Making the scene

Well, it was quite a weekend. Friday night after our shows I went over to IO to catch up with some friends in town from, namely my former Valhalla teammates Sarah Gee and John Lutz. There had been an all-star Armando earlier that night, which included lots of guests of varying levels of celebrity, as a warm-up for the following evening's 25th anniversary show at the Chicago Theatre.

Saturday night was the big show, which was chock full of technical problems and started 90 minutes late. I wasn't there, but word has a tendency to spread in these parts, especially when it involves the misfortune of others. After the mainstage shows, I headed over to the after party with my date for the evening, Brian Gallivan. We mingled among the IO alums who didn't intimidate us too much, pausing occasionally to say - subtley, without moving our lips - "There's Mike Myers" or "Tim Meadows, Tim Meadows" or "How did that person get in here?"

Sunday, Rachel Dratch came by again to play our improv set, which made me happy because it must mean that she didn't have a miserable time when she played Thursday. Not that I thought she would have had a miserable time, but it's hard to tell when guests are having fun in the set. Also in attendance was Ali Farahnakian, SC alum currently in New York running the PIT Theatre, and Mark Beltzman, SC alum and actor from Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and According to Jim, among others.

After the show Sunday I went out for a drink with some of our guests and castmates, and then headed over to IO to see Dasariski, an improv show featuring Rich Talarico, Craig Cackowski, and Bob Dassie. I had forgotten how hilarious those guys are and how fun it is to watch them play together. It was a great show, but I grabbed my stuff and left immediately afterwards because I was very tired from all the weekend's excitement, and because Rich was finally home from his ComedySportz tournament in LA.

And to round it all out, last night (Monday) I played Armando (with a few out of town guests), and then there was a roast for Dan Bakkedahl, who is headed to New York to be a correspondent for the Daily Show. I didn't roast Dan myself, but Joe Canale and I read some touching remarks on behalf of our former cruisemates Sue Salvi and Paul Grondy.

All in all, a tiring but very fun weekend. But the celebs have packed up and gone home, and now we can go back to The Empire Carpet guy being the most famous person in town.

Phoning it in

This weekend is the IO (formerly ImprovOlympic) 25th anniversary. There's a big show Saturday night at the Chicago Theatre, and then a party afterwards. My mainstage schedule will keep me away from most of it, but with any luck I'll make it to the party for a little bit.

With this big celebration comes many IO alums in town, one of whom is Rachel Dratch, who came by Second City last night and played our set. I had met her a couple of times before, beginning with a phone conversation almost 10 years ago. In March of my senior year of college, I came to Chicago for a few days to check it out, since I was planning to move here after graduation. I stayed with my friend Allie, who had been in Chicago for about 4 months by then. One night we went to Second City to see Pinata Full of Bees (which, I realized years later, was actually well into its transition into the next show, Citizen Gates), and when we got to the lobby where the actor photos are, Allie said "I didn't know Rachel Dratch worked here." Allie had moved to Chicago to do theatre, and when she moved her grandmother had given her the name and phone number of the granddaughter of a friend or something like that...who was also an actress in Chicago. Allie had never contacted her, but it turns out that person was Rachel Dratch.

So the next morning, Allie decides to call Rachel. It was clear from Allie's side of the conversation that Rachel didn't really understand the tenuous connection between the two of them. And then Allie says something to the effect of "My friend Molly is visiting and wants to do Second City. Would you talk to her?" She handed me the phone, and I managed to squeak out an awkward conversation. To her credit, Rachel was very nice on the phone, despite the fact that we were calling her the morning of her day off. She told me to take classes at Second City and IO, at the same time if I could, but if not to start at IO. Which is what I ended up doing.

I came very close to telling Rachel this story last night; I kind of wish I had. Another time perhaps. Or maybe I'll have Allie call her and tell her.

Anyway, Rachel was a lot of fun to play with. It's always exciting to have celebrities play the set, but it's even better when that person is a Second City alum. The audience gets so excited when they're introduced because they're seeing someone famous, but I'd like to think that they're also excited by the realization that they're watching a show at an institution where people like Rachel got their start.

Sonic Day 2

This is a photo of my Sonic Spouse Brian and our minivan set-up from our night shoot in April.

