Grantblings

Puppet Up! Tour Diary – March 21, 2015 – Kirk Douglas Closing Night

And so it begins.  The adrenaline fades away, and all I’m left with is the feeling…the NEED t do more Puppet Up! shows.  Singing the final lines of the closing song make me the happiest and saddest I can be.  Doing this show is my absolute favorite thing to do.  Even when I do shows, like tonight, where I feel I’m a little off my game.

I think it was because I didn’t get enough sleep that I felt a little off tonight.  Even with the afternoon nap I had.  Anyway, I just felt a little off my game.  That being said, tonight was a fantastic show. The crowd loved every moment and a lot of fun was had.

I got to puppeteer and improvise with some of my favorite people, Allan, Colleen, Ted and Peggy and got to do my first show with Jordan Black, which was awesome.  There were some really, funny moments in the show.  Peggy, Colleen and Jordan did a fantastic carpool scene.  Allan’s Usher is always inspiring and Ted’s Biography is Pia Zadora was hilarious.

For me, personally, the highlight was performing I’ve Grown Accustomed To Your Face.  The first time I did the show after the recreations were added, I really wanted to do Java.  Face was a second choice.  But now that I’ve done both, Face has really become something special and I just live to do it.  I will say that when it’s done, I feel like I’ve just come off the sports field because I really do strive to get every little move right.  It’s a pleasure to do always and was especially fun to do tonight on the World Puppetry Day.

As far as being off my game, I just didn’t feel that I my improv was as strong tonight as it could be.  My Jamboree song, though funny in spots was not as good, in my mind, as the previous two I’ve done.  And my improv in the few scenes I was in, wasn’t as good as I would of hoped.  I just didn’t feel like I was in the groove as much as I normally in while in these shows.  At intermission I spoke briefly with Patrick about it and he sort of gave me a challenge for the second act that was really spot on and it brought me out of the funk I was feeling and allowed me to have some fun and feel better about the improv.

The crowd was amazing.  Their suggestions ranged from really funny to things I would never type here, lest they become preeminently part of some google search engine and therefore permanently attached to my name.  The Puppet Up crew, Cameron, Aaron and Sean were incredible, as always, for the full run.  The Kirk Douglas Theatre is a great theatre to run in and the crew is top notch.  It’s  fun place to perform and hopefully we’ll be back soon.  Finally, the crowd all four nights were incredible and we had an absolute blast performing for them.

Part of the reason it’s always hard to close Puppet Up is that we never really know when the next run of shows will be.  That’s true in this case.  Hopefully, world will come soon and we’ll be back creating the puppet anarchy we all know and love in the not too distant future.