Think about your average Saturday night:  bars, drinks, dancing, maybe a date night at the movies, restaurants, dining…  The usual stuff…

I now live in a world where Saturday nights are spent going to the gym at a colleague’s fabulous downtown condo, not to work out on the abs or the gluteus. Ha! Heavens no.  Rather, we run elaborate monologue relay races, in which each performer runs a few laps of the room, does a minimum one burpie (if adequately coordinated) and works on their monologue for our acting class or their two-minute stand-up routine.  When that gets old, we break out into improv games… Somebody fucking pinch me.

We are encouraged to take in as much comedy as the city has to offer. I went to see a few shows over the past week. Every Tuesday, the downtown Toronto Yuk Yuk’s holds a special segment for Humber comedy students to perform their sets.  First years have two minutes before the dreaded red light shuts them down.  I’ve been enjoying the opportunity to watch my colleagues perform.  It’s also been great to watch complete strangers play.   Students training at the Second City put on an improv show last week that was also rather entertaining.  But the best performances I’ve seen to date was a series of improv acts last Sunday evening at the Free Times Cafe on College St. put on by a troupe I’d seen previously, when still in Ottawa, called Sex T-Rex.  The purpose of this blog isn’t really to review shows, but from time to time I will mention the acts that really inspire me, and this show did just that.  I called up a fellow colleague immediately afterward and started working out rehearsal times to work on an improv duo.  More news to come on that front as it develops.  Not to be prematurely optimistic, but this’ll be a duo for the Fringe circuit for sure!  Woo!! Misguided haughtiness!

Also, the BIG news for me now is that I have my first stand-up set booked for Yuk Yuk’s on Tuesday, October 5th 2010! Let me be the first to say, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I’m gonna SHIT MY PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Now that that’s out of the way, anyone who wants to come see me crash and burn is certainly invited to watch! The set is pretty much written, it just needs some fine-tuning, which I hope to accomplish via a meeting with the Stand-Up coach and lots and lots of rehearsing this weekend.

Stay tuned for more updates, friends!  I hope to see some of your smiling faces at the club next Tuesday!