So today was our main day of shooting; we met at 7am for make-up and wardrobe here at the hotel, and then headed out the Sonic around 8. In the morning we shot spots for the Tuscan Grilled Chicken Sandwich. We've gotten pretty good at eating as little of possible of the product, not because it isn't tasty necessarily, but because we could be shooting one product for 4 or 5 hours. So you have to be careful.

Basically what happens when we shoot is that Brian and I sit in a minivan that has 4 small cameras on the dash. There is one person, Russ, who sits in the way back of the van and is basically in charge of all the cameras. He has monitors back there and tells us when we need to adjust the cameras (according to when the sun is out or in the clouds) or ourselves. He's also the one doing the recording.

Meanwhile, in a big white van, are the people from the ad agency and Sonic - usually 5-6 people. They have a monitor and are the only ones who can see and hear everything we're doing. They give us a series of scenarios, usually 25 or so for each product, on index cards in our van. They'll then tell us which one to do, and then we'll do each one around 2-8 times. Usually it's something like "Molly says she can't imagine anything more romantic than sharing a cookie dough blast on a hot summer night. Brian says he can think of several things, like going to a monster truck rally or watching action movies."

And so it goes from there. We improvise and get direction and ideas from the agency folks. Meanwhile there's another car or two full of production company folks - PA's, lighting and sound, make-up, etc., and a motor home with other PA's and food stylists.

Today we shot until about 4:30, but it was a little bit easier than past shoots because nothing after our lunch break involved food. We spent an hour or so shooting some scenarios with a carhop (the servers at Sonic, who bring food to your car window), and then doing some bits for an upcoming Sonic convention. Tomorrow morning we finish up with a breakfast sandwich, and then it's back to Chicago late in the afternoon.

I have to say, it's a great gig. I really like all the people who work on these shoots, and it was nice to see everyone after a few months off. Hopefully we'll be back for more in the future.

Controversy!

http://www.blindness.org/msgboard/viewMessage.asp?cat=3&msg=10095&start=1

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the ACLU would love to take on what is essentially a free speech case. Good call.

Sonic Day 1

Greetings from Denver. I just got into town today for a Sonic shoot, our first one since the end of April. That's not really a long time, but considering we did four shoots between January and April, it seems like it's been forever.

I landed at the airport and found one of the PA's and my Sonic husband, Brian. Our hotel is the oldest one in Denver and allegedly haunted. That's all I need. The best part is that my room key in on a key chain that looks like a Christmas ornament with a 6-inch tassle hanging off of it. In fact, that's probably what it is. But not the fragile, light kind of ornament; I think it's either wood painted silver, or some sort of weird alloy. I'll get to the bottom of this, believe me.

So far, I'll say this of the hotel: the TV is excellent. In two minutes of flipping through channels, I saw two spanish soap operas, Family Feud in spanish, a local access show called "Sports Guys," which was two unlikely sports fan sitting at a table on an otherwise bare set (one of them looked like the filmmaker in "American Movie," if that helps with the image), and a commercial for a mattress featuring a testimonial by a woman who shares my relatively uncommon last name.

Tomorrow we will be doing spots for (and eating) breakfast sandwiches featuring egg, cheese, and my choice of bacon, ham, or sausage, as well as a new chicken sandwich. More on that later. For now, I'm going out to dinner.

Red Handed

I grew up in Dallas, where restaurants are a huge source of entertainment. Every time I visit, there are dozens of new restaurants in new neighborhoods that seem to exist only to house restaurants. In high school, going out with friends usually meant going to Bennigan's, Chili's, Applebees, Friday's, etc. Not exactly haute cuisine, but familiar. These days I find myself turning to these suburban chain gems for comfort food; how can you go wrong in a place where the menu has 8 pages? You can't.

Several weeks ago, we were talking backstage and it was disclosed that Brian and I had never been to Red Lobster. I'm not sure how I had avoided it. We decided we should all go eat there before a show one night. We had planned to do it a few weeks ago, but it was the night before Maribeth and Antoine were flying to New York for their SNL auditions, so we rescheduled for this past Wednesday, which was also Antoine's birthday.

