The improv gods have smiled upon me.

It was my first show tonight.

It went surprisingly well.

10 Simple Characters

1. My name is Lawrence. I like gourmet cheese, black and white movies and clean floors.
2. My name is Katherine. I like holding small birds in the palm of my hand, people who speak softly and the smell of dryer sheets.
3. My name is Henri. I like fixing things, strong beers and the sound of my boots hitting the pavement.
4. My name is Wendy. I like giving gifts, the smell of fresh cut flowers, and red velvet cupcakes.
5. My name is Patrick. I like the sound of a pen scratching on paper, discovering new music and quiet chats over lattes.
6. My name is Susan. I like being with large groups of friends, sangria on a hot day and laughing so hard my gut hurts.
7. My name is Marie. I like the feeling of a breeze on my bare legs, running through wet grass and romantic movies.
8. My name is Claire. I like baking cakes for friends, the comfort of a hug and curling up in front of a fire with a blanket.
9. My name is Paul. I like reading books on philosophy, observing people and english breakfast tea.
10. My name is Cooper. I like playing the piano, home made sushi and freshly painted walls.

Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 rules for writing a short story

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Where Acting and Writing and Directing intersect, lies Improvisation.

And it isn’t done alone in a smoked filled coffee shop, though smoked filled coffee shops that have fueled so many angst filled poems of the past, are themselves a thing of the past now. It is not done in private alone for nobody to judge. Nor in a boardroom with a committee to steer it towards appeasement. No. It is done live in front of the very audience that is there to see it. It is the art form that births the art with everyone in the delivery room. There to see the sticky mess, there to see if the baby is a boy or a girl or stillborn, like the good old days. There are no rehearsals, no re-writes, no second takes, everything that happens is a part of the artwork. The audience gets it all, mistakes and all. And that is why I love it (and hate it). Improv.