People, Places, Things

Both my sister and I have been using our newfound free time (and inheritance money) to travel. Its been a long-festering goal and I'm taking advantage of it:

In late March, I flew to Austin, TX for a film shoot. I used to collaborate on short films with a guy named Brandon; when he couldn't afford to live in Chicago anymore, he moved back to his hometown of Houston, but resettled in the state capital. Some of you may recall I promoted his Indiegogo in mid-March; it only hit 38% of its goal, but he's been doing more with less. Brandon and his crew have been rather clever about shooting around his house, the neighborhood/subdivision that he lives in, and a smattering of other locations.

The film itself is a high school coming-of-age comedy/bildungsroman about three high school seniors plotting the perfect graduation prank. My character was originally intended to be in one scene; he was supposed to assist the boys with a botched prank early on in the film. That scene went well enough that just before I flew back, we improvised a second scene with the lead and another actor. One more for the IMDb, I suppose.

Then last week, my improv duo Flower Shop Bangers flew to Baltimore for the Charm City Comedy Festival. Even though we had played out of Illinois before, this was the Bangers' first festival that required a plane ride. We flew in that Tuesday night, spent Wednesday doing some tourist stuff, performed that evening, then went back to hitting up recommended locales until we flew back on Friday. We were impressed enough by B'More that we applied for the Baltimore Improv Festival in late July. FSB will hit the road again for our third trip to Omaha on Memorial Day weekend.

Next Week: my annual memory list.

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