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Prop….master?

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Prop Master Vic…it sounds like a rap name.

This blog is about the props I’ve been making for Improv Asylum’s recent shows. Props that…for one reason or another, just didn’t work the way we planned.

BREAKAWAY BOTTLES
I got an e-mail from the production assistant asking if I could make some breakaway glass bottles for the new mainstage show. Now a breakaway glass bottle is the type they use in movies and TV shows usually broken over actors’ heads during a bar fight or something without actually fracturing their skulls. The bottle is made of melted sugar. It’s freakin’ candy. My girlfriend found a recipe from indy mogul and we set off to an adventure around Quincy and Boston looking for the ingredients.

A quick step by step of making breakaway beer bottles:

You see? Easy.

After it was broken over one of the actor’s head…the others just couldn’t resist picking up the shattered pieces off the floor…and eating them.

The problem: As I’ve detailed in that diagram, because they are made of sugar, they do tend to get very sticky. This does not go well with the hot lights illuminating the theater stage. What ends up happening is that after the glass shatters all over the stage, they melt and proceed to coat the floor with its sugary stickiness. For the remainder of the show, it sounded like the actors were performing on the floor of an adult movie theater and it was very very distracting.

The Solution: After a week or two of this. I was relieved from my bottle making duties when they decided to just order breakaway bottles from a company who makes them from resin instead of sugar. Aside from getting rid of the sticky factor, these bottles are factory made and can be finished faster and in greater quantity than I could keep up with. This also stopped the actors from eating the shattered props as I was told the resin bottles didn’t taste as good.

BOX OF KRYPTONITE
When Norm Laviolette comes up to you and says “I need a box containing kryptonite and I want it to smoke. Use dry ice. Make it happen.” The best response is to just say “Yes.” Saying “No” will just waste valuable seconds to when you eventually say “Yes” anyways. So I went to Ocean State Joblot looking for supplies and walked to Acme Dry Ice to buy…dry ice. I spray painted the box to look like lead, taped two green glow sticks together, put Tupperware inside the box for the dry ice and WALA! Box-o-Kryptonite smoking from dry ice!

Unfortunately, this is the only photograph I have of my prop in action

And it looks pretty awesome.

The Problem: Although dry Ice apparently melts slower than regular ice, it still melts ridiculously fast if not stored in a freezer and Improv Asylum does not have this (a walk in cooler is not cool enough). A single order, say 12lbs of dry ice, barely survives 2 days in a walk in cooler.

The Solution: As awesome looking as it was to watch smoke billow out of the fake lead container, the dry ice was eventually dropped from the sketch. Also reducing the chances of dry ice burn the actors might sustain on stage.

RAIDING LADY GAGA’S WARDROBE
As I’ve stated in a Glovebox interview, when I was a child in Manila, I used to go through the garbage of–I wish there was a better word for this without sounding stereotypical–”sweatshops” in my neighborhood. Looking for scraps to make into toys. A majority of these scrap made toys looked like crude replicas of Ninja Turtle weapons, Ghostbuster proton packs, Shaider armors, etc..etc.. I guess I was doing cosplay before I knew what cosplay was.
This probably explains why I love Halloween so much. I’ve been making my own costumes since 1994, when I saw how ridiculous I looked the year prior, when I wore one of those store bought batman spandex costumes. I’ve got no pictures (thank god) but the memory remains. Actually sometimes my sister will remind me of just how utterly stupid I loo —wait a minute—Uh— the point?….THE POINT! The point is…. Jeremy Brothers comes up to me and says, “Vic can you make some Lady GaGa wardrobe for an NXT sketch?” And my inner child got all excited and used my adult mouth to say “Yes”.

So I went out dumpster diving behind a Wendy’s and hoarding as much boxes as I could carry home. I already knew the first Lady GaGa costume I wanted to do. It was a gun bra from a rolling stones cover she was featured on. As soon as I got home I began to work.

First, a bra was donated to me by someone anonymous. I added some black straps to it according to the straps on the GaGa gun bra.

Donated by my girlfri--er...Anonymous!

