DCM (22) '26

Preface:

Feel free to skip this if you're just looking for a review. My very personal two-word review of the 22nd Del Close Marathon is: Still sober. Which can mean many things, but at the very least, I think they are all positive. When I am having a rough time in life, which I am, what I try to do is focus on the things I can control. The scary part of things for an alcoholic is that consuming alcohol was (maybe even still is for me sometimes, I think) out of my control, Bill W. writes: "The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink." [AA. pg 24]. That's all by way of saying that, given the combination of motive (how I was feeling) and opportunity (being unsupervised in a city that openly sells alcohol) I spent the week prior talking to people (even reaching out to a person I put behind emergency glass) to make sure I was ok. I can't just be sober; I have to do the work to stay sober. I need to be honest with myself, so this can't ever be done with an impure motive. I can't go through the motions while lying to people (including myself) as an excuse to drink, but if I drink and end up back in a recovery center, I want to be able to tell all those people I did everything I knew how to do not to end up back there. Anyway, I'm two years, two months, and twenty-seven days sober. I'll keep coming back.

Del Close Highlights:

I was in New York from Thursday 6/11 to Saturday 6/13 which means I caught the Chris Gethard Show as the first thing I saw at DCM. I made the decision that this trip wasn't about seeing everything I wanted to see since due to physical and temporal contraints that wasn't going to be possible. I also knew I needed to stay healthy so I needed to sleep and get rest. Still, I made the choice to try and check off as much of my bucket list as I could. When it was annouced, this was one of the things that made it clear that I had to be there.

Chris Gethard's work is important to me. I was glad to be there to support his work in person.

Following that show I saw the George Lucas Talkshow Improv Show, a show that let me know that while this DCM felt a bit commercial with comedy headliners that cost $40 a ticket (more on that later) there would still be those latenight pockets of weird. Plus, I got a high-five from Connor Ratliff, which is all I ever really wanted.

Workshops - I missed out on sign ups for some folks I really wanted to work with, but took a great class with Shannon O'Neil on coaching, Jake Regal on having fun with presmise on stage, and Joe Wengert or how to pitch shows, which I took just for the opportunity to met Joe Wengert. On the last one, I'll say this: if you've interviewed for a highish-level management job and given big presentations to clients, there are a lot of transferable skills! Now I just need a pitch meeting.

Melk - Some friends from BIG performed. They did a great show!

Dark and Stormy Night - I wish I could find clips of them performing, but this troupe was so interesting in how they encorporated improvised tech into their show. It was musical improv with a film noir flair, but they had a projector set up on a screen, and one of the performers always had a phone streaming to it. This way, they could improvise the kinds of black-and-white, Dutch-angle shots you might see in a film noir. They could also do titles and credits. They also had handheld lights for effects. Apparently they also usually have a fog machine but weren't allowed to use it. It was so cool to see.

Beyond that, the weekend quickly becomes a blur. I saw a lot of improv. I also missed some improv because my college roommate lives in New York and I wanted to hang out with him. I also left on Sunday, braving the Knicks victory celebration (did you know Madison Square Garden is built where Penn Station was?) so I could make it back to Baltimore for another event, but it deserves it's own post. As for DCM. I'll keep coming back.