Now, if you're going to Red Lobster for the first time, you're a jerk not to get the Ultimate Feast. It's a lobster tail, snow crab legs, fried shrimp, and shrimp scampi. Not to mention a side (baked potato, in my case) and a salad. And we ordered an appetizer sampler (calamari, stuffed mushrooms, scallops wrapped in bacon). And they have great cheese and garlic rolls. And it was Antoine's birthday so we had cake. Needless to say, we were all in a bit of a food coma during the show that night, but it was worth it.

One of the odd things that's happened to me in the past year is that I'm actually able to tell good lobster from bad or sub-par lobster, thanks to 6 weeks in Maine and 4 months at sea. I would give the Red Lobster Lobster Tail (tm) a 6.5 on the Erdman Lobster Scale (tm). To put that in perspective, most of the lobster tails on the cruise would get about a 5. My main criteria are tenderness (i.e. non-chewy), and whether it's good even without butter (not that I would eat the whole thing without butter. I mean, I can think of about 6 foods that aren't better with melted butter, and 4 of them are the different varieties of m&m's.). So for a chain restaurant, that's some respectable lobster.

And now I no longer have to hide in shame for never having been to Red Lobster. It's for the seafood lover in me now too.

"My Santa costume smells like urine!"

In keeping with last week's theme, Nicole Parker of MadTV came to our show last night and played our improv set. I had met her before, once in Chicago last summer when she was here doing Second City's production of Romeo and Juliet, and then again in December when Rich and I went to LA to do some Winston Revue shows. We spent a day at MadTV with pal and former improv classmate Ike Barinholtz, watching the taping from backstage and helping ourselves to the craft services table. We also appear in the "audience" of the celebrity poker sketch in that episode. It's the Christmas one, where Ike plays Nick Nolte dressed as Santa Claus.

Coincidentally, last night was the last show for Frank Caeti, who's on the ETC stage. He was just hired by MadTV and will be moving to LA next week I believe. I was able to watch a little bit of his last set, but had to leave before the end to head over to IO for Pie, my improv show with Andy. That show's been going really well; it's a fun way to end my work week, if you can call it that.

I'm headed out right now to a sneak preview of "40-Year-Old Virgin," and then later tonight I'll head to IO again for Armando and Match Game. Tonight Jack Helbig, the infamous theatre critic from the Reader, will be on the panel. I'm a little nervous to meet him, although I have spoken to him on the phone and he was perfectly nice. We'll see what happens.

Girls just wanna have reduced fat cookies

Sorry it's been awhile, but as I've said before, I hate to write stuff just to write it. Unless you're willing to read stuff just to read it. In that case, this will work out well.

Not a lot of news to report, although technically I had another celebrity incident Monday night. This one involved MadTV's Stephnie Weir, who I knew before she became a celebrity, so I don't really count it. Not that she isn't a celebrity, but I'm able to have conversation with her without choking on pre-vomit, so she's in a different category. Anyway, she's in the suburbs filming a movie, and came to IO for Armando on Monday night. She did the monologues, and was great, but I would have prefered if she'd played because she's a terrific improviser. Another time, perhaps.

Yesterday I did a bizco (corporate branch of Second City) for Kraft; they were having some sort of women's summit, and we did a few scenes about problems women have in the work force. Now, I'm a woman, so I mean no insult by this, but I'm always amazed at how much women seem to enjoy getting together to talk about how hard it is to be a woman. I'm not saying there aren't challenges, and I'm sure corporate America is a tough place for women (if the scenes we did are any indication, at least). I'm just saying it's slightly fascinating. Slightly.

More importantly about this gig, there was a ton of packaged Kraft food for the taking. I loaded up my backpack with Planter's peanuts, Ritz Chips, Snackwells, and Fig Newtons...all made by Kraft, I presume. But where was the macaroni & cheese? Come on Kraft, that's what made you. Don't pretend you don't know that.

Oh, and word has come down that I'll be doing another Sonic shoot in a few weeks, this time in Denver. I haven't really talked much about the shoots in the past, mainly because it was when I was in cruise blog mode and it seemed off topic. So maybe this time around I'll let you in on some of the behind-the-scenes magic. And by magic I mean eating. Stay tuned!