Then I spent the majority of the night cutting and super gluing Wendy’s cardboard boxes to make the guns.

I can make an entire arsenal with the boxes Ive collected

The food is as deadly as what this gun represents.

I spray painted the cardboard guns black and attached them to the bra aaaandd The Gunzangas are a go!

Lookitem' go!

I had to make a two more costumes but after all the energy I used to make the gunzangas, I wasn’t able to document the making of the other two. The second outfit I replicated was whatever that rotating headpiece thingie she wears is and the third outfit I made was inspired by a quartz queen-like costume she wore.

Here are what they look like when worn by the actors

NXT Actress Kelly Dooley wearing the Gunzangas

NXT Actress Patty Barrett wearing the rotating headpiece thingie.

NXT actress Christine Flynn wearing that Quartz queen-like costume.

The Problem: Not sure… but the problem isn’t costume related I’m sure (er..hope).

The Solution: The sketch was dropped from the show. Why? Maybe the show was too long and they found it necessary to cut this sketch? I really don’t know. Anyways, I have a little bit of hope that they will use these props for something…they’re just sitting in the green room taking up space.

And that’s it. The blog about props.

This is Prop Master Vic peacing out! PEACE!

Tags: costumes, Lady Gaga, prop master, Props
Posted in asylum, improv | Comments Off

Speaking of…

Friday, June 25th, 2010

THE SUMMER…

The summer is here! Whoopee! Time for Summer Heat, Beaches, People allowing the sun to molest them, girls in scandalous dresses with dumps like a truck (truck), Thighs like what (what), all night long…let me see that– uh…off topic…ANYWAYS THE SUMMER IS HERE! WHOOOOOooooooOh right, that’s not a good thing for me since my job at Harvard won’t need me in the summer time. Not getting paid = Shit. Well at least I still have the front of the house managing Improv Asylum job to keep me above water.

…

SPEAKING OF IMPROV…

Having put improvising on the shelf allowed me extra time to focus on my art. No longer doing improv was a hard thing to do….wait…no, I mean not being able to perform with friends was a hard thing to do…the improv itself? Surprisingly not so hard to drop. I’m never sure if my performance was ever any good and I’m beginning to think I was alienating everyone with my constant “critique me!” attitude after each show. Plus, I’m extremely anxious on stage…especially if an audience member shouts out what everyone else might think is a simple English word to start a scene and I wouldn’t have a damn clue what that word meant. I constantly question myself if I’m clever enough to work around that.

…

SPEAKING OF LANGUAGE BARRIER…

So English is not my first language. When I see a words like… I don’t know… um… “UHAUL”….my thought process is to call it “yoo-hah-ool”. A pronunciation my sister called out when she saw one of their trucks for the first time. She was severely made fun of by our father and I laughed pretending I knew she was wrong. Which brings me to the Wacom Tablet or as I used to call it, the “Whack-um tablet.” I used to think that people giggled when I say it because the name sounded giggle-worthy, it wasn’t until someone who didn’t have a sense of humor corrected me, that’s when I realized that those people were giggling because I was saying “way-com” wrong. (Note: I’ve just been told that it is OK to call it “whack-um”…not sure if this is plot to make me look like an idiot again so I’ll stick to calling it “way-com”). Anyways, because of this little pronunciation embarrassment, I’ve decided to make the Wacom tablet my bitch.

Hello Bitch

I’ve trained it to work for me. Okay so it took hours to get used to, but eventually, after breaking that clicky thing on the side of the pen from frustration, I’ve become fairly good at using it.

The first time I used this tablet to finish an artwork was when I made this:

The show's title was from a radio edit of a terrible song.

This was the cover for our Improv Graduation show program. All the people on here are stylized with a bit of exaggeration. I’m the one with the square face, glasses, and Asian. The first 4 people took 4-6 hours…. yes, that’s 240 to 360 minutes of curse words and head to the keyboard bashing drawing time. I needed to get used to the nature of free hand drawing on the Wacom. After those four, the others became easier and easier as I go. Me and Mr. Wacom came to an understanding; it would no longer continue drawing or erasing when the tip of the pen is NOT touching the tablet, and I won’t break anymore of its parts. The final product was shown to people days before the show and it was met with approval. So much so, that the Director of Operations at Improv Asylum commissioned me to do a portrait of the current Main stage cast in similar style.

