Category: Chicago

The Animal Club Sketch Comedy Collective

4/2/2015

The following is from Day 3 of an Artist Challenge where, for 5 days, you post a photo or video chronicling your artistic journey:

We began writing and performing sketches in college in 2000. After graduating, we spent another year in Pittsburgh playing in open mics, bars and a couple of theaters. Then, 7 of us moved to Chicago. We made the Windy City our home for 4 years. We lived in two apartments, one above the other (or diagonally above-and, for some reason, the people living in the top apartment had keys to the first floor apartment, but we didn't have keys to their apartment...hmmmm).

We played on big stages (like Caroline's on Broadway, UCB NYC and Second City's Donny's Skybox), small stages (like the stage at Frankie J's in Uptown Chicago where you had to step over a toilet to get on stage) and that stage in the Miami Science Center for the Miami Improv Festival (which wasn't big or small but was more like a random space set aside in a science center where a cryogenic freezing room (in which temperatures could be dropped to cryogenic-freezing levels with the push of a button) was made into our makeshift dressing room). And we traveled around the country in planes, trains and vans that smelled like Wisconsin cheese curd and body odor.

We befriended sketch comedy cousins (I guess that's more be-family-ing than befriending) in cities across the country and are still close to many of them. We had some epic all-through-the-night hangouts with those people at sketch festivals in San Francisco, Seattle, Saint Louis, New York, Bellingham and Chicago.

When on the road, we learned that you could shove all the hotel furniture against the wall (and stack some on top of each other) to convert your room into a workable rehearsal space. Also, if you don't have a mini-fridge in your room, you can just crank up the AC and leave a pizza box and vegetables on the AC unit. Then, your whole room's a fridge that smells like aging pizza and vegetables.

We spent most of our 20s with each other. We've got more inside jokes than we can keep track of and there are a volumes-worth of songs that I'll hear that will instantly evoke vivid memories. We giggled and we laughed til we cried. We had fights and quietly stewed in disagreement. We worked crap jobs so that we could have the freedom to do what we wanted. We did some things absolutely right and some things absolutely wrong. We saw sunrises and sunsets together in many different cities and many more from our own porch or fire escape in Chicago (where Mike fell through one of the stairs and Dave Hale, sitting on the rail, drunkenly fell backwards and saved himself by holding on with his legs until we pulled him up).

And we pursued a dream together.

All in all, we spent 7 years, in some combination of cast or another, writing and performing sketch comedy. People like to say "I wouldn't have changed a thing." Looking back from what I know now, I think I would have handled some situations differently. But, that's the luxury of looking back and I suppose a lot of what I learned came from the times that I would have handled differently. In the end, if handling things differently meant not having all the wonderful memories, then, I probably wouldn't have changed a thing either.

These people are very much my family.

Here's a video opening montage/slideshow we made for our final show, a big ol' reunion finale in 2007 if you just want to skip to the music and pictures:

New Opening Montage from Shane Portman on Vimeo.

Originally Posted On Facebook

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A Delay A Day

5/9/2008

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A delay was waiting for me as I got to the train platform. A delay that I arrived in the middle of, but was made aware of by those that were there for its untimely birth. There were clenched fists and gritting teeth and angry eyes that seemed to try to melt metal. And, still the delay ticked on. The PA would occasionally click on with helpful, muffled news that all waiting already knew, helping only to clench fists tighter, to grit teeth harder, and make angry eyes angrier-if that were possible.

When the PA finally admitted that the Red Line was not coming, that all should pack onto the Brown Line-oh the looks that were thrown! If things were there to punch besides fellow annoyed passengers (the camraderie was palpable), oh the punches that would have been thrown. But, there were not, so the punches were saved for later, stored inside for the creation of hernias and aneurysms ten to twenty years down the road.

And we all shuffled stiffly onto the Brown Line, headed far past our stop, where we could find a Red Line going the opposite direction and backtrack to our desired stop. The train, of course, was packed-with people as well as tension.

One stop passed and the Brown Line train's PA belched forth more helpful advice. That the Red Line was now running, that we all could happily get off at the next stop, board an oncoming Red Line, and get to the stop where we so desperately needed to be. There was also an apology for inconvenience-an apology that mattered little to the crowd that would have surely crucified the PA, if only a PA could feel pain.

But, the stop came. We unboarded at the next stop to await the Red Line. We unboarded and waited and waited. And once more, the fists clenched and teeth gritted and eyes burned holes. And this time, the annoyance of our already familiar delay was perpetuated by the constant high pitched pounding of a drill into steel rails. A pounding that seemed pointless, but surely had some semblance of a reason (or perhaps these were mad men in hard hats pounding-hellbent on keeping us uninformed). A pounding that only stopped long enough to let the PA say, "Attention Red line riders," before it cut back in and drowned out all unannoying sounds.

And, it was at this point, that I smiled. You have to. Because the whole thing was ridiculous. There was a fear of standing too close to someone, especially when word finally leaked from the PA through the noise of the drill on steel that the Red Line was indeed coming, but that it was indeed running express, and therefore it would indeed be bypassing most of the stops we all wanted to get to, but that a following Red Line train would soon arrive shortly after-twenty minutes shortly after. Oh, the clenching, oh the gritting, the angry looks. You could feel the ravenous desire to turn towards someone near you and sink your teeth into their forehead.

It was madness. Sheer ridiculous madness. And I had to smile. Because I had somehow found a place to stand directly underneath a mad man pounding on rails with a high powered drill. How ridiculous it all was really-like we were all Atlas-that punching in to work was holding the world up-that if we were twenty minutes late, ten minutes late, five minutes late, or one minute late the world would fall. When, in all reality perhaps a phone wouldn't be answered, perhaps a number wouldn't be added, perhaps a hamburger wouldn't be made. How important it all was.

How ridiculous the comedy. Even the fact that we could be fired for this was funny. A dark comedy, to be sure. But, a comedy just the same. As if we had control over the situation. I have left fifteen minutes early and have arrived fifteen minutes late and conversely have left fifteen minutes late and arrived fifteen minutes early. As if we were paid enough that we could actually afford more than a two dollar train ride. Oh, the comedy. You have to laugh. This whole thing is ridiculous. If it's not conditional, our idea of being on time is just ridiculous. And if time is indeed money, I sincerely think that money is ridiculous as well.

Originally Posted On Facebook.

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The Animal Club Sketch Comedy Collective

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