Police Chief Rumble: A Sketch Show Journal

[PCR]

Hello, IRC.

Chris Kula of Police Chief Rumble here with the first post of what will hopefully be a decent little journal documenting the making-of process for Police Chief Rumble's new sketch show. Or rather, the first post of what will hopefully be a decent little knock-off of such time-honored revue-in-progess journals as:

Mick Napier on CITIZEN GATES (Second City Mainstage)
http://www.annoyanceproductions.com/mainstage.html

Craig Cackowski on SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, CATTLE O (Second City Mainstage)
http://members.tripod.com/jethronolen/craig.html

Jack McBrayer on BETTER LATE THAN NADER (Second City etc.)
http://www.argosagency.com/journals/justjack.html

Ideally, everyone in the group - myself, Katie Dippold, Angeliki George, Jeff Hiller, David Martin, Will McLaughlin, Bobby Moynihan, and Charlie Sanders - and our director, Jake Fogelnest, will be able to post periodic updates on the show as it grows and changes during the course of our midnight run the next month and a half.

(Though of course we all know that it will more than likely devolve into everyone taking turns identifying themselves as "Dave Martin" and posting incriminating things like "Hey, Dave Martin here - I seem to have lost my wedding ring all up inside a Culkin." See? Hilarious slander, and totally untraceable back to me, Chris Kula.)

Some back story on PCR as a sketch group...

The group was put together through Harold team auditions in August of 2002, and we've been lucky enough to have our lineup remain stable and unchanged since then. Dallas BBQ, folks - it's group mind in a Texas-sized mug.

We decided at some point this past summer that we wanted to be doing sketch as well as improv. How we came to this decision, I can't really remember, as it was less a group vote than a shrug and a "Yeahhh, we just ... should." Oh, also: the fact that one day we'd all really, really like to get paid.

Charlie'd had a scene called TRUTH that he'd written with PCR in mind, and Rob Lathan and Will Hines were kind enough to let us put it up at Osgood-Schlatter the first week of August. We rehearsed and performed it pretty much verbatim to Charlie's original script, it went over well (even despite our tacked-on ending of Bobby doing a walkon as Kobe Bryant ... "Hello, I'm Kobe Bryant - y'all know I'm goin' through some dark clouds right now..."), and we got jazzed on doing more sketch.

So we started having weekly writing meetings, put up three scenes in the August edition of Sketch Show, three more in the September edition, and started readying stuff for our October Spank date.

Chad Carter, having overseen all of our stuff at Sketch Show, helped us get our Spank show together, and the end result went over well enough that Owen gave us this current Friday midnight slot as this great opportunity to keep working out new scenes, strengthen existing stuff, and to build and shape a full show over time.

Jake caught our Spank show and gave us some notes on it; we dug everything he had to say, so we asked him to direct. Lucky for us, he was available and interested in working with us.

End back story, segue into present story...

Our current weekly schedule looks a little something like this:

TUESDAY
Writing meeting (on those Tuesdays we're up at Harold Night, we meet with Jake either before or after our shows)

WEDNESDAY
Sketch rehearsal, 10 p.m. to 12 a.m.
Tech rehearsal, 12:30 a.m. - late

THURSDAY
Regular improv rehearsal, 6-9 p.m.

FRIDAY
Sketch performance, midnight to 1 a.m.
Encore performance, 1:03 a.m. to last call at McManus

SATURDAY, SUNDAY, MONDAY
Enjoy quality time with anyone but members of PCR, all day and all of the night.

More to come on the writing process, the evolution of a scene, the aim of the improv set, and, I guess, whatever shit we can think up about Dave Martin.

 

[PCR]

Hey, Charlie here. That first sketch we did, titled TRUTH, was written by me. It's come all the way to be included as one of the sketches in our current midnight show. I don't know if it will continue on but I'm glad it has made it this far. It's loosely based on an improv scene
I originally performed with my friends Ed and Dan in a Charlene(another group I'm in) show.
That scene was about a kid who's parents had lied to him his whole life. It centered mainly around Dan, the kid, who had a dog. His dog had died years ago and his parents, Ed and I, had kept him believing it was alive. So this kid had been playing with the rotting remains of a dog. One of the extra lies was that the parents had been divorced since the kid was really young and never told him.
I took that idea of a kid finding out that all these things that were important to his developement into an adult were complete lies. I wrote it out for PCR. Originally Bobby had thought he wasn't going to be able to get out of work and would miss our slot at Osgood. So I wrote it with seven characters, having it end right after Kula spoke to me as God. At the last minute Bobby showed up, so I just decided that we'd all freeze at the end, and told Bobby just to walk on and od whatever he wanted.
He did this monologue (I think he improvised it, if he wrote it, he did so right before walking on stage) as Kobe Bryant. I wish Kobe Bryant was still such a big figure in the news because it was a hilarious monologue and a good ending to the sketch.

 

[PCR]

Hey, Charlie here. Our show on Friday went well. We tried out a lot of new ideas. We did Truth, Lit Agent, and Buttergun with a few minor but very helpful changes. We tried three blackouts. Kula wrote the "I can't resist the Temptations" blackout. It was cracking us all up a lot in rehearsal, but when we performed it there was a lot of silence. My friend Al was in the audience and I remember clearly hearing his laugh, but it was the only one. I think we all like it so hopefully we'll try it again.