I found myself vastly improving as I worked on the commissioned project. It was gradually becoming more realistic than the Grad show program cover. All in all the process went down pretty smoothly….OK not really. After I finished the drawing ready for the Improv Asylum grand re-opening, I was told that one cast member, who wasn’t in the cast when the drawing was commissioned, should have been included. Which, clearly…makes sense since it was about the “CURRENT” main stage cast…Oops! Luckily, we had the 12th anniversary party to celebrate a few days later. It bought me some time to finish the piece and it was unveiled on the night of the anniversary. It too was met with approval.

I can tell the drawing order of the actors by how realistic they look.

After this was finished, I was commissioned again to create a portrait in similar style. This time, as a father’s day present.

Maybe Im gettign better at this....or maybe its for the sake of the children, but creating this didnt require me cursing out in frustration. This one went pretty okay.

Maybe I'm getting better at this....or maybe it's because there are children staring at me as I drew them...but creating this didn't involve any cursing out in frustration. This one went pretty smoothly.

…

SPEAKING OF FATHER’S DAY…

Anyone else notice how almost every year, more and more of your childhood friends are celebrating this day? It’s like the new thing to do or something…anyways, before I left for work on Father’s Day, I called my dad to wish him a happy one, only to be met with his stupid ass voice mail. So I decided to lamely facebook greet him instead. But I felt weird as hell doing that, so in an attempt to make it less weird, I made a quick drawing of him attached to the greeting.

"He once had an awkward moment just to see how it feels." He must've liked it.

I was going for a gangster look, but my dad’s reply to this was, “I look like a very mean villain.” I didn’t want to tell him it was because of his villainous looking mustache. I feared that he might shave it and I finally see where I got my looks from. *shivers* No, I don’t want that mustache to disappear.

…

SPEAKING OF DISAPPEARING…

This Guy

Richie Moriarty has left Improv Asylum’s main stage. Besides having a badass last name, Richie was one of the first cast members who was genuinely nice to me when I first started working there. He is one extremely funny dude who made his craft look easy. Richie not being in Improv Asylum will take some getting used to.

On his last performance, Patty Barrett asked me to draw a picture of her and Richie in reference to Michelangelo’s God creating Adam painting on the Sistine Chapel. With Richie being Adam and Patty being God. Don’t really know the significance of this (Did Patty make Richie?) but I’ve been looking for an excuse to use that painting as a motif for anything. So I made this for her (for him):

Richie and God

And the entire cast and staff said their goodbyes to Richie. Had a few drinks, laughs, drinks, dance, drinks, hugs, drinks, dance, drinks…and so on until we beat the night. I left Imrpov Asylum very very very early in the morning. I was looking to get a group together and get breakfast but everyone was either too exhausted, drunk, passed out or whatever to do anything. So I went on an adventure looking for any eatery place, besides Dunkin’ Donuts, that was open. Walked from the North End to Downtown Crossing and nothing was opened. I remembered there was a food court at South Station so I headed over there. The only thing opened was Mcdonalds…not even good Mcdonalds, but shitty breakfast only Mcdonalds. Too tired/drunk/hungover to continue searching I ordered some “McFood” which I regretted instantly at first bite. Should’ve settled for Dunkin Donuts. Can’t find any great places to eat these days.

…

SPEAKING OF GREAT PLACES TO EAT…

Norm Laviolette, the co-owner of Improv Asylum, brought some chips and a buffet of salsa with him one night at the theater. They were sample salsas for his up coming taqueria in Duxbury, MA. A project he and his business partners have been working on for quite some time now. I know this because he commissioned me to make a concept design of what the front of the restaurant and the logo would look like. The name of the establishment was to be “¡Yo Taco!” but was then changed to “Tootie’s Beach Burrito”

I don't know who Tootie is.

and the front of the place was to be Beach inspired. Having spent some time in Long Beach Island, NJ during my teens, I decided to use that area as inspiration.

