Digsy Finally Has A Tumblr.

Harold Night Stats (Update!)

Back in August 2009 I posted the first set of stats. Now, two and a half years later, things look mighty different.

For those who don’t want to click through to that other post. all of this information comes from the UCB website, which, if you keep clicking “back” on the calendar page, will take you all the way back to November 2, 2000. This is going off of that information. My first Harold Night was October 17th, 2006, so I have not been there for the vast majority of these, and I’d have to be a supercomputer to remember what teams performed every night. I am not a supercomputer.

Here’s some stats!

Bold means still active so their rank will increase.

Italics means information incomplete, since the team existed in November 2000 and most likely before the website remembers.

MOST SHOWS PERFORMED ON HAROLD NIGHT

1. Bastian: 133
2. RAGNARÖCK: 102
3. DeCoster: 95
4. Creep: 87
5. 1985: 81
6. Sandino: 74, Monkeydick/Janice: 74
7. Optimist International: 71
8. Ice-9: 69
9. Badman: 67
10. fwand: 65

LONGEST RUN ON HAROLD NIGHT

1. Bastian: 204 weeks (2/13/07-1/4/11)
2. DeCoster: 177 weeks (8/14/07-12/28/10)
3. Monkeydick/Janice: 165 weeks (4/5/01-11/14/02, 1/16/03-3/20/03, 6/17/03-10/12/04)
4. RAGNARÖCK: 159 weeks (5/27/08-6/7/11)
5. Ice-9: 143 weeks (?-8/5/03)
6. Creep: 138 weeks (11/16/04-7/3/07)
7. Optimist International: 137 weeks (2/4/02-9/21/04), Neutrino: 137 weeks (?-6/10/03)
8. Dr. Awesome: 123 weeks (?-3/13/03)
9. Badman: 110 weeks (4/28/09-5/31/11)
10. Police Chief Rumble: 109 weeks (9/26/02-10/19/04)

MOST RESIDENCY ON HAROLD NIGHT (percentage of weeks during run that the team performed)

1. Reuben Williams: performed 45 shows in 49 weeks
2. 1985: performed 81 shows in 108 weeks
3. fwand: 65 shows in 87 weeks
4. Sandino: 74 shows in 103 weeks
5. American Cousin: 10 shows in 14 weeks
6. The Shoves: 51 shows in 73 weeks
7. Grandma’s Ashes: 43 shows in 63 weeks
8. Still Mike: 17 shows in 25 weeks
9. Airwolf: 8 shows in 12 weeks
10. Bastian: 133 shows in 204 weeks

Advice to new Maude writers and actors

Someone actually did ask for this, so I’m not just on a high horse (I mean, I am literally, not metaphorically; I’m riding a horse right now!). A lot of new people got put on Maude teams late last night and I thought I should share some things I’ve learned after being a writer on Thunder Gulch for two and a half years.

• Pay attention. Yes, we are all individual writers, but just because your sketch is not being read or ran through does not mean you shouldn’t be paying attention. Your fellow writers need your eye and comedic voice to tweak and offer jokes. Your actors need your comedic fan brain watching and reacting to them.
• Your first drafts will not be perfect. Do not be insulted or indignant when you bring in the sketch that killed in your 201 and it gets notes. It’s getting the notes for a reason. Listen. Also do not kill yourself trying to make a first draft perfect. It’s a first draft. Give it your all, and bring in what you have. A killer first page is absolutely enough for the rest of your team to generate ideas.
• Cut back on the jokes. Right now, new writers, you might not be used to having actors actually read the words you have written. You also might not be used to having your stuff put up in front of the great crowds Maude night brings in. I am personally guilty of falling in love with my words and cramming way too many jokes into every chunk of dialogue; the audience will not hear them because they will be laughing at that killer other joke you wrote. Find the best jokes, keep the best jokes, cut the mediocre ones or the ones you only put in to please yourself. Keep it clean and tight.
• Writers, your actors are comedic geniuses. They were put on your team for a reason. Remember that, in the UCB community, odds are your actors are also writers themselves. If they have a joke pitch, take it seriously. If they go off book and riff, relish it. When your actors are running through your sketch, watch it like you are watching it from the audience. If something they add genuinely makes you laugh, keep it in. It is absolutely an honor that they love your sketch enough to put themselves into it like that, do not squash it by being married to your words. This is a team.
• Actors, know when to play and when to work. Add your lines, play with your character, but when it comes time for the final dress rehearsal and tech, know your lines. The time for riffing is done, it’s time to run the show and buckle down on perfecting the awesome sketch shows you just wrote.
• Be fearless on stage. No matter how bad you think a sketch is going, know that the one thing the audience REALLY hates, even more than a bad sketch, is seeing fear. The worst sketch, acted with the utmost confidence and joy, can still be fun to watch. The stage is your battlefield, you are an ACTOR on MAUDE NIGHT. People paid money to see you. You are amazing.
• Don’t fight the notes. You hired your director to direct you. Let them do it. Will they always be right? Probably. They should be. Maybe not. If you disagree with a note, keep calm and talk it out like adults (cause we are all adults, what what!). This is practice for the Real World where you might have to work with higher ups that you don’t agree with.
• Be Brian Craine. That’s my shorthand way of saying, be the person on your team that everyone loves. Help out when asked, be positive, help out when not asked, show up on time, hang out afterwards, be a friend, be the best you you can be. Be Brian Craine.
• Respect your tech. They are also there at the theatre with you, running through a show well after midnight. Unlike you, they are probably doing it anywhere from 4-8 times that month. Respect them. Give them your sketches in show order, print a tracklist for the tech CD, if you have crazy DVD/slide show/sound cues, email them before hand and make sure that the crazy idea you have can actually be done on stage.
• Swagger.
• Have fun and enjoy it. You may forget this, but none of this is under your control. You don’t really have much of a say as to whether or not you or your team stays on Maude Night. Take pride in the fact that you were chosen and give Maude Night everything you can while you can. You are now on a team with people who are going to become your best friends, your family; you might just be doing what you were destined to do for the UCB. This is it. Rock it out.
• And take lots of photos.

