Anyhow, they filmed the whole thing, so check out the clips below to take a peek at my wildly varied performances.
 
Sex Talk
WRITTEN BY: Bina Martin DIRECTED BY: Bina Martin
PERFORMERS: Jen Malinsky, Shawn Bowers, Jo Feldman

Surprise!
WRITTEN BY: Jennifer Mitchell DIRECTED BY: Bina Martin
PERFORMERS: Jo Feldman, Shawn Bowers, Adam Claus, Jen Malinsky, Jeff Hedges

Here’s the deal. I run a site called Babies For My Son. It’s all about how my son Brand got kidnapped by a mysterious man named Stexxx and is being held for an insane ransom of 500 photos of babies in costumes. The site was created as a way to pay off the bounty, collect the photos, and take up valuable space on the finite internet.

I haven’t been a great dad…I’ve been pecking away at the project forever (like a work chicken), but I want to finish, and I want content to become more regular, so I want to see if anyone wants to staff up and contribute to this stupid project.

What do I have to do?

Great question. You’d be asked to contribute one piece a week, 300-400 words in length, with an accompanying image. This may possibly come in the form of an assignment, or you may find your own that you’re passionate about.

So what do I get paid?

Nothing! It’s just like every other project that you do onstage in town, except the stage is a computer. Unless you consider exposure to be currency, at which point you can make upwards of a dollar a week in comparative value.

For real, though, you’d always get by line credit and be listed as a full-time contributor on the site. You’d also participate in the creation of any live or video content down the line.

Is this real? Do you have a son? Was he really kidnapped? Why haven’t police been called?

…

Okay, I guess I’m interested. What do I have to do?

Right now, the site is written by myself as myself. The goal is to bring more characters into the world…FBI agents, friends, concerned citizens, etc. Then, you would post in character with a consistent format. For instance, my format is simple:

1. Lead paragraph contextual to the costume
2. Second paragraph analyzing the logistics of the costume on a baby
3. Third paragraph a blind rant against the kidnapper of my son

The first two paragraphs should generally stay the same from post to post, and that’s the place to get in whatever you’ve got on the photo. The last paragraph is more character-specific…say you’re an FBI agent, your last paragraph can be a Tip On How Not To Have Your Child Kidnapped. Things like that. This is way too specific for a novelty blog, but you get the idea.

So I would ask that you give me a one to two sentence description of the character you’d want to play, along with a sample write-up for this image:

The Goldfish Baby

Also, include some contact info! Duh! Send it all to babiesformyson@gmail.com and I’ll respond back in short order.

If you want to check it out to see if the whole thing fits your style, go to BabiesForMySon.net.

That’s all I’ve got. Tell your friends.

Back on the home front, I’ve been hard at work on writing and directing my new show, The Graduation, which is opening a week from tomorrow for a 3 week run at Studio BE in Chicago.  I’m very excited, I have a wildly talented cast who is knocking it out of the park, and I encourage the ten people who read this site to come check it out.  The show is a half play/half sketch show that takes place over the course of a high school graduation commencement ceremony.  It’s broad, it’s stupid, it’s exactly what I want it to be and more.   It’s this, also, in poster form.  Come see it?  Please?  A FULL DEBRIEF IS TO COME.

So I decided to do that.  By “that,” I mean watch it all again, except this time I’m documenting the process.  I’ve created a new blog called Let’s Watch Power Rangers, where you can journey with me episode by episode through the beauty and stupidity of this wonderful program.  Check out the site, let me know what you think and what you want to see and spread it around to friends.  I have a long road ahead.

At Groupon, Employees Don’t Sell Out, They Sell In via WBEZ Chicago

I was also featured on the Groupon blog this week.  Check out that fun little piece here:

Meet A Groupon Employee via Groublogpon

That’s My Daughter, The Sickly Duckling via McSweeney’s

And while you’re in a reading mode, why not check out all the junk over on the Stories page?

I was asked to answer a few questions for the Better Off Wed blog today, so head over there to learn more about my checkered history with weddings and who I most want to marry.  It’s a nerdy answer.  You can also buy tickets for the show soon, which runs Saturday, May 7th through June 25th at 7:30 pm, over at SecondCity.com.

