Some of us in my class attempted a show tonight at a local bar. In general I’m very leery of barprov, since I feel it’s unfair to both performer and patron to subject people to entertainment they didn’t come to see (cf. my jihad against gratuitious live music), but this was an actual show that took place in a separate room so that nobody had to watch improv who didn’t want to.

We stank up the joint, but so did the other people playing, and we did some things right. Again the exact parallel to bands: You can practice all you want, but there’s no substitute for playing live, and it’s always rough until you get the hang of it. Collectively, I think we violated every single basic premise of improv at least once, which is almost comical, because I’ve seen everyone in this group do good work, some of it mere hours ago.

I did have a brief moment of thinking how I looked, the older guy participating in the younger group’s horrible little skit, rendered even more pathetic by the fact that he should know better, but it passed. Fuck the audience.

We really do need to work on our scene starts, though.