On September 11th, the UCB, and, well, me.

dunford:

I was a comedian once. 

I mean, I wasn’t much of one. I did a few bouts of stand-up and a lot of sketch and improv, but I knew pretty early on that my time in comedy was not going to evolve into a career. I didn’t have the talent, drive, or dedication that many of my friends did.

However, I did dedicate a good amount of my spare time in my early twenties to the New York City comedy scene, specifically the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Manhattan. From late 2000 to mid-2003, the theatre was my unofficial playground. I took classes, wrote shows, and teched - and I did so during a time when the UCB was still a bit of an undiscovered treasure. These days, it seems that training at the UCB is a bit of a necessary step for most aspiring actors to take. Then, however, the UCB was still finding its feet as a business enterprise. It occupied a storefront theatre on 22nd Street and 7th Avenue that has once been a skeevy strip club, and offered a small variety of improv classes. It was teeming with comic talent, though: on any given day there and then, you might see familiar faces that populate channels like NBC, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, and FX now.

It was pretty awesome to be involved in an endeavor like that early on. I imagine that it was somewhat like being in Seattle rock clubs before Nirvana broke, or at opening night of CBGB’s, before Blondie, the Ramones, or Talking Heads broke through. Comedy felt like punk rock at UCB, except you didn’t have to play guitar or drums to get up onstage, because you were your own guitar. 

That said, I find myself reminiscing about these days (days that I’m sure still exist for many, many talented folks, but days that I’ve long since given up for the life of a schoolteacher) because of an upcoming anniversary: the tenth anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

Right before the attacks, I’d been extremely busy with all things comedy. I did a photoshoot for The Onion. With my friends Jake and Paul, I’d been pretty involved in writing, performing, and doing a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff in a regular show at UCB called “Talk Show,” which we had just performed for the entire incoming class of freshmen at NYU as a part of their freshman orientation. On the night of September 10, I’d had a busy night as well - first, we did an episode of “Talk Show” that evening that my parents had come to watch, and then I stayed late into the night to help do tech rehearsal for a show that I was going to be working on with the group Manson Roast. At 3:30, I took a cab ride home. 4 hours of sleep later, I was on my way back to my day job. 

I can’t say I thought much about comedy on September 11th itself. Being on the 30th floor of an office building in Manhattan on that day meant that there were more pressing concerns, like getting home safely and making sure that all my friends were okay. (I was very lucky. They were. Many of my friends were not as lucky as I was, though.)

However, the next day, I found myself wondering: when would the theatre be back open? I realized that UCB was in a precarious position: unlike the established comedy shows of New York (Letterman, the Daily Show, Conan, and SNL), I doubted sincerely that the UCB could afford to stay shuttered until the collective mood of the city, country, and world lightened. Surely enough, the announcement spread amongst friends - the theatre was going to be back open on the 13th.

It wasn’t until after the various shows went back on the air the following week (Jon Stewart on the 20th, David Letterman on the 17th, and Conan and SNL also in the same vicinity) that I realized the folly of doing a comedy show right after the attacks. Then, however, it felt natural for people to get up and do a show. 

So, it came to be that, just over 48 hours after the most horrific day in the modern history of New York City and the United States, just over 2 miles from the smoldering rubble of the World Trade Center towers, and a mere 8 blocks from the barricades of 14th Street that kept most people away from the evacuated area, the first comedy show in a post September 11th world took place.

I was there that night, because, well, I needed to be there. I remember being apprehensive about being out and about in Manhattan so soon following the attacks, a fear that was allayed when I made it to the theatre and had a pre-show drink at McManus with my friends Brandon, Jamie, and John. Following this, we walked back to the theatre, where a lot of folks had gathered. By that time, the sun had set, and it felt like any other show night. Almost. I remember being outside before the show - which was to be the theatre’s “Harold Night,” an evening where the show’s house teams were to improvise, and then absolutely crumbling to tears, overwhelmed by everything. The arms of a friend soon comforted me.

Before long, folks filed into the theatre. It wasn’t full - it was at about 3/4 capacity, about 80 strong, but I do remember that some folks who were bigger names in comedy had come by (Janeane Garofalo stands out to me). Jason Spiro and I went into the tech booth to run music for the first show. And then, people came out, and were unapologetically funny. It was emotional and wonderful and really, really funny. I laughed and laughed heartily. After the first show, before the second, I remember playing a Moe song, “St. Augustine.” It felt like the right song to play at that moment. The chorus went, “God is light, and light is good, yeah, God is good.” 

After the show, folks decamped - as was (and continues to be) UCB tradition - to McManus. There was an air of jubilation. People were happy. It was good. And then, a number of firefighters came into the bar, covered from head to toe in soot. They’d been at the site, working to rescue whoever they could from the fresh rubble. And all of a sudden, the bubble just…popped. All of a sudden, the world came crashing back to reality. 

I gave one of them a hug, and bought a round of beers for 3 of them. 

And so it went.

It was a weird time to be a comedian.

Improv community, read your history. Great.