The Milky Way Improv Festival Lineup

Over the past few months Blacktop Comedy has been organizing the Milky Way Improv Festival (MWIF), and we're excited to announce the comedy event exceeded even our wildest expectations. The festival is April 5-7th, 2013. Three days of improv performances, and classes. It's more then a chance to laugh, and see some of the premiere teams from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and beyond. It's a chance to come together as an improv community, and teach one another. These shows, and classes have never been available in Sacramento or Placer before, but.... they're coming to Roseville April 5-7th. Who will be at the festival? I'm glad you asked. Many of these groups have never performed in Sacramento or Roseville, and might never again. Don't miss your chance! Grab your tickets! Here is just a partial list of the incredible talent descending into Roseville: Kind Strangers (LA), Recchia (SF), HUGE (SF),  Billyhawk (LA), Made Up Theatre (Fremont), Empire Comedy (Reno), Bro Squad 5 (LA), Unscripted (SF) and more! If you want to learn more about the festival, check out the website.

Quidditch and Teamwork

This past weekend Blacktop Comedy was invited to provide color commentary for the International Quidditch Western Cup IV. I'll be honest, before their invitation I didn't know anything about quidditch outside the Harry Potter books. For instance, I had no idea so many teams existed. Did you know Iran has two Quidditch teams? We didn't see Iran at this tournament. We saw representative's from California, Washington, Oregon, and Canada. They all arrived at Maidu Park in Roseville, 9am, ready for victory. Of course, victory means winning numerous matches, and these matches we quickly found out, were intense. Stanford chose to wear helmets, and I understand why. Concussions happen on the Quidditch field. These broom holding competitors were quick t tackle each other.

However, they weren't quick to work as a team, which surprised me. There were a lot of participants who wanted to be heroes, but few who wanted to assist a hero. Now, there were a handful of united teams, intent of scoring points. These teams focused on making each other look good, gladly giving up their long distance shot, passing the quaffle to another with a better shot. You could see it in their eyes, "better an assist, than a miss."

Do you know what happened? You can probably guess. The fans from Sacramento, Roseville, Rocklin, San Francisco... even Seattle and Portland, were treated to a beat down. These team orientated players crushed the competition. It wasn't even close. Sure, a few individuals scored on the other team, and they'd beat their chest, and scream (I'm not kidding), but they looked ridiculous, because they were down 200-10.

What's the point? It doesn't matter if you're on a field or stage, playing quidditch or improving, teamwork looks good. And, the results are pretty great too.

How To Start Your Morning

Have you ever scribbled down an idea on paper? How did you feel, afterwards?

Normal? Hmmm. Let's try something different.

Now, try writing down an idea on something that isn't typically a writing surface (wall, desk, baseball, box). Sit back, take in that idea on the wall, desk, baseball or box. Now, how do you feel? A little different?  Do you feel like a genius who didn't have time to find paper to scribble down a thought, but had to get it out before that thought escaped forever to you settled on the quickest surface possible? I did. I hope you did too.

Making yourself feel like a genius is a good way to start any day. It's funny how changing a small thing, can make such a huge impact.