Witness… The End of the Party

Well, here we are. The last episode of Season 1 has dropped, and now the indefinite hiatus before Season 2 begins. But don’t worry! The second season has already been written! I am just in the process of editing/tweaking/tearing out my already thinning hair over the scripts, and once that is done, the recording can begin. So hopefully by the end of summer at the earliest. Or maybe even before that? Who knows how time works anymore?! I’ll keep you, dear listener, apprised to the situation on this page. But today, here in the present, we have “The Party Crashers,” by far the darkest, and, indeed, most personal, episode of this first batch. Gotta go out with a bang, right? Right?

“Crashers” wasn’t always meant to be dark, or at least as dark as I think it turned out. It was always going to tackle the genre of psychological horror, what with a small group of people trapped in a confined space, having to deal with each other, kind of similar to Episode 1, “The Homecoming Queen.” In fact, I consider “Crashers” to be that first episode’s distant cousin. But the darkness that came through was definitely a surprise to me as I was writing it, mostly because the image upon which I based it was so goddamn silly.

Unlike “Queen,” the image in question doesn’t actually exist, and I don’t exactly know where it came from. For some reason, I pictured my friend and fellow improviser, Anton, sitting in the middle of the Stage Werx stage, in a spotlight, wearing children’s overalls, a party hat, holding a red balloon, and smiling innocently. I just thought it was funny, in a very unnerving sort of way. If the play was going to be performed live, Anton would have been joined by Chloe and Sean, his partners on the improv team Vicksburg (named for the street they all lived on at the time; Anton and Sean have been friends since college, and Anton and Chloe are in a relationship). That was the original plan, but of course, plans change.

When I finally sat down to tackle the story, I didn’t know if it would be a part of Season 1 or Season 2, but I knew I wanted to expand the cast and make the story grander. And so, it changed from a tale about two burglars breaking into a house to a full on bank robbery. The title became “The Perfect Crime,” but I still intended for Goose to be a part of it, hidden away inside the bank vault, much to the chagrin and confusion of the robbers. I wanted it to be a story where the audience’s allegiances would be constantly shifting, figuring one character was a villain, only to be rooting for them the next. However, that sort of whiplash, and the elaborate motivations and back stories I deemed necessary for the characters, as well as the difficulty justifying why the hell a five-year-old would be locked in a safe and the overall logistics and ethics of why a bank would fucking do that to anyone let alone a kid… It all had me careening into roadblock after roadblock after roadblock. So, I said screw it, and returned to the simplicity of my original idea. (This should have been obvious, because in improv, the simplest idea is usual the best one.)

Top row: Wiley Kornbluh (Jade), me. Bottom row: Dana Merwin (Brody), Craig Gaspian (Goose).

As I believe I’ve said before (don’t make me check the previous blogs to make sure). I don’t always know what the stories are going to be about before I write them— I have the basic idea, but don’t really know where it’s going to go. This doesn’t just apply to the content of the stories, but also the themes. I kind of go the Christopher Nolan route and think of one word that can describe what the thing is about. (Ex. His Dark Knight Trilogy films are about “fear,” “chaos” and “pain,” respectively.) Maybe I know what I want to tackle ahead of time, but the true nature of what’s going on at the core only reveals itself as I’m working. With “Crashers,” that theme proved to be “toxicity,” particularly, toxic friendships.

Here’s where the personal stuff comes in: I was involved in a toxic friendship for a long time. I can’t recall if it was always so toxic, but it really turned into that for the last handful of years. My supposed best friend was a lot like Jade: narcissistic, selfish, a gas lighter. And I took it. I took it all, mostly because I was unconsciously oblivious to it. Then I started taking improv, and saw what real friendship looked like, and what it felt like. It didn’t make me feel second; it made me feel equal. This xbff, whether intentionally or not, rarely made me feel equal; he came first, always. Now I don’t want to claim complete innocence here; things finally came to a head, in fact, after I did something less than ideal (not gonna say because of privacy, and I wanna save my ass, I guess), and even though it was just for me and did not involve the xbff, he took what was mine and made it about himself, just one more item in the long pattern of conceited behavior.

Phew. Okay. That’s off my chest.

Anyway, while writing, I began to notice these parallels between Jade, Brody, my friend and myself. So I made the decision, fuck it, I’ll just write I know, heighten it a little and bring all the stuff into the script. Some of the dialogue, in fact, comes directly from what I recall of arguments the xbff and I had, as well as the final email exchange wherein I told him exactly how he made me feel, only for him to ignore everything I said and essentially call me the guilty party and not take one iota of responsibility (gaslight ahoy!). Interestingly, the “all you think about is yourself; what about me” line that Brody says is actually from the xbff’s message to me, even though Brody is my avatar of sorts. I did this because I didn’t want to just make the script a therapy session with me telling someone off. I acknowledge my faults and my part in the friendship exploding; neither of us handled things well and we both created the world of toxicity we lived in for so long, and so, I think both Brody and Jade are kind of assholes who both deserve a sort of punishment, which I think they both get by the end, even though Jade’s the one left bloodied on the basement floor (which I swear is not meant to represent a fantasy of mine; I never have and would never wish harm on the xbff, at least nothing beyond the wish that he is currently miserable with his life, but I’m pretty sure he isn’t, so, bravo, jackass).

So how is all of this shit turned into comedy, even dark comedy? Well, it helps when you have performers like Craig Gaspian, Wiley Kornbluh and Dana Merwin. A big part of improv (and really, any form of performance) is honesty, and honestly, that honesty can be pretty dirty at times. Nothing is all roses and bubblegum all the time, even in the world of comedy. But if you perform with honesty, if you convey real emotions, then the audience can become attached, and that attachment breeds laughter. An example I often give my students is: remember Viola Davis in Fences? There was a scene in the trailer, at least, where she confronts Denzel Washington, and it’s dramatic and emotional, snot and spit all over Davis’s face. It’s brutal how much you feel her pain. But now remember Rainn Wilson as Dwight on The Office, and the Season 3 episode, “The Coup.” When Michael confronts Dwight about everything, Dwight breaks down to the point of becoming snotty and spitty. It’s the same level of emotion; only the context is different. But because the emotion is played honestly, that’s what makes it so funny when it’s played for laughs.

Craig, Wiley and Dana are three of the most honest performers I know. They can do things that are so off-the-wall random, but approach them with a humanity you don’t always see in an improv show. I know people don’t usually go to improv shows expecting empathetic complexity, but I believe if you think back to any kind of comedy show you’ve attended and think about why something made you laugh, you might be surprised what you’ll find.

Craig gives us at least 45 seconds of Goose crying, and it was very emotional for all of us, as well as hilarious.

(We also all wore headbands just ‘cause.)

That’s one of the joys I’ve had in writing these six episodes. I’ve been consistently surprised, not only by what I’ve been able to come up with during these times of isolation and uncertainty, but also at what my friends, my fellow improvisers, are capable of. That’s not to say I never had any doubt what they could do, but each and every one of them far exceeded all expectations. What started off as an experiment became a project that I am immensely proud of, and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. So, I’ll sign off here, and get back to work on Season 2.

Thanks for listening to Season 1!

—Andy

A dark story, but a fun recording sesh with three lovely people.