Those picnic tables are taken right out of LBI's "Custard Hut"

I was later told that they needed to show no drastic modifications to the original building. So a second design was made.

Gone are the linked stations and the wooden walkway and the orange paint.

Very close except for two things, one: those picnic tables need to go, and two, they’ve reverted back to calling it “¡Yo Taco!” So another logo was made:

"I Taco!" in English. Not a product of Apple.

And a final design was created:

A reason to visit Duxbury, MA....mmmmmmm tacos.

And if the salsas I tasted was any indication of the quality of food this place will serve….I can’t wait to taste their tacos.

…

SPEAKING OF THINGS YOU CAN’T WAIT FOR…

This is the end of the blog.

Tags: Commissions, Father's Day, Improv Asylum, Summer, ¡Yo Taco!
Posted in Uncategorized, improv, more time less money, sketches | No Comments »

Props and Costume design for “You’re a good man, Scott Brown”

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

It took about four seconds to piece together in my head the request I got. The first two seconds was spent on my thoughts going “You want me to make a whatnow?” and the other two seconds was to go “Oh snap!”

That was my re-action to when actor/director/writer Jeremy Brothers asked me to make a prop/costume for his and Musician Jim Zaroulis’s new musical, “You’re a good man, Scott Brown.” The prop that he wanted was a wearable-movable-danceable truck costume.

So here’s a confession. I wasn’t following the Senatorial race. I didn’t even know it was over until the massive amount of depressing status updates flooded my facebook news feed. In this, apparently black woe-filled day in my social network, little shiny jubilant statuses stood out like bright stars on a dark night and they all seem to be Republican. Scott Brown had just won Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate. It was like when Obama won the Presidency except the reactions were reversed. Also! This made me realize how little Republican friends I have.

Anyways, Jeremy had to give me a synopsis of what happened in the months I didn’t really pay attention to. About Scott Brown and his Truck. About how he’s from Wrentham and he drives a Truck. How his campaign commercials involved him and his Truck. He loves that Truck. His Ford F-150 Truck…….Truck Truck…..Truck….Truck.

So now I was to make a truck costume to fit an Actor named Quinn Beswick . When we started brainstorming on what the truck should look like, I had mentioned using one of the prop wheelchairs the theater had and constructing it to look like a truck. Jeremy had another idea. Instead, he wanted Quinn to skate around the stage on rollerskates. He also wanted it to be in the style of Julie Taymor. You know, the chick who designed The Lion King on Broadway. Now, I knew the only way this was going to work was if I go towards the Transformer route, which I was told to avoid doing. So I came up with this design:

The scanner cut off the image...didn't matter. It was rejected anyways.

This would involve a shit ton of fabric and sewing. But it would look like a truck. In fact it looked so much like a truck that Jeremy said, “It’s too literal.” followed by, “go abstract.” To which I asked, “You mean like Starlight Express?” and he smiled and said, “Yes”

Starlight Express….one of the many brilliantly gay things Andrew Lloyd Webber and company had ever come up with. The costumes were pretty damn cool…But I didn’t know how well that would translate to the audience. I was afraid they’d wonder why there was a robot in this whole revision of Scott Brown’s senate tale. Still, I went the Starlight route but made sure the audience knew that this man…was a truck.

Optimus G.O.P! Haha...wait.... what was that about not going the Transformer route?

This too was rejected. “Too Futuristic” I was told. Maybe it was because Jeremy was pressed for time, or maybe it was because I explained that “No, those are wheels…not jet packs,” that eventually this design was approved.

I originally intended to make this thing out of cardboard, but since this was going to be carried around everywhere, I decided to make it out of plastic.

Soon, I’ve become familiar to the aisles of the Home Depot in South Bay Center much to the delight of their employees who would look disappointed if I had said “Yes…I do need some help” after they asked if I needed one. I constructed the frame of the truck with wood. Cut up and screwed on a combination of plastic buckets, large bins and Tupperware. Bought a $20 pair of Rollerblades from a small Asian woman from craigslist. And then repeated a trip after trip to Home Depot for more knick knacks and Spray paints.

