I thought I’d take a moment before your Summer Friday commenced to let you know about the New Team Harold that is happening on THIS SUNDAY at 5:30.  This is my first 12 week class, and even though they have been offered for about 2 years, it seems that Shannon is the only one who teaches them anymore. I wish that more teachers would be able to teach classes like these because something happens to the mentality of the class when you know you’ll be in it for so long.

I  had done an 8 week class right before this one and by our last show, there were still people in the class whose name I didn’t know. Every week we’d have at least one or two people missing and hell, I was guilty of it myself. My favorite part was that we were in the back trying to come up with names and I was just eating an apple and a guy went, “How about Michelle’s Apple??” and I just smiled because I also didn’t know his name either and then told him “That’s a great name, but my name is Melissa.” Our team name was Michelle’s Apple.

What also makes it special is that  Shannon split us into teams and you get to exclusively work with people for a long period of time makes you have to adapt and discover what kind of improviser you’ll be in these new circumstances. On top of that, we’re doing mostly organic work so if you’re strong suit was premised base intiations from the opening (that’s my jam), you have a whole new muscle to stretch in this class.

My team is called The Children of Kobol (sup BSG fans) and it features Carolina Rose Barlow, Cirocco Dunlap, Cory Palmer, Joshua Jabbour, Justin Bridge, TJ Del Reno, Zack Willis and myself.My favorite part of this team is how physical and silly they can be, definitely more on board with creating a world with eccentric characters and fleshing them out.

The other team is called Trenches and it features Angela Dee, Ben Lipman, Dave Siegel, Kerry McGuire, Meghan Maguire, Patrick Noth, Shalyah Elizabeth Evans and Shannon Taing. They create such fun stage pictures and moments in which tension can fully be released and then built back up again. Everyone on this team also seems so ridiculously tall, because all I can remember right now are limbs.

So if you can make it on Sunday, after a long brunch, or your practice, the pride parade or the movie you saw…it would be lovely to see you there.

Happy Friday!