Fun weekend

Gilda's Weekend of Laughter has passed and it was quite successful as CSzQC raised approximately $4,000 - matching our previous years contributions as well. Look Who's Laughing with Darrell Hammond was a fun set despite some vocal audience members screwing up the set-ups for some of his jokes. He was very to us cordial backstage before our set, but obviously kept to himself prior to going on stage for his run.

The All-Star Show on Saturday night went really well too. Pete, Josh, and Nikki took the stage for Kansas City, Corey & Mo, and Sarah were in from Chicago, and Patrick & Big G represented the Q.C. It was so fun seeing all of those different playing styles and energies on stage and the audience went home very happy.

Following the regular show, Corey and Monique caught their breaths and then hit the stage for their two-person sketch show, The Union. They had some very funny pieces which often had the audience applauding as each sketch or call-back ended. There was a slight problem with the scene change light - which couldn't really be avoided as they'd never performed a skecth show on our stage before - but I hope once they lock down their set that they'll come back for a second run at the space as I think it suits them well. Kudos must also go to Sarah for doing an excellent job dealing with a light-board and sound system at a theatre she'd never even stepped foot in before.

All-in-all, it was a great weekend and I hope the visiting players had as much fun performing as we did hosting them.

Gilda's Weekend is here, Mraz gig, and a thank you

This weekend is the big Gilda's Weekend of Laughter shows at ComedySportz Quad Cities, and we're excited to have teams joining us from both Kansas City and Chicago. It will be great to see players from other cities get up and do their thing on Saturday night, but personally, I'm excited to get to see Pete, Corey, & Mo getting to play on the same stage again. I also hope to see some familiar faces brought up from K.C. as well.

The festivities start tonight as Guys In Ties (formally Off The Cuff) are opening for Darrell Hammond from Saturday Night Live at the Adler Theatre in Davenport. So far, we've been fortunate enough to hang out with the previous years' comedians before the show, and we're hoping that this year will be the same. I've heard Hammond is a very down to earth guy and I'm excited to see his set. Tickets have been selling really well, from what I've heard, which is great news as the majority of the proceeds all go to Gilda's Club.

Saturday's shows start with the Pizza and Puns Show in the afternoon and the previously mentioned All-Star Show that night, the former I get to play in and the latter I get to ref. If history is any indicator, then the show should be a blast with a ton of new games and, hopefully, a sold out crowd. Following those is Corey & Monique's two-person show, The Union (formally known as At The End of the Day). They've been getting solid feedback from their workshopping and gigs in Chicago thus far and I'm excited to see the fruits of their labor. It should be a great and funny weekend!

By the way, if you don't have the guts to own the comment you post, then don't bother posting it.

Last week on Wednesday, Steph and I trekked to Chicago and got to see Jason Mraz in the Music, Magic and Make Peace Tour. A magician with the unfortunate stage name of Justin Kredible acted as host and opened the show as well as entertaining the crowd in between the music acts. While I was initially thinking this would be lame, it actually turned out to be a pretty fun act....the guy just needs a less cheesy handle. The other musical acts were the Makepeace Brothers and Bushwalla, both of whom are independent artists - which makes it extremely difficult for them to get on a tour with a signed artist, but Mraz had arranged it so that his friends could tour with him rather than his record label saddling him with some newly signed artist that needs the rub and may or may not gel well with Mraz's style in the first place. Every artist should be allowed to do this as the energy was infectious during the show and brought an entire new level to that artist-crowd relationship as it was clear that they were all having fun up there.

Having not been to the Metro in years, I had completely forgot that you're allowed to take photos inside and I had brought my camera for the weekend, but left it in the car. So my cell phone served as a forced substitute. We were in the center about 8 rows deep on the standing-room-only floor.

It was obvious from the beginning that these guys all know each other very well and they just looked like they were genuinely enjoying what they were doing as they would randomly join each other during sets. While it was easy to label Mraz the "star" of the tour, his humble and inclusive attitude really made his tour mates shine and it was cool to be a part of. The show started late as the buses were delayed in getting to the theatre and the bands actually ended up taking the stage with no sound check and not even all of their instruments on stage. You wouldn't have known that, however, as they all sounded great and I think that improvised, "O.k., that worked - now what are we going to do?," feeling really connected them to the audience. They even sent their entire horn section up to the balcony to play because there was no room on stage at the beginning. It was really organic and I'm not doing the experience justice on here. This tour was in promotion of Mraz's upcoming release, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, and his set was dominated by all new material. What's cool is that he's releasing three EP's prior to the album - aptly named We Sing EP, the second being We Dance EP, & the third being....wait for it....We Steal Things EP - and they are all acoustic versions of the songs that will be on the studio album, and are great.

The Prenzie Players final show of our Sixth Season, Life's A Dream, goes up in about 3 weeks and it's exciting because it's our first non-Shakespeare show. It definitely has a couple controversial moments and it will be interesting to see how the community reacts to aspects of theatre that aren't very common to this area. In other theatre news, I was cast in my first musical in over 11 years! The Green Room Theatre is presenting the Steven Sondheim musical Assassins in August and after being in the ensemble in a college production, I fell in love with the show and promised myself that I'd audition for it if it ever came back to the area. I was cast as Samuel Byck, who has two great monologues and doesn't have to sing very much - which will be a huge benefit to those in attendance while I'm on stage. While I was upset to find out a friend of mine was not cast, it still looks like a really solid group and I think it wil be a good show. Byck was the only role I auditioned for so it was kind of an all-or-nothing thing as I know my strengths don't lie in singing. Luckily, the director is giving me the opportunity so I hope not to let him down.

The Boston Red Sox certainly are off to a great start this season. Despite one bad loss to the Yankees, they looked really good in their two series with them - Manny Ramirez particularly. With David Ortiz in a slump, Manny has really stepped it up and will quickly reach 600 home runs...provided Kyle Farnsworth doesn't keep throwing behind Manny's head.

On a personal note, I just wanted to thank those that posted on here and also those that sent the multitude of supportive e-mails concerning the passing of my grandmother this past weekend. While it was an expected loss, it's still an extremely jarring event when it occurs and had a significantly higher emotional impact on our family than I thought it would. At any rate, I just wanted to say thank you for all your good thoughts during this time.

Lois N. De Leon, 1916 - 2008

I will miss you grandma...

Rock Chalk Championship!

Congratulations to Corey, Mo, Pete, Jason, Josh, Nikki, and all my other Kansas friends on the incredible Kansas Jayhawks winning the 2008 NCAA National Championship in an AMAZING basketball game. That 3 at the end of regulation was the definition of the word "clutch."

I wasn't paying that much attention to the tournament this year as none of my teams were in it, but one weekend at the Madrid/Rittmaster residence quickly got me re-invested and I'm so glad it did as Kansas played some amazing ball to get to the title - especially those last two games.

Congrats again to all you Kansas'ians!