We tried a brand new sketch Ang wrote called Tattoo. It was loosely based on this series of scenes we did last week in our improv set about people who push their tattoo ideas on customers. Will and Kula play tattoo artists and Bobby plays a frat pledge customer of theirs. All their characters were very funny.

I think one of the coolest things about writing with PCR is that I feel, and I think others do also, is that you can write a sketch and have one or more of the characters be kind of vague. I know that whoever I want to play the character will make that character individual, detailed, and funny. I'll use Tattoo as an example. During the readings and rehearsals I would watch and I got the idea that Kula and Will were asshole tattoo artists and Bobby was an idiot frat guy. It's a well written sketch so it was funny in readings and rehearsals. When it was actually performed I stood at the back and watched. Kula, Will, and Bobby filled out the ideas of their characters so well and it made the sketch even better.

Writing has so far been the biggest challenge for me. I've written sketches for a long time, but it's always been very sporadic. Basically once and a while I'd get an idea and write it up. Now I'm trying to have at least two sketches a week to bring to the writing meetings. It's very hard for me to write without a very definite idea. I'll open a notebook and say "Well, I have to write a sketch. What's it going to be about?" The improv set is helpful for this. After every show we sit down in back and first Jake gives us notes on the sketch section and then he gives us ideas of what scenes or ideas from the improv we should try to write. So, we always have a list of possible sketch ideas from that.

In our harold night show last Tuesday Will and I did a scene about two Dad's watching their sons play football. Will was very aggressive and brutal the way he yelled at his kid on the field, an I was much more positive and supportive. I think I'm going to try writing that idea into a sketch next.

 

[PCR]

Hey, Kula writing. I spent the night off from PCR enjoying the Monday Night “Football” special of dollar drafts and $.33 wings at Copper Smith’s (53rd and 9th) with a couple of people I went to school with. Thirty wings and a dozen beers came to $22 ... ridiculous, Big Ten prices.

This week’s rehearsals will be somewhat abbreviated with the short Thanksgiving week. Tomorrow night the plan is to unofficially meet up at the theatre while catching some Harolds, go over whatever new ideas we want to pitch, and then officially convene at the UCB office for rehearsal at 10 p.m. We’ll probably make do without a tech rehearsal this week, so we’ll have to wait ‘til next week to block the ERIQ LA SALLE vs. A DRACULA scene.

Dave is missing the show this week, spending the holiday weekend in Virginia (emphasis on Virgin), so I imagine a good deal of rehearsal will go toward covering his parts in TRUTH and BUTTERGUN. The latter should be easy, as half the group has at some point or another played that role, Dave being the most current. It’s really just a matter of time ‘til Pat Baer gets The Call.

We need also need to work on blocking TATTOO. The first performance of this scene last Friday was tons of fun, but no doubt ugly-looking, as we were in such a hurry to put it up, we never really spent any time blocking it; by the end, three of us had found ourselves standing all bunched together near the Stage Left door. The door did great work, though: really funny and endearing.

Also, we were ab-libbing like crazy during this scene, so we’ll need to spend a little time paring down what extras worked and should be thrown into the script and what lines should never be spoken – or spoken of – again. Will’s such a strong actor, he’s great at just throwing in jokes on the fly, creating fun stuff in the moment; he makes it really easy for you to play off him.

In fact, after the show on Friday, Dippold even mentioned how that night’s show felt very much like how PCR should be doing sketch: committed yet loose, and always free to fuck with the scenes when it feels right. Our best Harolds follow that same sort of model - the most fun we have onstage is when we’re just playing to make each other laugh, so why not apply that to sketch stuff, too?

Remind me to write an entry soon on sound cues, or as it will be titled, “My Race with Eric Appel to Be the First to Use Mungo Jerry’s In the Summertime in a Show (and How Jake Fogelnest Ends Up Beating Us Both).”

 

[PCR]

Hey, it's Jake. I'll be using this font. I’m a little nervous about contributing to this journal and sharing my thoughts on directing in a public form. I think there are many people who know a lot more about this stuff than I do. But then again, this whole journal was my idea in the first place. I thought the group keeping a journal would be cool for a couple of reasons:

1. Getting the readers of this message board involved in the day-to-day process of putting the show together MIGHT entice them to come and see it. Yes, I admit, it’s a shameless promotional tactic -- kind of like “Project Greenlight,” without Jennifer Lopez showing up (unless she wants to).

2. I’ve been enormously lucky to be involved with lots of sketch comedy projects with some of the most amazing teachers, mentors and collaborators on the planet. At least I think they’re pretty cool. They’ve showed me some great shit so…maybe someone else might be interested?

I don’t know. It is what it is. If you dig it, cool, If not, sorry for wasting the bandwith. Okay, disclaimer complete.

----

I just want to say that these Police Chief Rumble jerks are REALLY good people. They're totally dedicated, enormously talented and most of all, very funny. I really hope they can scrape together the $18,000 I'm charging them to direct. If not, I’ll be quitting next week.

As I see it, here's where we're at with this show so far:

We've got a few funny scenes, a ton of new ideas coming down the line and one shitty blackout that Kula wrote.

