Guest Column: Dusk: Improvised Tween Erotica Goes National

Before Dusk, I was always a big fan of comedy and improv, and I kept busy making film sketch comedy and being involved in related projects. In late 2007 I went to watch the Upright Citizen's Brigade TourCo. perform at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz. Before the show they screened an advertisement for a local improv theater I had never heard of before, ColdTowne Theater. I decided to look into it and signed up for classes.

I fell in love with the art form and was soon performing regularly at ColdTowne Theater with occasional appearances at other theaters. After graduating from ColdTowne I decided that improv was here to stay in my life and I wanted to expand my horizon and take additional classes at some of the other theaters offering improv education. I started with Merlin Works at Salvage Vanguard. I thoroughly enjoyed taking classes with Shana Merlin and with every chance I got I let her know I was interested in performing there.

In August 2009, I got my chance. I was cast in Dusk. Prior to signing up for Dusk I was only marginally aware of Twilight and the vampire fad in pop culture. Shortly after being cast I got nervous. "What did I just sign up for?" I thought. "I don't know anything about this Twilight thing, and frankly, it sounds stupid." All I knew was that it was a book about vampires and romance, and that while it was popular, the fans are mostly teenage girls. I could hear my friends making fun of me already. But when I calmed down a bit, I realized this was a parody. We're going to be having fun with this and poking fun at it. I can handle that.

I started my research. I rented the first Twilight movie, which was still relatively new at the time. I watched it and found it painful at first. After the film, I picked up the book, and found myself engaged. A little bit embarrassed, but into it. I mean, yes, it's terrible, and yes it's ridiculous, and yes the pacing isn't right and the writing is repetitive but I can't put this book down. By the end of the Dusk run I had read all the Twilight books and was headed to go see New Moon at the Alamo Drafthouse. What happened?

Gnap! Theater Projects

When I showed up for the first Dusk rehearsal, I felt like a bit of an outsider. The group had already got together once to watch the movie, but I had missed that because of a conflict. A lot of these people had studied under Shana or known each other from the improv community, but I was coming from a different segment of the Austin improv community. The bulk of my improv training was at ColdTowne Theater, which specializes in a different form of improv than the more story-based narrative style that Shana teaches. As I looked around the room, I recognized a couple of the faces, but I didn't know anyone that well and a good amount of the cast were strangers. Everyone else seemed to know each other and be familiar with the subject matter. Whether that was true or not, it felt that way to me at the time.

Over the course of rehearsals, however, I became very comfortable and ended up making a lot of new friends from the experience. There was so much love going around in that cast. Maybe because it was well directed, perhaps because the subject matter was romance, or it could have just been the chemistry in the group. Email threads would pop up about how great the experience was and how much fun we were having. Some of this even continued well after the show's run officially ended.

When there was first discussion of taking the show to New York, I was hesitant, because I'd been to New York recently and I'd also heard there was a chance we'd get into the Chicago Improv Festival. I held out for Chicago and the news that Dusk got in was announced at the Gnap! / Merlin-Works 2 year anniversary party. When I showed up to the party late, every cast member approached me eagerly saying, "Have you heard the news?"

We've started rehearsals again and unfortunately I had to miss the first rehearsal and show, repeating the pattern. The improv I've been performing lately, largely at The New Movement Theater, has again been extremely different than Dusk and it's taking me some adjustments to get back into Dusk's style. Despite that, I'm getting more comfortable again and extremely happy to have been a part of Dusk. I'm excited about the shows coming up at Salvage Vanguard and in Chicago. I'm happy for all of the cast going to New York and very proud to have been a part of this show, even if it is just improvised tween erotica.

I'd like to thank Shana Merlin, Shannon McCormick and the entire Dusk cast for my great experience in the show as well as Austinist for giving me the opportunity to share.

Dusk is playing Friday April 9 and Friday April 16 at 10 pm at Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin, Friday April 23 at 8 pm at Second City Skybox in Chicago and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, July 9, 10, 11 at 8 pm at The Tank in New York.