Back in Business, Baby!

Hey everybody! Long time no see. I figure the easiest way to keep in contact with everyone while I've shipped off to sea is to start the blog back up. Yup, for the next 2 months, this will be the best place for Ian-related information. As you may know, I just accepted a job with the Second City, performing for 2 months aboard a 'Norwegian Cruise Lines' cruise ship. This past Tuesday, I left town, but not before I had a late breakfast with some friends at Fran's 24-hour diner.


As usual, I showed up about an hour late. Brandy, JimKim, PK, and Kyra were there, to enjoy pancakes and good times. Good relaxing quiet times. Namely since the night before was spent at the Willow bar, drinking our faces off after a Bad Dog show. I have cool friends (especially considering how JimKim burned the entire 1st season of "Heroes" for me to watch on the boat).

So the first part of my fantastic voyage brought me to Pearson Airport, where I met up with Marco Timpano and Amanda Barker, my fellow Canadian shipmates.


Fun facts about Amanda and Marco:

- The three of us worked together several years ago in the improvised dinner-theatre show ‘Tony ‘n Tina’s Wedding’.
- Amanda is a fellow East-Coaster (kind of) from New Brunswick.
- I went to Dalhousie and was friends with her brother Garrett Barker (we discovered this years later).
- Amanda is also in the Second City Toronto Touring Company.
- Marco is a very cool guy who has been improvising for years in Toronto; we’ve also taken classes together in the past.
- Marco and Amanda are dating. Awwww...

I immediately marveled at how much luggage Marco and Amanda packed. Granted, they’ll be on the boat for 4 months (whereas I’m only doing 2). But seriously, they packed like 3 big bags each. I immediately began to assume that I had forgotten to pack important things (turns out I did). We got our stuff together, and went through immigration without a hitch. Upon arriving in the terminal, one of the ladies who drives the motorized carts must not have been very busy, because she offered to drive us to our gate. Her name was Sumira, and she was very nice. We got her to drive us a bit farther, to Tim Hortons. Our flight was delayed an hour, so we hung out, got coffee (Amanda and Marco got their last Tim Hortons for 4 months), ran lines, and gossiped about Second City (which is the main Second City performer pastime).

A couple of hours later, we were in the air on our way to the Windy City. We arrived about 9:30, got into the city, and took a work-subsidized taxi to our hotel. It was a fairly nice Best Western, but it was paid for by work, so I was ecstatic (frankly, I would have been satisfied with a teepee in the middle of the park). We looked around for some authentic Chicago cuisine, but then just gave up and ate McDonald’s (it was getting late). The next morning we got a cab to Second City, and were brought into the Mainstage theatre. For the following 3 days, we would get to rehearse on the Mainstage. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked about this. While poking around backstage we soon met our fellow performers. The first was Michelle Miracle, who flew out from Los Angeles. Some fun facts about Michelle:

- That is her real last name.
- She also does stand-up.
- She was an understudy for the short-lived Denver Second City, which was apparently quite the hotbed of talent.
- She does not eat pork.

The next fellow we met was Derek Shipman, from Tennessee (by way of the Las Vegas Second City “Scriptless” improv show). More fun facts:

- Derek is very funny.
- He has a cool, but subtle, Southern Accent.
- He really digs pirate movies, and pirates in general.
- He is about as big a Buffy nerd as I am.
- He doesn’t drink.


This is Derek and Michelle.

And last but not least, we met our musical director, Katy Marquardt:

- Katy is from Indiana, but now lives in Chicago.
- She enjoys musical theater.
- Apparently, her high school had the kick-assest drama program ever.
- She enjoys video games.
- She is a vegetarian, but doesn’t like to bother people about it.


So that’s our cast. We all met up in the theatre, and were quickly introduced to our director, Matt Hovde. Some fun... ah, I’m tired of this joke for now. I’ll tell you more about Matt later (though I will say that he’s a pretty cool guy). We began rehearsals right away, since we had a lot to get through (a whole 55-minute show to rehearse, and lots of improv games to get on the same page with). Matt gave us our full scripts (we only received part of them ahead of time, which I actually had memorized. Go Ian!). We had about 5 scenes, some short “blackout” scenes, and a few improv games (4-Square, Conducted Story, and Debate, for those in the know). The next few days of rehearsal FLEW by, and were honestly some of the most fun I’ve ever had working and performing. The whole experience was like a compressed Second City experience – kind of a “Second City Fantasy Camp”.

But that wasn’t all! We also had some cool side adventures in Chicago. Wednesday night, Michelle and I took a cab up to the Annoyance Theater, and very cool little improv/ comedy theatre in Chicago. It’s kind of like the Bad Dog Theatre in Toronto, except a bit bigger, and with booze. Very cool vibe, though.


It was started by (among other people) a very cool improviser and director named Mick Napier. I recently spent some time hanging out with Mick in Toronto for, uh... reasons I’m not really allowed to discuss yet. But I ran into him there, which was cool. Michelle and I saw a sketch show called “Competing Elderly British Detectives” which kicked ass. Very nerdy, reference-heavy, and tight comedy. Peters, you guys would have LOVED this show. One of the performers in the show (Brendan) was a friend of Michelle’s from Denver who is currently understudying for the Chicago Mainstage, so we hung out with him and his wife Beth (also a Second City performer). They recently returned from working on one of these cruises, so they gave us lots of advice. And a ride back to the hotel. Nicest people ever.
The next night Michelle, Marco, Amanda, and our stage manager Kyle (who was only with us in Chicago) went to see the Second City Mainstage Show, “Between Barack and a Hard Place”. Incidentally our director, Matt Hovde, also directed the Mainstage show. “Barack” was excellent, definitely one of the better SC shows I’ve ever seen. Obviously the show contains a lot of material about Barack Obama, and that night there were over 200 staffers from Obama’s campaign headquarters in the audience. Anytime someone mentioned Barack, they went ape-shit (it felt like a BizCo show, for those who know what I’m talking about). But the coolest part was yet to come... After the Mainstage show, one of the actors, Amber Ruffin, came out to our table and, knowing Michelle from Denver and knowing that we were Second City performers, invited us to do the improv set with them. I can honestly say, without hyperbole, that this was (thus far) one of the highpoints of my year. Maybe more. Who knows? We did a “Commando” set (lots of short scenes), and I ended up in a few scenes that I liked. It definitely wasn’t my finest work, but I had a blast, and got to share a stage with Brian Gallivan, which was really a treat (Mom, you may remember him as the guy from the ‘Gay Shakespeare’ scenes in the “Red Scare” show we saw a few years back). Marco, Amanda, and Michelle were equally as stoked, and we basically talked about it for days. So that was the high point thus far.



This is us backstage. Also pictured hanging out and drinking: Mick Napier. Again.

That seems like as good a point as any to finish off for now. In the next blog, I’ll tell you all about flying to New York, getting on the ship, and my epic battle with pirates! Cheers all.

(note: This blog will have more pictures later. The ship's satellite is being weird. Stupid Bermuda Triangle...)