I was nervous about performing Crazy Eights in Toronto. The best improvisors in the world are there now, and quite a few of them were in the audience watching. It was a bit of a wild ride. It took us a while to find some space to rehearse the format before going on, and we could only rehearse while the group that preceded us on stage was doing their set. No one came to get us until we had already been announced, so we practically ran down the hall and onto stage immediately. There was certainly no shortage of adrenaline in my system. The place was packed too. There wasn’t a spare seat in the house.

Everyone on the cast was hyped for the show, and we ended up having a lot of fun. It was a short set… only about 20 minutes, but our pace was quick and we managed to get things wrapped up quite tightly. I can’t say it was the best Crazy Eights show ever, but it was respectable, and the audience enjoyed it. My only notes for the show were that the language got a bit raw in parts, and there was a bit too much fighting at times. It wasn’t fatal to the show though. For the record, here is the cast:

Table

• Laura Reid
• Nada Jovic
• Devlin Bishop
• Rob Hills

Bench

• Allison Summers
• Colette Kendall
• Sarah Hillier
• Kevin Thom

Spare

• Mart Alas

After Crazy Eights, a few of us had to hustle from the Bad Dog Theatre to the upstairs lounge at Betty’s to do a Harold with Jackrabbit Slim. Again, this set was not brilliant, but it was respectable. The team that followed us, Aphasia from Chicago, was drop down rocking awesome. They just did one long scene that took place in a restaurant between a couple and a slightly creepy waiter. The waiter also played his own boss and was able to switch back and forth between the two characters with very convincing ease. Like the SNL writers, their biggest strength was playing real people interwoven into a highly developed group mind. Incredible stuff.