Meet The Actors: Shawn Bowers via the Better Off Wed Blog

A Hiolaurius Sceine by shawn-bowers

I’m pondering all this because I’m prepping new material to try out over the next two Tuesdays at Sketchtest here in Chicago (check out my Shows page for more info).  I should also qualify here that I’m talking very specifically about a solo comedy performance. Not stand-up, not improv, but a solo comedy performance that would probably be closest in flavor to a sketch show. For you dramatic folks who want to do a one-woman show about the Holocaust…I’m sure that none of my findings have any application for you. Or maybe they do. Just don’t rush for the punchline in a Holocaust show, okay?

My roommate, Andrew Elizabeth Dierker, made a point about doing solo comedy that I think is what many such performers are missing: in most cases, comedy is about playing the fool. We laugh at the downtrodden characters, we laugh at the puffed up characters failing and having their egos deflated, we laugh at people getting hit in the nuts with a football or tripping as they’re walking down the aisle. In solo shows, the ego can take over very quickly. When the spotlight is on you and you alone, there’s an urge to want to show off. “I can sing, I can tap, I can do a handstand while reciting the alphabet! Celebrate me!”

That’s great that you can do those things. I don’t care. If I wanted to watch you jerk off, I’d come to your apartment on a Friday around 6 pm (is that accurate?). So now you’re probably saying “well if you don’t want me to show off my talents, then what exactly is it I’m supposed to do?”

I don’t know. Give me something I haven’t seen before. The problem with doing a solo show is that it’s often just you and a couple of props…you can’t fall back on production value or big ensemble numbers or rapidfire back and forth wordplay. Instead, you’re left to somehow make little old you a worthwhile enough thing that you can feel justified in charging people their hard earned money to watch you cavort around.

I’m not going to claim I’m a veteran at this and that I can offer years of perspective on the subject. I’ve just begun experimenting with solo performance and how to do it effectively so that it doesn’t feel dirty. Thus far, I’ve been taking a shotgun approach with a variety taste to it. Adhering to my personal performance beliefs, I like to acknowledge the audience’s presence. Talk to them at the top of the show, keep the personal stuff upfront when I’m just playing myself and use that time to get out any pressing thoughts for the week. I keep a menu onstage of titles of bits that I like and think would be fun to do, and before going into something, I’ll give the audience the choice between two of them and let them decide by shouting out which they’d rather see. I should emphasize the word “bit” here…these can range from one line of dialogue to maybe two or three minutes max. Cut straight to the thing you think is funny, milk it for a minute and get out before it turns indulgent. In a 12 minute set, I can fit 6 or 7 pieces in, which gives me a nice safety net if something goes wrong. It’s the Midwestern Weather Approach to Comedy: don’t like this bit? Wait a minute and it’ll be completely different.

The real question is going to be figuring out how to translate that rapidfire approach to delivering content into a full 40 minute or hourlong piece. I suspect most solo shows start off really fun and simple and tight and then collapse under the pressure of having to keep going even though the format kind of demands to be taken in small doses. As I go, I’m going to continue updating this discussion, but for the time being…let’s see if we can start assembling a list of do’s and don’ts for when you’re first stepping into the mix.

Do:
- Develop a deep well of incredibly simple, one-line concepts that make you laugh
- Ask yourself “is this actually entertaining or is this me showing off?”
- Keep it short, especially as you’re just beginning to workshop stuff
- Workshop as often as you can, wherever you’re allowed to do it
- Improvise within the idea…use your one line idea to go crazy and then write down what hits after the fact

Don’t:
- Plan so hard and stress so much. Especially at first, play it fast and loose. Steal my method if you have to and just make a list of things to try.
- Try to interact with tech. The cues will never hit right, the audio quality or volume in the theatre will never be good enough and if the whole bit is contingent on the audience listening closely to a sound file and laughing, you’re doing it wrong.
- Freak out if something looks like shit. You’re one person on a stage. The props can look bad, you can call out the limitations of your space and play into that. Solo is most often cabaret style.

What else should we add to this list? What bugs you about solo shows? What delights you? WE MUST BUILD THIS GUIDE TOGETHER!