In my life as a professional musician, I’ve come to distrust people who tell me we need to get a scene together, because that usually means they want to form a new community, and place their own project at the center.
The improv world is nothing like that. Nobody gets anywhere if everybody else doesn’t get somewhere, and the more successful the entire scene becomes, the better for everybody, so everybody helps everybody.
It’s with this kind of spirit that Matt Cutler, of the UCB Harold team Bucky, offered to do twoprov with me. I joked that people would think he lost a wager, and so Drunk Bet was named Drunk Bet.
We did our first set at the UCB Theatre in Chelsea, consisting of five minutes of uninterrupted time in their Wednesday night School Night showcase, where basically, people throw new stuff at the wall to see what sticks. We stuck but good.
There was a sizable audience at the theatre, comprised pretty much entirely of comedy nerds. I don’t spook easily, but I was nervous. Was I fucking kidding myself? How was I going to hold up here? Once Matt showed up, though, and we did a few games of Mindmeld (in which two people attempt to say the same word at the same time by splitting the intellectual distance between the last words they both said) backstage, I was feeling loose. Sasheer Zamata introduced us as comedians who played all over the city, and I think that was the first time I’ve heard anyone refer to me as a comedian, ever, which felt awesome, and then the tech guy played us on with Stan Bush’s “Dare” from Transformers: The Movie, which was a total shot in the arm. I did an air jump on the last “DARE!” and got our suggestion.
Off of a suggestion of the song lyric “To the windows, to the walls,” a scene unfolded about an eccentric paranoid billionaire black-ops cracker factory mogul trying to buy an apartment from an unfortunately observant real-estate agent on the down-low. Threats hung in the air, tensions rose and fell, games were played, and laughs came easily and often.
Improvising with Matt was like baking with a close friend — every move either of us made was to help and support each other, and make the best thing possible — and by the end, everyone in the room had huge smiles on their faces. I wanted to go right back out there and do it again.
Anyhow, we’re gonna do it again, at the Triple Crown on August 6, as part of Scrambled Legs’ Monday Buffet from 7:15 to 8:15. I hope you’ll join us!