I had my suspicions about regular spray paint not bonding well with the plastic. This was confirmed when I spray painted the constructed truck and the son of a bitch began to peel after it was dry. probably didn’t help that the spray paint I used were only 97 cents each. So I got the expensive made for plastic kind and after a few revisions to the design as well as omitting those shoulder thingies. everything worked well.

GMC....American Made!....well... Filipino-American Made...American nonetheless!

Ok, the picture above doesn’t give the costume any justice. Luckily, WCVBtv Channel 5 did a piece on the musical and caught the cast at rehearsal. They also got a good look at the truck (with no GMC sign) in action. Click the link below to see!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q350OIZZ6O0

But there was a problem. That small Asian woman from craigslist had hustled me! The goddamn $20 skates were falling apart! The wheels were deteriorating and started digging up the wooden stage which was just renovated. So the skates had to go. Which actually allowed Quinn more movement. As seen in this Channel 7 coverage of the opening night of the show. Click the link below to see!

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/entertainment/BO138278/

I don’t know why but when Quinn first wore the truck, he looked awkward and didn’t seem to enjoy having to carry all that weight while performing on stage. But Quinn made it work and made it his own. Frankly, the truck wouldn’t look as good had Quinn not been playing that part.

Jeremy had also wanted me to make a banner for one of the songs. It was to be a painting of Scott Brown, during his Cosmopolitan male modeling days, except the face would be Evan Kaufman’s face, the actor playing Scott Brown. Using the same technique I used for the NXT Lost in Boston’s Mayor Menino banner where it was unraveled in scroll form, I painted ScottBrown/Evan Kaufman in acrylic and it took about 5-6 hours to finish (including drying time). The finish piece looks like….well, I don’t know if I’m allowed to show it on here since anything I’ve mentioned or shown so far about the musical are things the news had already spoiled…. well ok… I’ll take a picture of Evan showing it…..just promise not tell anyone:

OOPS! Sorry, Vic's an asshole.

I had a change of heart so you’ll just have to go to the show to see it!

There is a very quick shot of the painting in the video below of the official trailer for the show, blink and you’ll miss it:

This show was way bigger than I originally thought it would be. Way funnier than when I first read the script for it. Then somebody mentioned that the real Scott Brown and his family were actually going to see it, and that’s when the gravity of just how awesome it was to be involved in this hit me.

-Vic

Tags: designs, You're a good man Scott Brown
Posted in asylum, improv, sketches | No Comments »

Improv Asylum New Front House Designs

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Towards the end of January, Improv Asylum was gutted and renovated. 3 months later, this once unintentional mausoleum for dead rats has become this beautiful bright lounge looking thing. Where there were darkened areas to hide visual unpleasantness are now lit with bright LED spotlights and color changing mood lights. You will not be afraid to touch the walls or any other surfaces. It looks absolutely immaculate. The quality product on stage finally matches the Front Room. Oh another thing…It smells better….. INFINITELY times better than before renovations.

Now, why am I advertising this place so much? Besides the fact that I’m telling the truth? Well, I also designed the floor.

That’s right. The floor is plain ol’ concrete with a two color stain. My job was to A) make a design and B) Tape it off to be stained. I sent the corporate office 7 designs.

Design 1:

Corporate office decided on the colors. A brown and a darker color of that brown. Almost everyone pretty much agreed on using the Asylum’s triangular insignia (impy) in the design . For some reason I had a bio-hazard symbol stuck in my mind when I was designing this.

Design 2:

For the second design, I was going for some kind of floral look. I don’t know, I’m looking at it now and all I see is something I’d find on the back of a Karate uniform.

Design 3

I wasn’t entirely sure what the final Front House would look like when I was designing these. I just remembered the large steel beams holding up the place looked awesomely industrial. I guess that’s what I was thinking of when I made this.

Design 4

I went for simple with this one. The impy…plain with a circle around it.

Design 5

That design was too simple….let’s make it more engaging. Put them on four corners! I like it a lot. I crossed my fingers that corporate would choose this one.

