

I guess I missed this last year. That seems like it’s in the spirit for Adam to get the suggestion, and allow his teammates to do the bulk of the scenework. Especially if he’s just ill on one night but able to participate in later shows. It’s not like Hot Sauce wasn’t a very well-established team, and Adam’s presence was a ploy to do a two-man show for the rest of the tournament. The guy was very sick, but still manages to come to the theater and get onstage his team, only to be disqualified basically for “not doing enough” in his paltry seven minutes?

Wow Pat. With this kind of treatment, no wonder everyone’s leaving for LA.

I was interning last night, and to tell you the truth, the part that worried me most was that your dying would somehow disqualify Boy Wonder because there were now technically four people on stage.

If you think I’m being nit-picky, just reference back to last year’s final, when a very sick Adam Pally thought he was doing his bit by introducing his team Hot Sauce to the stage. They killed it, and still were disqualified, because there were only two people on stage.

Pat Baer’s got rules!

benjaminapple:

… happened at the same time tonight! At the UCB 3-on-3 Improv Tournament, Ben Whitehouse stabbed me in the stomach while I was sitting in the audience. I “died,” and then he said “I KILLED BENJAMIN APPLE,” so I threw myself on the stage floor to be the corpse he was talking about. I lay there for the remainder of Boy Wonder’s truly awesome monoscene, then jumped up and went back to my seat.

Ever since I started doing improv, I’ve had a horrible, paranoid fear that I’d suddenly jump up on stage in the middle of someone else’s show to support someone’s game move. Then tonight they made me do it. Ah, almost made me. Anyhow, afterward they said they were glad I did it and wanted me to do it even earlier. Jerks, aggravating my paranoias like that.

The first 3-on-3 quarterfinal show was great. I was thrilled that the three teams I voted for (Boy Wonder, C, C & E, and the Wild Card Team [featuring Rob Stern]) were the winning teams! I can’t wait to compete next week as part of Gladstone with Don Fanelli and Joey Burns.