I Haz a Patronage

Again, Miss J extends grateful thanks to everyone who has donated money to her theatre fundraiser. Miss Janey understands that times are hard for most people right now. Coming up with extra money is difficult enough. To ask people to just give it away, is asking a lot- especially given that most of them will not even see the show. Additionally, one or two of Miss J’s blog friends have even seen her perform, which is also a great big deal to Miss Janey. She understands people have many other things to do on their precious weekend time so she is honored when anyone makes the effort to come out. Many, many thanks.

Now that Miss J has patrons, she is accountable to them. So it has been since the earliest days of the arts. Temperamental Queens have demanded their jesters to dance and make laughter, and dance the jesters did. And so Miss J answers this query from her chief patron and temperamental Queen:

“And just how do you improv Twilight Zone?”

Miss J has no idea how you improvise "Twilight Zone"- nor does anyone else in the group if last night's rehearsal is any indication. Scenes start out well enough but about ten minutes in, people start to try to get clever which is the death of good improv. Trying to b clever, not actual cleverness. And mind you, the scenes are 25 minutes long- a lot of time for a scene to swirl the drain, if that's the direction they take.

Scenes begin in the usual way- get a suggestion for a place, set the stage and go. As things unfold, try to grab onto devices & themes Rod Serling explored and flesh them out in the same way he would- a lesson learned, a moral warning, etc.

Miss J exaggerates somewhat. There was some actual good work last night, just none by her. In her final scene, she played a butch 2nd-in-command on a spaceship. She was hell-bent on killing any and everything, but most especially their alien prisoner. Instead, when Miss J took the prisoner’s hand, he killed her with his attempt to share his knowledge (via holding hands, one assumes). The rest of the scene Miss J spent lying on the floor giggling as the scene went from bad to worse in terms of silliness. She was a very vibratory corpse. Well, as a sci-fi fans know- anything is possible in the space and the future.