We’re just getting started…and we’ve got a loooooong way to go. Basically, right now it’s fuckaround time. There’s no such thing as a bad idea. We’re just seeing what’s out there, learning what we like, what we don’t like and having a good time.

This is the point where I really envy our friends at Second City. When they’re in “previews” (as I consider our show to be in now) the actors are in the unique and wonderful position of having a show to play with every night. Sometimes they even have two shows a night! If they have a new idea, they get to try it again right away. We unfortunately have to wait a week. Not that there’s been a lot of downtime.

Here’s what tomorrow looks like:

People will come in with written ideas and we’ll take a look at them. Some will go forward. Some we’ll ditch. Then we’ll look at scenes that we’ve currently been working with in the show Friday night. We’ll fine-tune those scenes and then bring them back again Friday. Finally, and this is what I’m most looking forward to, everyone will hit the stage, I’ll throw out some suggestions and we’ll just see what happens. If we hit something good, it might end up in the show on Friday.

In other words, I don’t know what the fuck we’re doing. Sure, I could give you a pretty good idea of what I THINK we’ll be doing. But, I really wont know for sure until after we finish rehearsal tomorrow night. And even then, things will change.

Right now, this show is changing constantly. Hopefully the changes will be for the good. Sometime we’ll be screwing it up big time. Luckily for me, everyone is absolutely fearless about it. You have to write 40 shitty scenes to get to 4 good ones. That’s just how it works and everyone is down.

I've got the easiest job in the process at the moment. I tinker with shit, sit in the back of the room and then scribble my thoughts on a note pad. The actors have the hard part. If a scene isn't going well, I'm not the one stuck under the hot lights and impending supermarket shit-storm slowly filling the plastic bags covering the pipes. Police Chief Rumble have the privilege of being in that position. Me? I get to slink away into the tech booth and make Pat Baer even more nervous. I'm psyched.

One of the best pieces of advice that was given to me about directing a show like this was, “It’s the actor’s show.” Being a “director” of a sketch show really means being the “head audience member.” Right now, I’m just watching and reacting. It doesn't really matter because it's all going to change.

Eventually, we’ll get to the point where I know EXACTLY what we’re doing in the show and very little will change. Moment to moment, sound cue to sound cue, dick joke to dick joke -- the show will be set. For now though, everything is fair game and up for grabs. We’re building this thing from scratch.

We might even try that shitty blackout Kula wrote again somewhere down the line (maybe even Friday). The great thing is, no one will even break a sweat about it. The actors are up for anything. This is how we’ll get to the good stuff and make the good stuff we already have even better.

I’m not sure when we’ll have that perfect, tight, ready to “open” show just yet. My guess? End of January. If it ends up being in the middle of February, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I know it will be ready well before March. The trick right now is making the show entertaining to an audience while we’re still building it.

Let me know how we're doing.

 

[PCR]

I (Charlie) am going to write a little more about the ad-lib stuff. Friday night was a good night all around for that stuff. In TRUTH Dave and I got into a screaming match where I, as the son, kept yelling profanity and Dave kept yelling "My house!" It was fun and the audience was laughing so we went with it. I've had moments like that happen to me a few times in sketch shows and they're always very fun. It feels great because you get to the point where you trust the people your performing with enough that anyone can improvise and the rest will be right behind you. I think that's a great benefit of being in a group that does both improvisation and sketch. I really, really love the feeling of being in that moment of the sketch and you've gone off script, and wondering "Now, how are we going to get back to the script?"

 

[PCR]

It's Jake. Good rehearsal tonight. Some interesting stuff went down. Fun characters and at least one good idea for a scene. More specifics on all that later.

The question of the week is "What deserves to be attacked?"

In other words, what do we want to make fun of? Who do we want to give the business?! What's going to make for interesting satire?

What are people really MAD about?

Through fucking around tonight, we came up with at least these two things:

Rich Kids
Prank Shows

Both seem more than worthy of attack to me. Let's see where it takes us. Yes. We're making a big ATTACK list. You might even be on it. I'm talking to you, TERRY JINN!

Just kidding. Save us some Turducken.

After rehearsal, I went to my notebooks and started to decipher all the scribbles I've been keeping for the past few weeks. Everyone has an individual assignment now. They mostly relate to the different ideas cast members have come in with or things that have shown up during rehearsal. I'm not sure where any of these things will lead but it's a good way to keep an inventory of what's out there right now.

Between now and next week, we've got different people thinking about everything; from the styles of parenting to how to work in "Getting a handjob while watching the movie Ghost." There also seems to be a group obsession with the phrase "Your Mom's Box."

I'm not THAT worried.

