So, it's good to be back in Chicago. People have been pretty cool, and people have been pretty excited to see me. Things are the same and also different. Since I'm only here for a month, it's slightly weird, as if peeps are preparing for me to leave again and not trying to get too close. And you basically are still starting over in a town that you knew but you left. I only wanted a couple things to be the same, but of course they weren't. That's how it goes.
The other thing is that I feel like I'm playing a little bit of catch up. Doing Harolds is still pretty different from playing InnerSong to end Act One and then finding your prop-up for Sitcom. It's a mind-set change as well, because it's not like I was some super established improvisor before I left. All I really had to my name was the Good Time Hour, and possibly Otis, but we were never a team Charna liked. Since I've been back, several people have talked to me about GTH, so that sort of cements why I feel like that. Plus, performing here is different in tone. Boom was entirely about getting a laugh. Chicago is different. You're allowed more room for the scenes to breathe, and acting is much more neccesary. It'll take a little adjustment, just like Boom took months for me to get used to before I was performing at the level I felt was at least decent.
Now that I'm back, I really wish we had done a Harold while I was at boom. We never did as the perception was that it would NOT work, and I agreed with that, but now I wish that I hadn't. It would have been a blast and had confused the audience in such a great way that I would have loved it.
