Go Comedy Go!

I went to a performance at Go Comedy last weekend.  Back when I was in high school, I used to do improv as part of the normal diet for young actors, which is why I suspect one of my friends invited me to go.
We went for two of their shows, a showdown and Dark Matter.  The Showdown was two teams of actors competing with each other, somewhat similar to Who's Line Is It Anyway?  One of the actors even claimed to have played Punky Brewster (and she was one of the better actors.)  Dark Matter just featured the actors making new scenes over and over again.  That sounds potentially boring, but they were clearly having fun.  You got the sense that they were doing this just because it was fun for them.  
Between shows, one of the actors came up to me and my friends and thanked us for coming.  "Is that normal?" I asked one of them.
"They hang out at the bar a lot and will talk to people, so yeah."  I was surprised to hear that, because I figure people wouldn't be into that sort of thing.  
The only thing I was uncomfortable with was the audience participation.  I don't mind other people participating, but I don't like getting called on myself.  I like to sit back and enjoy the show.

DFT Summer Schedule

The Detroit Film Theatre has just sent me their list of movies this summer. As always, they make me sad that I'm probably not going to get to see everything I want to see.
This weekend and the next weekends afterward they're showing "The Complete Metropolis." I saw a version of the movie several years ago and loved it. It was a visually stunning work, plus it had a really fascinating storyline. Apparently, this is the most complete version of the film that they have found so far, meaning I really want to go and see the this one since it is closest to what the filmmaker intended. They also have a restored version of another sci-fi/horror favorite, the Spanish Dracula, which often gets toted as better than the American version shot at the same time.
They're also showing some opera stuff, including Aida. That show is near and dear to my heart, since I worked on a high school production of it.
They're even showing an action film, The Warlords, which stars Jet Li. (Yes, that Jet Li, right over there.) I'm a sucker for period films, and I've always wished I could see more films that weren't about American or European history.
There are some more "traditional" art house films showing, including The Father of my Children, about a filmmaker, which I hear is really good. Also from Europe, they're showing Breathless, which a film critic told me that I must see. And they have Nora's Will, a comedy involving an attempted suicide. (So I'm assuming it's a black comedy.) They're also showing a series of films done by the amazing Ousmane Sembene, including Black Girl and Moolaade. The first film is especially important because it marks the beginning of African cinema.
And, as always, no art theatre would be complete without some documentaries. They have one called Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo. When I first heard that title, I thought it was going to be some hilarious Japanese monster flick done in the 50's a la Gamera, but it's actually a film on people who collect bugs.
This is the problem with me getting stuff like this in the mail: all I want to do now is to go see these things.

Ruelaine Stokes Reviewed

Ms. Stokes came to read tonight as the last poetry reading this Spring for the Center for Poetry. I really enjoyed her work and listening to her read. I really like her voice. She always sounds like a librarian or a preschool teacher when she talks. She also choose great material when writing, like a poem about how her mother was dating the Catholic priest.
Midway through the night, she had one of her students read some poems in Arabic. She teaches English to non-native speakers, and she explained that usually in the summer that there's a talent show for these students. One of them was game to work with poetry, and they ended up working together on a project where he read famous Arabic poetry and she would read the English translation.
If I had to pick a theme for this semester's poetry festival, I would say we've been doing humor in poetry. Steve Healey was a riot a few weeks back, and there was a sense of fun in so much of Christine Rhein's work. Ruelaine Stokes was also funny. My friend Mark (a fellow worker for the Center) mentioned that good stories are always in the details, and Ms. Stokes definitely did this. She had a great story about a high school English teacher who used Songs of Myself as a doorstop. That's the kind of thing that stays with you.

My Third Poetry Reading

Tonight, I read at Live Lit, which is this event the Department of English has begun this year. Basically, you submit a manuscript to three judges (English professors, mostly), and, if they like your work, they allow you to read as part of an event with four to five other undergraduate writers.
I’ve always wanted my poetry to be read out loud and for people to like it, but I was still a nervous about this event. I tried to get a friend to apply with me, thinking that if he was doing it too I might feel like I have a comrade, but he wasn’t interested, so I decided to do it myself.
It was such a pleasure, getting that email that said I could read, but once I realized I had to do it, I was back to being a wreck. So, as always, I practiced. Not just the poems themselves, but the stories in-between, which my friend Lia told me were necessary to reengage the audience.
And then I got up there and do what I do best: myself.
I don’t talk about it often, but I come from a performing arts background. I was one of those kids who took dance classes, acted in plays, sung in choirs, trained as an opera singer, directed plays, performed in student news programs and at my high school’s annual Forensic’s Day. I turned to writing, on a lark really, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I’m still a little unsure of the performance aspect of poetry, but I felt so good about tonight. People laughed at my jokes, they enjoyed the poetry, and I knew they listened and cared. I must say, I totally rocked it, and from what everyone else said to me afterward, my fifteen minutes went over really well.
When I was up there, I felt like I was the most beautiful thing on the planet, if only for a few minutes.