Does anyone care about all this crap?
Feel free: jake@ucbt.net

 

[PCR]

Charlie here again. So, Friday's was a lot of fun and we tried some different stuff. Dave was out of town so we filled in his parts. Bobby played my Dad in Truth. I took over the part of "the guy that puches Kula in the stomach" in St. Elmo's Fire. For Buttergun wetried something new, and had two people, Kula and Ang, on stage being interupted by the calls.
In our improv set we tried something new. We had several ideas from our improv rehearsal on Tuesday. So, we just took the basic ideas from them and tried improvising them in front of an audience. On Tuesday I did a scene where i was Walt Disney's son. In the scene I was a total asshole living off my father's fame and riches. So afterward Jake decided we'd try it again and the basic idea was to make fun of rich kids like that. He wanted something a little more obscure and ridiculous than Walt Disney's son. Katie finally came up with the idea that this kids Dad owned Lean Cuisine. So, we tried that idea out and it ended up being a scene where I was moving in to my dorm room and meeting my roommate, Jeff. I think later on in some cut to Bobby named me Lance Cuisine. So, that's one of the things I'm writing for this Friday.
After that we tried out some more half ideas, and then we did the last quarter of the show just regular improv. For suggestions we had the audience shout out things that they hated. One of the things we got was "the homeless."
Katie did a scene where she was a temp begging for money on the train. We played with that idea for a while. So I think katie's writing up a sketch about people who don't need help begging. Also Bobby played a guy who played piano and tuba with his dick. I think that's getting written too.
Currently the most challenging thing is coming up with an opening. We're trying to get a high energy fast opening that introduces us all and of course, is funny. We also want to slip in some sort of message about how this isn't television and is much better because you're watching real people do real things right in front of you. We'd been talking about some sort of fake prank show opening. I have this weird and very unformulated idea about th audience entering and maybe we're all on stage with our backs to them watching tv and laughing really hard. I have no idea where to go from there.
Last night I had a dream that Bobby and I were walking down 6th Avenue and discussing an opening for our show. In the dream he was going to play a a bad stand up character named Shitty Parker (a character Bobby actually has) and I was going to play another bad stand up named Tres Bien.
I woke up with that dream fresh and vivid in my mind so now I'm trying to write it. I think maybe that can play into the tv thing. Bad stand ups ending up on bad sitcoms that make them millions of dollars.
Tomorrow we're doing harold night and then having a writing meeting so I'm going to bring in some rough drafts of Lance Cuisine and Bizarro Bad Stand Up Opening and see what people think.

 

[PCR]

Charlie again. So, I wrote up a draft of Lance Cuisine. I wrote it with Jeff playing my(Lance's) new college roommate. I feel kind of weird about it. It's very definitely a straight man/crazy man scene. Basically all of the roommates lines are set ups for jokes I say. I am trying to figure out how to give the roommate more laugh lines. I guess there's nothing wrong with that, lots of scenes fall into that catagory. I'm sure the scene will change dramatically after I show it to everybody. Jake always has very specefic ideas on rewrites that help a lot. I'm amazed by how many rewrites happen in sketch writing. Jeff must have written LAUGHTER at least five or six times now. He's writing up another draft for tonight.
This writing stuff takes so much dedication and focus. I write one draft and then have to go rewrite it and I have this feeling like "Can't we just do it this way? It's funny." I realize logically that's ridiculous. When I write I spend like fifteen minutes putting pen to paper and then find some dumbass shit to do like calling somebody for no reason. In the Mr. Show book somebody mentions how Bob Odenkirk (my personal hero) would go into his room to write and not come out for hours. And I write for a half hour and go "I did good."
I can't wait for Friday. I'm glad we've got a show tonight. The weeks where there are no shows between friday and friday I get really antsy. I love this so much. Friday's from midnight to 1am is my favorite part of the week. I sit around and think about it all week. I'm at my dumbass job renting videos to people thinking "How's that new sketch going to work out?" On the train, hanging out with my friends, lying in bed, it's like all I think about. During the sketches i'm not in I go stand at the back of the theater and watch. I love seeing Jake going nuts. He will literally be waving his arms in the air and talking to himself well the scene is going on. I love this comedy shit more than anything in the fucking world.

 

[PCR]

Greetings, Dippold here. I’m at my temp job today working on rewriting Butter Gun and finishing a new one. When I work on things here I like to tell myself I’m being paid to write (hey who does it hurt?). I’ve been really lucky with temp assignments where someone shows me a desk and then disappears into the night. My last job I sat in an office and days would go by where I wouldn’t be asked to do anything. I said to someone there, “I imagine you don’t need me next week…” and she freaked out, “WHY?! CAN YOU NOT COME?!” So I hope I wasn’t supposed to be working on some big project they told me about and I wasn’t listening. When I can’t think of any new ideas, then I find myself rewriting just a single word, printing out 9 copies, stapling them and bringing these “new drafts” to rehearsal.

I’ve been really exhausted and I worry it leads to me thinking the stupidest things are funny. Except the pepperoni bit, I stand by that one! While drinking at the theater, I was trying to get rid of some pepperoni and I hate throwing food out. So Angeliki put the bag in Jon Daly’s coat pocket. He found it immediately but we all laughed thinking of the possibilities such as him accidentally going to pay for a cab with pepperoni slices, trying to use them at a pay phone, trying to use a slice as his Metro Card (that was Sanders, I love that one). Wow, I just proved my point in the first sentence of this paragraph.

WE SEE A WHOLE LOT OF EACH OTHER. At first I was worried how it would affect us as a Harold team, if things went bad here how it would affect there. But I feel really good about it all. My favorite moment was one of the earlier tech rehearsals. Most of us had to work the next morning and it was around 2:30 am. It was the last sketch, Lit Agent, and we were all delirious. So it became “fuck with Dave’s sketch”- things we would never do in a show. I was worried for a moment we were going to piss off Dave with our stereo-typical gangster characters that had nothing to do with the sketch but then I heard him laughing backstage, so that was nice. I didn't mean to write so much.

