Tag Archives: sarah

Fun gig: playing a baaaad politician

My frequent improv partner in crime, Sarah Delaney and I performed at the ‘dedication ceremony ‘of The Tip, as a politician and his wife who enjoyed this event just a little too much.

Every so often I get called to do ‘atmosphere improv’, playing characters at parties and public events. Usually they’d supply an outlandish costume and set me and a few fellow performers free into the crowd, but this gig was different. The characters we were to play were supposed to be believable at the outset of the event, then get more outlandish as the night went on. We were directed by creative genius Bob Duncan (of Duncan|Channon) to play it as real as we could.

It was a blast, of course, to have license to be a complete buffoon, but the challenging part was the face to face conversations with the lovely guests. I’m usually a nice guy (really!), so to act like abnoxious snob right in someone’s face was odd for me. As Sarah and I concocted a whole history, we had to keep the story going: I was The Deputy Secretary of the Interior of the United States, and she was my wife, who was promoting her book, “Lose weight with Wine”.

In the aftermath, Bob told us the next day some people believed we were the real deal, even after seeing the antics in the video. Gulp. I fear for my country. 😉