kevINda...brilliant!

Last night was a rock star night! kevINda was invited by Jonathan Pitts to perform at a fundraiser for the Chicago Improv Festival, along with Storybox and Bassprov. The 2:00 tech went well (I've finally mastered the cue-to-cue running order) and we had four hours to kill. Kevin went to an audition. I went to Kevin's, ate McDonald's and read an Esquire. Man, the things I've learned about Rosario Dawson! Definitely time well spent. When we got to the event, held at Second City's etc. stage, there were way more people there than I'd anticipated. I initially thought that this was a little preview for the board members. Turned out to be a $75/plate shindig for about 100 people.

Storybox was fun to watch. Kevin and I'd actually auditioned for Storybox about two years ago and didn't quite understand the concept at the time. Watching it was like "oh, that's what we were supposed to do in the audition." Good thing we didn't get it, though, because we wouldn't have had time to do kevINda. It was great to see Ronnell and Vyram perform. I got a chance to relate a story to Vyram about how some white lady at one of her shows came up to me afterward to tell me how much she'd enjoyed my performance. If you don't know Vyram, she's about a foot taller than me, darker complexion, shorter hair. Whitey. After last night's show our otherwise fantastic stage manager Jackie went up to Vyram to return kevINda's sound cue CD. And Jackie's not even white. Maybe I'm taller and darker in other people's eyes than I realized. No wonder I keep screwing up auditions. Apparently I don't have an accurate sense of my self-image.

kevINda performed second and brought down the house...if I say so myself. The crowd loved us! They really freakin' LOVED us! I don't mean to sound so surprised, but we were performing all new material (except for the good old "Bay Furniture" piece...always a sure-fire hit) and we weren't expecting that huge of a response. And I do mean huge. During Kevin's "Values" piece and my "Curious George" piece we both had to hold for laughs in places we weren't anticipating them. And these were surprisingly long laughs. Like "people, that's enough, we have a show to finish" long laughs. It was great. Okay, there was alcohol freely poured, but that's beside the point. The show was hot. To quote Jonathan Pitts, it was "brilliant." His word, not mine. But it was pretty fucking awesome.

Bassprov closed the evening with some really funny improvised conversations about what makes a monument not a building and how the 9/11 terrorists' ignorance stemmed from them having taken the bad classes at American universities. They made me long for warmer weather when I can head out to the Monee Reservoir and go fishing with the kids. Except without the talk of terrorists. The six-year-old wouldn't get it.

Great night. Great kevINda show. Can't wait to do the actual festival on April 28th. Please so come and check it out. Rock star Inda OUUTTT!!!