 

[PCR]

It's Jake.

Our writing meeting tonight was very productive and filled with fun surprises. We have a bunch of new things to try out on Friday night. It's always exciting when a new scene goes in the running order. Even if it ends up not working, forward movement is good news.

New scenes end up in the running order three different ways:

1) Someone will come in with a written scene. We'll rewrite it, rehearse it and then put it in the running order. This week we'll be using that method twice. Kula's scene, "Quartet" and Katie's scene, "The Prop Room."

2) A scene gets improvised during a Harold, a rehearsal or in the set after the show. We'll like something about the scene: a character, element, funny line, etc. We'll take what we liked and then improvise that again Friday night. Someone writes it up and brings it in. We'll rewrite it, rehearse it and then put it in the running order. This week, it happens with Charlie's, "Lance Cuisine."

3) Someone comes in with an idea. We improvise it in the set on Friday. This week we're trying something Bobby came up with about getting into a nightclub.

We're close to "locking" a few scenes in the show right now. That means we'll stop fucking with them because...well, they're working. Of course, things pop up -- new lines, better jokes, etc. You're always finding shit. But you get to a point with scenes where you have to STOP fucking with them. If it ain't broke...

"Buttergun" is one of those scenes. It's gone through endless rewrites. Sometimes they have been a step forward, other times a step back. I'm feeling good about where it's at now. Another scene called "Tattoo" is in pretty much the same place.

We'll see what the audience thinks on Friday.

I should also say this: it's never a shock to me when a scene that have been going well, starts to TANK. There's many factors that cause this. Actors get bored. The idea becomes stale. Who knows? So, you fuck with the scene again, see if you can fix it. Sometimes you will, sometimes it has to go away. These things all tend to happen pretty organically.

Pending Owen's approval, I have set an opening date for the show:

Friday, February 6th, 2004

That means, we've got TWO months, NINE shows, about TWELVE rehearsals and at least ONE late night drunken fuckaround session before we open. Still a long way to go.

Hope to see you Friday!

Jake

Any thoguts/questions/ideas are welcome at: jake@ucbt.net

 

[PCR]

Charlie here once again. Well last night we learned that PCR can not be left without supervision. Jake called me up and was going to be about 45 minutes late last night. He suggested we run our lines for the new scenes going in the show. It never happened. Dave and I practiced karate fighting for a while and then by the time Jake got there we were playing "do impressions of each other tag with all the lights off" We turn into a bunch of children when left alone. We are so playful and get so silly around each other. By the time we actually had to get to work I was laughing so hard i couldn't breathe.
So, we've got mad new stuff going in the show tomorrow. We've got
a rough version of Lance Cuisine going in. Katie's sketch Prop Room is going in. Truth will have a yet to be written new ending. The abstract Barbershop Quartet scene is going in and we're trying out another situation to be interrupted by the Buttergun caller. ther's more I think but whatever it is escapes me at the moment.
Jake is really trying to get us to pull back the beginning of Lit Agent so that it can have a better build and be more of a payoff when I freak out on the kids. in rehearsal last night I was nailing the energy at the top of the scene perfectly. it's supposed to be calm. In rehearsal staying calm is no problem for me, but in actual performance I get so amped I tend to lose control of myself.
I think one of my current goals is to calm down on stage. Sometimes on stage when I'm a more minor character in the scene or in the background I'll have these moments where I feel very peaceful and I look at the lights and the audience and breathe the air in the theater and I remind myself how lucky I am to be doing this really cool thing. I feel like I'm really at rest in those moments. I want to bring some of that energy into my performance as a whole.
That's one thing Owen used to tell me all the time when he was directing Charlene. He always pushed relaxing and just really letting the moments breathe. Just really be, let time slow down. I tend to speed through moments. I remember in those Charlene shows I could tell when I was enjoying the moments, it'd be this really fullfilling feeling for me and I could tell that audience was getting more out of it also. And i'd be like "Oh, this is what Owen's talking about" So, anyway, my goal is to try and have more of those moments.
God damn, I can't wait for tomorrow night. Only 35 more hours till the show...

 

[PCR]

Charlie here. So, an update on Friday's show. New sketches: Barbershop Quartet tanked. I think we all find it very funny but it is pretty abstract. It's Jeff, Bobby, and Kula wearing bowties and sashes singing that "Hello my honey..." Barbershop song and I'm the forth member of the quartet, and I'm tethered to Bobby and as the song goes on I tell the audience how these guys kidnapped me and are forcing me to sing. It's very strange and presentational but a great weird idea. I think maybe on another night it could get a good reaction so hopefully we're not nixing it for good.
Lance Cuisine got a good reaction but kind of ended up being off base for what we wanted. As per Jake's advice, I'm going to try rewriting it and focus more on how in our society the rich are celebrated for nothing more than being rich. Then go that extra step to the children of the rich that have done nothing but be born rich. I think it might be set at an art show and lance Cuisine is showing off his most recent paintings. The paintings would either be very childlike, stick figures, etc.
Or maybe they'll be blank sheets of paper. I also find out outreageous how in America rich people can just buy themselves into the art world. So, I'll try and touch on both those topics in the Lance Cuisine sketch.
I've asked a couple people how they write with such focus and commitment and they both were basically like "I don't know, i just sit down and do it." I wish twe got to do the show more than once a week. I'm trying to take my pent up, want to perform energy and focus that into writing. It's tough because writing doesn't give me the same immediate payoff that performing does. I want ot figure out how to get the same playful fun energy I have on stage into a notebook. Maybe I'll try writing with some one. Actually, so far, no one in PCR writes with each other. We just each bring in our own sketches. But we're already spending so much time together.
Jeff and I were talking about how much time PCR spends together and we both were like "I'm suprised we haven't gotten sick of each other yet." It's crazy, we're together Tuesday through Friday. Right now we're just having such a good time cracking each oither up and trying out different ideas. I have an exceedingly positive feeling about this show. I've been in a shitload of shows and groups and this is definetly the most excited and challenged I've ever felt. This artistic collaboration is such a blast.

