Update: I Hope We Don't Suck

Update: I Hope We Don’t Suck

Bad rehearsal, good performance. Bad rehearsal, good performance. I just keep saying that over and over. Hell, a little sucky improv at rehearsal fuels my adrenalin for our show at the Boston Improv Festival this Sunday. Usually I don’t get nervous before a show. I used to have butterflies, but I mostly don’t anymore. I just love performing so much, it’s more like I AM a butterfly when I’m on stage, opening up from being cooped up in a chrysalis. That’s what performing usually feels like to me. A relief. A release. I’m spreading my wings. Flying!

But here’s the thing, The Ha-Ha’s have been a vacation for most of the month of August. We’re, uh, perhaps a wee bit rusty. In fact, I think I forgot how to do improv. Has this ever happened to you with anything? It’s like when you’re with someone for the first time who you are really attracted to, the lights are dim, Kenny G is on the stereo, wine has been sipped, fondue consumed. And this gorgeous creature is looking deep into your eyes, and you just know what’s coming next. Then all of the sudden, as if whispered in your ear by a masochistic devil, the horrifying thought occurs on you, “Holy crap. I think I forgot how to kiss.”

Well, it’s like that every now and then with performing for me. Sometimes I worry that one day I’ll wake up and – bam – I will lose my funny. It will just be…gone. “Well, it was a good run,” I’ll think. “I should feel fortunate I got the laughs I did.” And I’ll hobble off, spending the rest of my bleary days in a blanket of bland humorlessness.

Hey, you never know.

Could happen.

I’m just sayin.

But just to be on the safe side, please wish me luck.

And just to be on the super safe side, don’t actually SAY “good luck” for heaven’s sake. Say “break a leg” or “good show.”

And don’t whistle in the theater either. Or say any lines from the “Scottish play.” Or bring peacock feathers on stage. Just to be on the safe side.

Oh, and on Sunday evening please send me happy thoughts with pleasant wishes of much funny and fun and sincere applause and laughter.

Holy crap. I think I forgot how to blink.