Design 6

Just for good measure, I went even simpler and just used the impy.

Design 7

I copied design 5’s technique and used the Impy as a way to point out the two entrances to the theater, the entrance/exit to the lobby, and….uh….the Men’s bathroom…

So corporate had their little meetings and decided that design 7 was a safer bet than all the others. It wasn’t until I started the taping process that I was absolutely thankful for their decision. I mean I wouldn’t mind doing the others but I was given such a short amount of time to tape off this thing that I was afraid I wouldn’t finish before the second stain was applied.

But I finished and here is what it looks like:

Ooooohh....

Ahhhh.....

I know I know…they fucked up the darker color. The stainer guy assured me, “yeah the bucket of stain says ‘black’…but it’s not really black.” Guess what? It’s fucking black! Anyways, good thing the design stands on it’s own.

As a final touch I was also put in charge of designing the bathroom doors ( you can see a little bit of the men’s room design on picture 2 up there). I didn’t go for anything fancy…just something large and to the point.

If you are still confused....there's an alley behind the theater...

While I was doing all this…. I was also doing something for Improv Asylum’s “You’re a good man, Scott Brown.”

But I’ll talk about that on the next blog.

-Vic

Tags: designs
Posted in Uncategorized, asylum, improv | No Comments »

Improv

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Trying my best at not sucking.

So my first round of House Teams has ended and I’m feeling rather sad about it. Sad that it was over before I really got totally comfortable being on stage. I base my performance on how much I don’t notice my stage jitters during scenes. Without acknowledging those jitters, I’m comfortable, I can think straight, and I can concentrate on whatever it is happening at the moment. But when I notice the jitters, I feel like a surfer who realized I’m unprepared to swim. Drowning is imminent.
On my first show, I made a tactical error of drinking two red bulls before performing. Already a jittery mess, being on stage and on a double dose of stimulants felt like being in a car crash in slow motion. I felt bad for my veteran House Team partners as they had to work real hard for any of the scenes I was in to make a lick of sense. That’s the thing about not feeling good on stage. It’s embarrassing and you feel like you’ve disappointed everyone. As if they can’t even look at you without disgust. “You’re a disgrace to this craft. Go home.”

Welcome to the Pancake place?! What the hell kinda offer was that?!

"It rings a bell?!" RINGS A BELL?!? What the hell kinda stupid offer is "RINGS A BELL"?! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Of course these were just my internal thoughts. Actually, all I got was encouragement and compliments from the other actors on my first show. The truth is, the other actors are just as concerned about their performance as I am with mine. Meaning, they didn’t dwell so much on how I performed, they’ve got themselves to worry about. This was all part of the learning process, that’s why the House Teams are only performed by students of the training center and its alumni.

“Learning proce—wait, the audience paid with hard earned $5 to watch you learn?! What about the audience, man!?”
Norm Laviolette, co-founder and an instructor at the Improv Asylum told our class , “It’s never the audiences’ fault if the show is bad. It’s how you handle yourself on stage.” Although true and possible to accomplish with experience, for a new comer like me, being able to handle yourself well on stage is close to nonexistent when you do something and your audience are as responsive as the people you find at the Port Authority at 3AM on Christmas Eve.

Port Authority, 3AM December 24 2009.

“It’s not the audiences’ fault.” I agree. They came to the show with the intent to laugh. So I feel more disappointed when I make them do the exact opposite of of their intentions.

On the third House Teams show, the entire place was sold out and the energy was so high, it carried all of us from one funny scene to another. It was crazy! Using another surfer analogy, it’s like we found the perfect wave and rode it to as far as it would take us. It was such a good ride that when it was over, I completely forgot to bow to the audience. And like all things that feels awesome. It’s addictive. As much as I hated sucking on stage, I love—uh — not sucking even better! The only way to learn how not to suck is to continue doing it, so yeah…. that is exactly what I intend to do.

I could not find any other portrait of myself being happy.

I could not find any other portrait of myself happy.

On that note. This Sunday, January 17th is my improv graduation show. You’ll see a decent roster of people doing sketches and improv. I was given the responsibility of designing the pamphlets, which also gave me practice on using the wacom tablet.