 

[PCR]

(Charlie) Here's something painful about the process: having something you
wrote and love not work. In Truth there's this running joke that no one in the kid's family can pronounce Dartmouth correctly. After each character enters and it's revealed that their relationship to me was a lie, they then say soemthing to the effect of " you shouldn't be worried about this, you should focus on dart-a-mouth." For some reason I love the idea that no one can say it correctly. There's not really any reason for it. I just think it's funny.
We must have performed truth 20 times now and it's gotten like no laughs. I think it's funny and it cracks everybody in PCR up, and I've had friends of mine come up after the show and say they love the Dartmouth joke. But it never gets an audible reaction. So, we're taking it out. I get this feeling of like "i know it didn't work the first 20 times but trust me the 21st it will." It's so weird to have this thing and know it's funny and know your friends think it's funny but it just doesn't work.
So we've got our regular Tuesday writing meeting tonight and i think we're going to do a little improv to try and maybe generate some more ideas.
I wrote up another sketch I'll bring in tonight. it's a sketch where Bobby is trying to get me to come out partying with him and the crazy extent he goes to to get me to go out with him. It's not inspired from any improv or anything, it's just this idea I had. Now, i think there's a point in the process where we're going to stop bringing in new sketches and just work with what we've got. So far nobody has said "Okay that's enough" so until they do i'm just going to keep bringing in new shit.

 

[PCR]

Dippold here. So for this Friday we are just trying some all new sketches brought in last night and then an improv set. I’m excited for the new sketches, plus it will give the ones we already have a little holiday.

Kula and I were working on something where an actor is shooting a serious-toned commercial and the director gives him this really lame/cheesy sales line to throw in it but tells him to keep it real (and then keeps throwing in more things for him, still insisting to keep it real). We read what we had last night, Charlie being the actor, and I’m finding there’s this first moment in the sketch (which I thought was THE MOST HILARIOUS THING TO HIT MICROSOFT WORD) where if people don’t laugh at that then they are surely not going to like the rest of the sketch and I realize right away “wow this is really doomed!” But we finished reading it and Jake suggested that the funny thing in it is this director whose only note ever is “yeah just keep it more real.” So we are going to try writing it where it’s this very serious well-known monologue and come up with creative, funny ways for the director to just keep giving that same note.

 

[PCR]

(charlie) Alright. the Dartmouth joke stays. Somebody pm'ed our PCR account after reading my entry from yesterday saying how they liked the joke and now that shit's staying in the sketch. I'm amped cuz I love that joke. I think it's good to have those levels, some jokes are huge laughs, some are more just apreciation.
We got all new stuff going in this week. two sketches written by will, I forget the names, a new one by me called "switcheroo", and a God as a stand up sketch by Kula. And maybe "Rap Juice" by Bobby. Also, we're having no rehearsal or tech thru tonight...I'm not sure why. So, it's gonna be loose on Friday.

 

[PCR]

Jake here. Time to shake things up with the show. We're going to keep it REALLY loose on Friday night. We're putting up four new scenes and putting most of the stuff we’ve been working with on hiatus for a week. I feel like everything needs a little break. It’s not forever. Those scenes are waiting for us when we need them…and we’ll need them soon.

This week’s show is all about generating NEW material. We’re not going to worry about connections, bells and whistles or any of that blah blah blah. I just wanna see some new scenes. For that reason, we’re also going to do an extended improv set.

By the end of the year, we’ll have a nice chunk of material to begin molding what will become THE SHOW. There’s more to come but, right now, I’ll take inventory of what we have…

PIÑATA
Funny but doesn’t feel like our opener. It’s basically one joke. I feel like it’s the kind of thing we’ll CUT TO in the middle of something else. I like it, just not sure what to do with it yet.

TRUTH
Solid scene. Done. Doesn’t need to be fucked with any more. Just needs an out.

TATTOO
Also looking good. Needs some help up top. We just need to run it some more.

BUTTERGUN
Getting better. This is the scene that needs a break more than any other right now. We finally hit the right balance with it last Friday. I think with a little room to breathe, we’ll be able to come back to it with a fresh eye in a week or two.

QUARTET
Bomb. But, who knows? Maybe it’ll come back around under different circumstances.

SALLY FIELD
This is something that we have in our pocket if we need it. It will evolve and change. Basically, it’s just a stall right now. Could turn into something bigger.

