Post 3: A Love Letter to Monday
Posted By: Dan Sicko
Posted: 4/5/2010
I am not a morning person. Neither am I a beginning-of-the-week person. There's always been something about shifting to a work mindset and any additional events or tasks that just seems all the more daunting. For example, finishing this post I'm sure raised my blood pressure a tiny bit.
But at some point in 2008, that all changed. I looked forward to Mondays to the point where I almost felt guilty. This is where I fell in love with improv. Not to retread the posts of PJ Jacokes, who is infinitely more qualified to speak on this subject, but it's worth noting this phenomenon that so permanently changed my behavior.
Sometime after I started taking classes at the fated, displaced Second City Theater in Novi, I wandered down to Hamtramck to check out the Monday night line-up at the Planet Ant Theatre, all of which is dedicated to improv. It would be a while yet before I'd step on stage and fall on my face, but I could at least take in the opening guest troupes and their amazingly talented home team.
Let me just say this now—I'm not throwing "amazingly talented" around because I'm from Detroit. I've seen improv in four cities now, including Improv Olympic and The Upright Citizens Brigade, and on a good night Planet Ant can hang with them all.
This is in a theatre that has a modest 65-seat capacity or thereabouts, and only charges $5.00 for what amounts to about three hours of entertainment.
I owe this place a lot as it revitalized my creative process (or maybe that's completely rebuilt it from the ground up?), and gave me plenty of chances to get on stage. Starting from hugging the "back line" and not saying a word to initiating scenes and performing as a part of a guest team, I've learned a lot. And technically, I haven't really taken any classes there.
Aside from any one character or scene, the lasting impression one gets at Planet Ant is how much the performers love what they do. Even if you would never consider doing the same sort of thing, you should come down some Monday. You can experience Detroit's creative spirit in a wonderfully raw but expertly practiced way.
Except for me I suppose. But I'll happily fall on my face for you.