Don't know where this is going, but Andrew Zimmern was on the way

"leave"ing you with quesitons

What do my characters want? And other moments of trying to figure it out.

My MFA mentor gave me a lot of solid feedback on the 'shitty first draft' (copyright someone else) of the full length play that I am making exist.

Ultimately, I need to figure out what my characters want. And then be clear about it. I think I know what my characters want....at least to some extent. But obviously, if I just wrote 'I think I know" and "at least to some extent" that means I can be more clear and more specific.

Which makes me remember my freshman year acting class in college. It was all about what you wanted in a scene and then how was I going to get that goal.

THIS IS THE SAME THING!

This also reminds me of the first real improv class I ever took where it was about what was your character's deal and what did they want.

THIS IS THE SAME THING!

My whole artistic life is all the same thing. Which means, like anything important, I need to hear it many times from many places.

Then, this evening I went to HUGE Improv Theater to see Show X Featuring real life celerbrity Andrew Zimmern! Yes, that Andrew Zimmern from the Travel Channel's Bizarre Foods! And if you know me or read this blog a bit you know that I have a thing for the weirdest thing on any menu. And life goals of eating both maggott cheese and fugu, both things totally pale in comparison to the things Andrew Zimmeren experiences.

Anywho, I am not sure yet how me talking about seeing Show X with Andrew Zimmern and my artistic learning paragraphs at the top match up yet, but they will. You will see.

At Show X a guest storyteller, in tonight's case Andrew Zimmern tells stories, which then improvisers use as fuel to create scenes, this scenes then inspire the storyteller into a new story, which inspires new scenes and so on and so forth.

Go it? It's an improv form called an Armando.

At one point, Andrew told tale of being presented with a bowl of donkey skin cut into donkey skin noodles. As expected, the crowd gave a collective 'gross' sound to which Andrew replied (not an exact quote) "Don't have contempt for something you have not tried, stretch yourself into something new, like I did by coming up on stage here tonight." (again, not an exact quote, but the feeling was there.) Well, that turned the collective gross out groan turned into applause.

At this point in this blog post I wish I had a clear way to tie in the first half of this blog post with the second Show X half. Usually, by now I would have some sort of clever metaphor I could throw it to look like I planned this all along.

You know what. This blog post is an improv set. I started with one thing: characters who didn't know what they wanted and now that has morphed and flowed into a post about not knowing where I am going.

Why?

Because this blog post did not know what it wanted! There's totally fun and interesting stuff in here, but very little story. Because the character (Me) doesn't have a clear want. Or maybe I do but I did not execute it clearly.

IS THIS TYING THIS UP?

I don't know but this is what I got for today.

Andrew Zimmern!