LANCE CUISINE
Still not there. We like this guy and after talking yesterday, I think we have a better idea of what to do with him. Just isn’t working as a scene yet.

THE PROP ROOM
Good first attempt. Rewrite is on the way. Still too early to tell.

LIT AGENT
There are parts of this scene that I really, really like. However, I can’t get over the fact that it’s based too much on playing the mean game. Needs a new spin…or we need to make the children involved deserving of being yelled at.


The new shit coming up on Friday looks interesting…

THE LORD
Kula plays God. God wants to hang out.

OSWALD ARMS
Will obsession with the Kennedy assignation is taking a toll on his marriage.

LOAN APPLICATION
Will finishes the paperwork on a bank loan.

SWITCHAROO
Bobby will do anything to convince Charlie to come out drinking.

RAP JUICE
Scientists have created Rap Juice. Antics ensue.

There’s also other stuff floating around in various stages of production:

JEOPARDY
POKER GAME
SUBWAY TEMP
LONELY IN TRAFFIC
DOOR FARCE
ROCK BAND
MUSICAL NUMBER
SPLIT SCREEN
THRILLER

…And a bunch of other shit I’m forgetting.

More scenes! Let’s see more!

 

[PCR]

Jake here. We had a very productive show on Friday night. Five scenes went up:

TRUTH
This is one of the oldest Police Chief Rumble scenes in the mix and it continues to survive. The major problem with the scene has been establishing its premise at the very top. It’s been overcomplicated. Once it gets going, it really works. It just takes FOREVER to get going. During our post-show notes on Friday I think we finally solved how to get into it. We’re going to try the rewrite on Friday and I’m really curious to see how it goes. My fingers are crossed that we’ll be able to put this one to bed.

OSWALD ARMS
Good idea, not quite there yet. The audience seemed to dig the idea and they were definitely on board with the concept. We just need to figure out a way to execute it better. It needs help in the heightening department. We should see a rewrite on Wednesday.

THE LORD
Awesome. A couple of changes here and there and I think we’ve got a winner. I found this scene really interesting because it seemed to be truly indicative of this group’s voice. It was very clear after watching it that this is the tone we should be following. You need all kinds of different scenes to create a balanced show. But this really felt like a POLICE CHIEF RUMBLE sketch. It gave me a real insight into what the whole show is going to look like. It’s different than what I was expecting and only reaffirms to me that it’s always the actor’s show. I’m following them.

SWITCHAROO
Also a great scene and again, felt like a POLICE CHIEF RUMBLE sketch. This needs help with an out and could use a little finesse but it worked for sure.

TATTOO
Getting better every time we do it. We keep making it tighter and tighter. Some minor structure changes are in order. Kula’s away next Friday so we’ll have someone cover his part. I’d put it on hold for a week but I’m itching to see if the structure changes we have in mind help it.

We had a few interesting idea emerge from the improv set. There was one scene idea that particularly stood out involving a surprise party. It was the kind of thing where you think, “I can’t believe no one has done this sketch yet.” It might have been done and I’m just not aware of it (doubtful) or it might be too obvious and not a sketch for a reason (more likely). Regardless, I believe a few people are going to write up versions of it this week. Then we’ll merge the scenes and pick the best jokes. I think it could be a really cool group scene.

Next Friday’s show will be an important one. We’re out Kula, next week (the 19th) but that’s it. I need to take full advantage of having most of the cast next week because on the 26th we’re missing at least three cast members due to the Holidays. That forces me to use the show on the 26th to generate new material as opposed to the 19th which will give me a good chance to polish what we have and figure out what we still need to write. Yes, I’m starting to think about time. We only have seven shows before we open. So much of this job is about time management. With that in mind, if we keep going at this pace, we’ll be in fine shape for opening night.

I’m going to be teaching a sketch writing/performance class for UCB. The class will start in late January/early February. The schedule isn’t totally finalized yet but I believe classes will be on Monday nights from 7-10pm, with performances every Tuesday at 11pm. All that will start just as I’m finishing up this show for Police Chief Rumble.

I think the class will run a lot like the process of putting up this show. Obviously, it can’t be exactly like it, but the fundamentals will be similar. If anyone has any ideas from reading this journal on what might be interesting to do in a class, PLEASE let me know. And of course, anybody who is interested in signing up, DO IT! I don’t know if it’s level 4 Class or open to all. I’m sure there will be a proper announcement with all the information in the next few weeks. Just curious to hear what people might be into working on.

Rock.

Jake
jake@ucbt.net

 

[PCR]

(I like the idea of personalized fonts, but it seems most of the good ones have already been taken, and I'm not sure if "Lucida Console" equals “Kula.” So I'll just keep it the standard type.)

I hate – HATE – missing shows, so my holiday travel plans are fairly bittersweet. Travelocity hooked me up with a cheap flight home to Michigan, but the sacrifice was that this particular flight leaves Friday morning, meaning I’ll have to miss our midnight show later that night (as well as our Harold on the 23rd). I’ve only missed one PCR show in a year and a half – not coincidentally, the Harold Night around Christmas time last year. So yeah, this whole “celebration of the Christ child” thing really fucks with my performance habits.

