Blind Bliss....

Phew!
Two Blind Dates under my belt - what a thrill!
I was blessed by the Clown/Improv Gods in that I chose my audience volunteers well, and they turned out to be AMAZING!!!

Friday was "Brad" - the cowboy beer salesman.
Saturday was "Adam" - the 24 year old musician/student teacher.

Both shows were very different from each other, and I think quite successful. I'm so enjoying this exploration of, "where does the audience end and the performance begin"? I have added a "time-out box" to one side of the stage which allows us to "step out of the play" and check in, get the ground rules straight, have some acting coaching, etc....On Saturday, I also threw in allowing the girlfriend, who gets left behind in the audience, the ability to call ONE time-out herself if there's anything going on that makes her uncomfortable.

Also stunning and inspiring is how wonderful the audience members are at being obvious (once they've calmed down and the pressure to be clever is removed by our chat in the time-out box)....proof to me that this notion of putting a non-performer in a somewhat familiar situation is enough to activate their own internal "scripts" for any given moment. We all know what sorts of things happen on a Blind Date...it's simply about PLAYING. Both guys seemed to have a lot of fun engaging in play time - lots of giggles, some fab acting moments, and tons of fun surprises.

It's also nice to know, KNOCK WOOD, that my improv skills are sharp enough to take care of someone through this insane experiment: make the safe, give them a good time, make them look good. I still struggle with the worries of "where should this go next? Is the audience enjoying it, is HE?"....but I'm also starting to trust that there's something exhilarating in this experiment that fascinates. Someone said to me after the show, "It's like watching a lab rat - we spend all of our time looking from him to you and back again to see how each of you is going to react to the other."

Huh.

And - isn't that what good theatre should be doing to an audience? COOL!
How are we changed by each other?

There's also a "Life Game" element off the top when I'm getting to know him. I ask that he not make anything up (another time-out coaching)....so, we get to find out true things about this stranger, in real time - and there's simply nothing boring about that at all! I think I'm going to find other ways to get more of that into the show...

Anyhow.
There's the update from the brink of terror! Risk taking is such a BLAST!!!!