I'm the asian one with the glasses.

So far all I’ve heard are compliments on the design so… either they’re telling the truth or the group of them had a meeting and decided to to give the asian kid a break by complimenting my design no matter how shitty it is. Knowing these people, the latter would never happen. Anyways, inside the pamphlets are our bios, I’d post them on here but I doubt the other actors would appreciate that. SO I’ll just crop into my part of the inside.

I was going to mention my Macgyver Improvisation skills, but thought it was unnecessary.

This is the big thing this week. I’ve got friends from Jersey and New York, taking a hike up to Boston to see this. Pressure? What Pressure? Why would you even mention “Pressure?” I don’t see no “pressure.” this is no sweat. I got this.

Posted in asylum, improv | No Comments »

When funny and visual arts COLLIDE!

Friday, December 18th, 2009

For one year and two months I’ve been learning improv. It was not my original intention to cover 6 levels of Improv training classes. When I took the front house manager job at the Improv Asylum, I was required to take the Level 1 class just so I know what the hell I’m talking about when patrons ask, “hey, what’s the improv training center like?” Well after that Level 1 class, I got sucked in to this improv cult and decided to take all the classes, which will now accumulate to a graduation show on January 17, 2010. Yes, that’s right… performing in front of the general public and showcasing all the improv learned. I…am…so…fucking…nervous. Luckily, I made it to a House Team, to get a feel of what it’s like to do improv in front of an audience (note: House Teams are a group of training center students and alumni performing every Tuesdays at 8PM at the asylum). I’ve become super focused on this new interest of mine–watching shows and learning–but what becomes of Vic Yambao the Artist? Has he retired his paint brushes and oil paints? Has he put away his sculpting tools and sketchbooks? Fuck no, them shits are expensive. I just need to find a way to combine both interests instead.

It was sometime in July, when the NXT, came out with the review, “LOST IN BOSTON, or, Something Wicked Pissah This Way Comes.” that I found out, the only person who actually looked at my website when I asked them to was NXT member, Evan Kaufman–I know this, because after Evan asked me to make a prop for the NXT, everyone else seemed surprised to find out I was an artist (Update 1/11/10: It was NXT member Patty Barrett who suggested me to Evan. All this time I’ve been giving credit to the wrong person….all this time…..). They needed a political banner in their opening musical, something in the style of Shepard Farey’s Obama “Hope” Poster. Something to punctuate the NXT’s point about one of Boston’s great municipal official….

He’s a FUCKING half man half horse!

Look at him! A goddamn centaur complete with horse legs, horse tail, long face and EVERYTHING! I had a blast making this thing. It’s at least 3ft long and rolled up like a scroll so that it dramatically unravels in front of the audience. And I was paid! A rarity in my life as an Artist.

Now that the word is out that Vic can do art stuff….I hoped that it encouraged any of the improvers and sketch writers to milk my talent for all it’s worth. I love comedy and art. Any help to kill two birds with one stone is much appreciated.

And then NXT and training center director, Jeremy Brothers thought of me when writing his sketch comedy for last night’s “…And Other Uncomfortable Holiday Moment” Sketch Show. I was already excited but became even more motivated when I read the script. It was hilarious stuff. He asked for 8 to 10 sketches in different art styles and as much as I wanted to do that many, my long extraneous battle with time management kept getting in the way. So I was only able to come up with four.

Basically, Jeremy’s character’s wife, Hope, wants him and his friends to gangbang her. She instructed him to make diagrams on how she would want them to “do” her. Diagrams done in different art styles.

Warning: The following drawings are very explicit. I warn you…even though by the time you read this, you have probably seen the pictures below anyways…I have no idea why I’m even warning you.

orgy done in oil pastels
So this little gem was inspired by two girls kissing…I turned one of the girls into a boy and added two other guys. Done in Oil pastels on paper.