I love – LOVE – using music in scenes, but I’ve kind of come to accept that this show is probably not gonna be the best outlet for those tendencies. It’s just become harder to pitch things that are more conceptual (say, a non-dialogue relationship scene scored to some obscure R&B tune, or a party scene that relies heavily on a bunch of different sound cues) because, while it might seem so simple and make perfect, cinematic sense in my head, it’s conveying that idea – nay, that vision – to seven other performers that’s the hard part.

We used to do this movie preview scene that was reasonably “cute,” but which, at its heart, was basically just an excuse for me to incorporate a bunch of sound cues into a scene. The pitch process was: play PCR all the tracks (it was a send-up of trailer cliches, so it had them all – theme from American Beauty, the chorale from Carmina Burana, the “some-daaay” chorus from “O-oh Child, etc), then explain what’s happening during each song, then read the voiceover copy, then repeat six, seven, eighteen times, and still be met with a few stares of “Ummm…?” (In retrospect, it may not be a good sign if a three-minute scene for a sketch comedy show requires storyboarding.)

To his credit as a director, though, Jake is always totally on-board for any kind of stuff like that. I could come in and pitch a scene of me shadow-boxing to “Maggie May,” and he’d not only be into it, he’d have ideas on how it could hit harder. Jake “gets” the impact of music (and lights) in scenes better than anyone at the theatre. Even stuff as simple as when coming out of a blackout, having the lights come up in time with the music. I go nuts when I see that kind of thing executed well in shows, so it’s great to know he’s putting that kind of attention into ours.

I want to direct shows, and getting to see first-hand how Jake’s approached the PCR show has been a really valuable learning experience. My goals at the theatre have always been more oriented towards writing and directing than performing, and this show’s really cemented that desire. I mean, there are some parts that have certainly been a lot of fun to perform, but I actually get more pleasure hearing my teammates nail those jokes that I happen to have written.

There’s a section at the end of TATTOO where Bobby addresses the audience with this monologue bit I wrote, and he just kills every time. Bobby’s a ridiculously funny and likeable performer, and hearing him deliver the lines in a way I never could ... it’s my favorite part of the show.

 

[PCR]

Jake here. A show is definitely starting to emerge. I’m psyched. As soon as we get out of December and into 2004, I will consider PHASE ONE of putting together this show complete. Let’s check in with some of our scenes in progress…

TRUTH is locked! The new opening works. We’ll find an out when we really need one. TRUTH is the oldest scene in the show and it’s locked. By the way, when I use the term “locked” I don’t mean that we wont continue to make changes to the scene. If new shit pops up here and there, that’s fantastic. Locked just means the scene is working well and doesn’t require that much attention.

LOAN APPLICATION worked really well and my guess is that the scene will be sticking around for a while. We just need an out. That seems to be a common problem with all of our scenes. We just can’t seem to figure out how to end shit.

BUTTERGUN is also locked! A few minor performance notes aside, the scene is airtight. When in doubt, add Scrabble.

TATTOO is very close to being a finished product. Charlie filled in Kula’s part this week. When Kula returns next week, I think this scene will be close to locked.

LIT AGENT went through a major rewrite and I’m totally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The only problem was, the rewrite came in so late that Charlie had NO time to memorize the changes before the show. Once we get on book, I think we’ll be a little closer.

SWITCHAROO is out of the show for now. The second time it went up no one was feeling it. Oh well. There will be other scenes.

PINATA is very funny. I’m just not sure where to put it yet.

THE LORD hasn’t had the chance to go up again. I’m excited to see it again on Friday.

As far as hard completed scenes (not ideas and works in progress) that’s what’s on the table. Here’s what we need:

High-energy group scenes. We badly need a scene that could open the show and a scene that could close the show. Neither has emerged yet. Hopefully soon. I hate not knowing how a show begins and ends. I become a much happier person when that puzzle is solved.

Physical and silly. We have a lot of scenes with people talking. That’s fine but it can get a little boring if that’s your whole show. We need something with music or dancing or…whatever. Just something that isn’t blah, blah, blah…

Connections & Callbacks. Okay, it’s time start looking for these things. Just a little bit. There is nothing more satisfying in a sketch show, then organic connections between scenes. There’s nothing less satisfying then when those connections are forced. I find that people love connections and callbacks so much that they’ll throw them in, even if they’re not earned. We’re not going to do that. They will come…we just have to be on the lookout.

Monologues. I’m not sure what we’re going to use them for. Call it a hunch. I might be wrong.

I’m also starting to think about show balance. Who’s light in the show? Has everyone written a scene? There are a few minor problems but I have complete confidence they’ll take care of themselves.

We’re getting together casually on Tuesday and Friday’s show will be a bit of a fuckaround. A bunch of people are out, so we’re going to use the time to polish what we can and see if we can’t generate a few new ideas. The show next week will be less like a “Snow Day” but more like when it snows a lot and they send you home from school early.

After the New Year, I plan on bringing in a list of every scene, every half idea and every random joke we’ve discussed so far. Then I’ll see what people want to continue working on and what we want to trash. It’ll be a little bit of housecleaning so we can go into January fresh and organized.

When I can start seriously thinking about what Ramones song goes in the show, I’ll know we’re almost finished. I always use a Ramones song in sketch shows. Always. We use one right now but I know it’s only temporary.

That’s all for now.