I've found my new Monday Night Activity.

Improv!

I discovered a five-dollar drop-in improv class at the Staircase Theatre in Hamilton.  Yesterday I was browsing online, looking for classes that I might want to ask for for my birthday.  That's when I saw the drop-in boot camp.  Monday night, I read, (Hey, it's Monday today).  Five dollars (Hey, I have five dollars in my wallet right now!) I've always wanted to take an improv class (by "always" I mean that I once thought about it for five seconds).  I mentioned the class to my friend Columbia and she enthusiastically agreed to come with me.

Holy Spock, we had so much fun!

There were twelve people in the class (I know because the teacher, Devlin, counted us).  There was an equal mix of men and women and I was neither the oldest nor the youngest, in fact I was right in the middle (I know because we lined up by age at one point.)

My favourite game (I won't bore you by describing the whole class) was "Emotional Symphony".  Four people on stage were each given a word and an emotion. They would then have to say the word in the emotion they were given whenever the conductor pointed to them.  The conductor could raise her arm to make the person emote more, or lower it to make them emote less.  Conducting is WAY more fun than it should have been.  SUCH POWER!

The sketches were my other favourite.  I got to throw a temper tantrum, sing a song, scream at the top of my lungs and pretend to have an orgasm.  I was often paired with Columbia, which is great because we work well together. At one point we were doing a sketch exercise with two guys.  The floor was divided into three sections, each with a designated emotion: depression, lust, and hate. The teacher had to stop the scene; the boys had forgotten to emote hate, because they were too busy watching Columbia and I in the lust section.  Hilarious!

There were two classes and we had so much fun we stayed for the second one too. I don't know if I've found a new career as a sketch comic, but it is definitely a great way to loosen up and get out of Mom mode for an evening.