This is a bit more disturbing than the others. Thanks to Google for never failing to show me porn in their images (even when I’m not looking for it). Now, looking at porn for other reasons than “I’m bored, curious and alone”— is weird. Showing what I came up with to my girlfriend and expecting her to be proud—is weird. Hearing the audience respond to such graphic sexual act–priceless. Done in acrylics on board.

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Compared to the other two, this one is pretty tame. I came up with this thinking about art styles and my immature high school kid in me poked at the idea of doing a Jackson Pollock style white drip painting on top of a scantily clad chick. After I finished it, I accidentally Lewinsky’d my black dress pants…with the paint I mean…not with, you know…. nevermind. Done in colored pencils and white acrylic on board.

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Ah, Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica.” A painting inspired by the horrible tragedy that beset upon the Basque town of Guernica. Where widespread destruction of innocent lives dropped from the sky like some wrathful uncaring god. Yeah, my tampering of this painting probably sealed my fate to hell. I couldn’t help it. Is April 26, 1937 still considered “too soon”? Anyways, it was my favorite and I believe it was Jeremy’s as well….actually I heard the most laughs with this painting and it was the one they used to close the Sketch.
“What does the horse represent?”
“Um…the horse represents….a horse.”

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Jeremy explaining to his friend’s which one of them is in the painting.

So that’s that. I’ll be doing House Teams every Tuesday for the next 5 weeks so go check it out…do we suck at comedy or not? You’ll never know unless you show up at least once. I sometimes wonder if I’m funnier now than when I started working at the Improv Asylum… well, considering I was going through a break up at the time, I was financially shattered, and jobless for that summer……yeah…no, definitely funnier now.

-Vic
12/18/2009

Tags: asylum, centaur, comedy art, guernica, improv, menino, monet, picasso, porn
Posted in improv | 1 Comment »

Our lives are another being’s entertainment thingie…

Monday, August 4th, 2008

The benefit of being a “time slave” is that the more you do your time, the clearer things get. Self-analyzation is 20/20 in hindsight. Let’s start when I spent my entire June and July preparing for my July 18th show, when I should’ve been looking for a summer job. For some reason, I’ve convinced myself that when the show is set up, everything will fall into place. Then the bills came, and the student loans followed, and then right behind that was the rent, and finally my bank statement telling me that I don’t have enough money to pay for any of those things. Adding to this stress– from out of nowhere, Jackie leaves me and I find myself being single again after four years. Despite all of this, I’ve managed to set up my first solo show at the Harvard Holyoke Arcade. Advertised at boston.com, thanks to the awesome Deena who helped me set up the event, I felt pretty proud of myself. The show itself was eventful except for the early fire drill that drove a good amount of my audience out of the show space (taking with them a lot of the food). But friends showed up and I was pretty happy with the end result. Pictures of this show can be seen when you click on the picture below

Click Me!

After the show, reality kicked in and I’m scrambling around looking for jobs and ways to save money. I barely made through July and I’m wondering whether I’m going to make it through August. I did find a job though, and it isn’t the best pay but it definitely is the funniest job I’ve ever had since working for the now extinct Colony 4 Movie theaters. I am training to become the front house manager at the improv asylum. I’ve never been so exhausted at a job from laughing too much. Certainly laid back and I survived a “terrible” saturday according to most of the veterans over there. I got so comfortable with the place that I slept over that same “terrible” saturday night. I woke up the next morning on the couch near the…I guess lounge area.. and for a second, I forgot where I was.
The best thing about this job and I bet I’m going to need it, is that I can have all the red bulls I can drink! Liquid legal speed! But seriously, aside from the drunken bachlorettes grabbing my ass as I walked by the theater aisle (which, I’m thinking back now, I don’t really mind.) and the drunken douche bags of testosterone screaming obscenities at the actors, or the dishes, puke, and bottles that convinces me that America is an Alcoholic, all and all I have to say, this job rules.

Now what have I learned about myself after looking back at the events that happened this past two or three months? I guess… In Hindsight everything is interesting.

Before I go I might as well show you these…somehow, I managed to add these to my busy schedule
Random Thugs

The Umbrella

Ninjas Episode 1

Gun fight

Posted in asylum, boston.com, city bits, improv, more stunt videos | No Comments »