benzado:

Write 30 sketches in 30 days. Easy as pie. Have you ever tried eating 30 slices of pie in 30 minutes? Sounds like fun, until some point after your fourth slice.

The website has been updated, to support the idea of NaSkeWriMo happening every year. I probably should have foreseen the need for this feature last year, or the year before. Regardless, now you can see past records from 2008 and 2009 as well as keep track of sketches you write for NaSkeWriMo 2010. And, even if I get hit by a bus in the next twelve months, the website will automatically turn over again for NaSkeWriMo 2011.

Note that the website address is new, sorta. For very boring reasons the domain nationalsketchwritingmonth.com is no longer under our control. naskewrimo.org always worked as a shortcut, now it’s the main address. So spread the word for people who still might be trying to find the site at its old address.

What else? Oh yeah, there’s a NaSkeWriMo tumblelog you can follow with links to sketches from the site and posts from the main blog. And a Twitter account, too.

We had 23 writers in 2008 and 65 writers in 2009. Can we break 100 writers this year? (To count as a writer, you need to write at least one sketch.) I think we can! Then again, I’m an optimist.

Anyone who wants to be a writer should do this. Hell, I’ll go one further and say anyone who feels like they wish they were more productive/creative in their spare time should do this.

I did this last year and I wrote 30 sketches. I didn’t quite do one a day, and had to sometimes do 2 or 3 to catch up, but when it was all said and done I wrote 30 sketches, and I liked a lot more of them then I expected.

In fact 6 of them I was able to rewrite and have put up on stage or made videos out of. That’s pretty good considering that at this time last year I usually wrote zero sketches a month.

I’ve realized one of my biggest problems is just pre-judging stuff I want to write. So I won’t even get past the idea phase. Well writing under such a tight deadline made me stop that. And then I realized I didn’t have that many ideas. Well, when I need to write a sketch every day all of a sudden 1/2 ideas, or barely any idea all of a sudden feel like plenty of inspiration.

Write! Participate! Enjoy!

Comedy Video: Wormtongue Interviews with Google.

My latest video from Diamonds, Wow was a real labor of love. I hope folks like it.

I love the Lord of the Rings movies, in fact I ranked them in my top ten list of favorite movies 3 years before the first film was released.

And I’ve always had a love for characters like Wormtongue. Evil advisers, whispering in the ears of kings. Characters that often seemed to have no redeeming characteristics. They aren’t just evil, they look evil! (Wormtongue has no eyebrows!) They sit next to the throne telling their Kings to do awful things, and for some reason they are listened to.  (Everyone calls him WORM-TONGUE!) And yet somehow these character’s get positions of power.

Like Jafar from Aladdin. That guy looked like a snake and was a jerk to everyone. Still somehow he rose to power.

Anyway. I’ve always wondered how guys like Wormtongue got jobs. And that led to this video. Directed by Zach Neumeyer (with help from Ryan O’Laughlin), and starring Doug Moe and Anthony Atamanuik.

Freddi Scheib stepped in to do makeup and play an office worker. And Will Choy played another office worker when he wasn’t holding the boom. Chelsea Karst helped too by running around the office and cleaning up spilled ‘poison’.

Thanks to everyone for helping me make this video!

A couple nights before we shot the video Zach emailed me and asked me to make a prop resume for Wormtongue. What an exciting request. I am including that resume below, because you only get a glimpse at part of it in the video, but I wrote an entire page. Click on it for a larger version.

Wormtongue’s Resume:

We are opening up the Hudson Guild Stage at 6:30, so come check us out.

My Full Schedule:

Friday 6:30pm - Brothers Hines - we are related. I like to think this is the purest form of my sense of humor I get to in improv. Mostly because it’s just the two of us, so everything is at least 50% my idea. Same would hold true for Will. Anyway, we haven’t performed a Brothers Hines show in a while, and you never know when we will perform again, so come check us out.

Saturday 10:00pm - Reuben Williams - my first marathon show with Reuben since joining the team last fall. I’m excited, our shows have been really good lately and I expect this one to match or exceed those.

Sunday 1:30am - The Straight Men - This is a show Dominic Dierkes and I put together last year. Everyone in this group’s goal is to the be the straight man of every scene. Therefore, his scene partner must be the unusual one right? - This show was great last year. We’re all curious as to whether we can top ourselves. Either way, it’s a great line up.

Sunday 5:30pm - Mailer Daemon - This was the third Harold Team I was on, but the first one that was awesome. Improv was never easier then when I was on this team. Things clicked together. It’s where I met Jon Gabrus and Dominic Dierkes, and became friends with former acquaintances Ben Rodgers, Shannon O’Neil, Matt Moses, Ellie Kemper, and Eric Appel. Also, we will perform an invocation, so it’s Charlie Todd approved.

On top of that I hope to see the return of Nailed Down, so I will be doing some audience audience work for that show.

DCM12!

At 9 I was asked (along with brother, Will) to sit in with 4 Track at the Magnet Theater. I’ve know Alan Fessenden for ages, and Matt Evans for slightly fewer ages and it was a blast to get to work with them both.

Coincidentally, a few days earlier while watching the awesome match up at Cagematch between Sandino and Doppleganger (go watch Doppleganger at Cagematch!) , Will and I mused about how we missed performing together.

The show was fun, with a particularly fun scene about some Australians who couldn’t get boomerangs to work and a slide show about amazing 20 dollar handjobs.

Then after 4 Track I ran over to perform with Reuben Williams. Our first half shows have been hitting on all cylinders lately. So it was a blast discovering the world of Pubic-Wig-Suits-Sewn-Together-Strip-Clubs and seeing how the bad economy had forced every business to install a beer tap.

Then in Reuben’s second half we did a fun show about Tea Parties. I get worried when we get loaded suggestions for our monoscenes because the audience is asking for a show that can easily get jokey, and that generally doesn’t work. But this week and during last week’s Lebron James monoscene I think Reuben handled it very well. I don’t know why I get so worried, that team has got plenty of smart performers on it then can both hit references, make commentary, and still find ways to end the show with George Washington stepping through a time portal only to fall in lust with a frisbee-fanatic.

After that show, I jumped in a cab, raced down to Players Theater where The Lab (hosted by Tesla) had put together a show that included a MonkeyDick reunion and a fwand reunion.

fwand shows are always a blast. Even though we were missing almost half our team, it was a treat to get to perform with Shannon, Chelsea, Sean, and visiting from LA, Dominic. A show that included a girl with an exposed brain, a safe full of snakes, and tortured bears always had an amazing musical performance by Shannon for a girl who was raised by wolves.

An exhausting night, that was so much fun. Thanks to everyone who made that possible.

jerryandgeorge:

Jerry and George perform an episode submitted by a fan.

Oh man. Things are getting weird on The Jerry Seinfeld program. And that’s saying something

Great final line.

mullaney:

DCM 2010. I will say yes. Unless you want me to coach your improv group. Then I’ll likely say no. I want to play, not coach.

Have fun with Kevin Mullaney!

But for categorical purposes I would have fallen into the receiving of wedgies group. No question. I was a wimp.

1. Spider-Man
2. Batman
3. Superman
4. The Thing
5. Robin (The Boy Wonder)

Does that answer your question?