Blog

Blog Posts

Welcome to the web site! It’s so nice to have you here! This is a space I’ll pop into every once in a while to share some general thoughts and also some specific thoughts.

In the mean time, we are super excited to share the first episode with the world.

I wrote this sketch in October/November 2014, and we (Bad Medicine, a DC Sketch comedy troupe) performed it for the first time in December at the Laff Fest at the Comedy Spot. We have continued to perform it over the years, in front of home audiences and at festivals across North America!

I hope you enjoy the first episode, and of course, I hope you laugh.

 

 

Festival Recap

When last we wrote, we were headed to the Women in Comedy Festival. Here’s a recap of the day.

We arrived in Boston shortly after 12pm, wearing our Female Bank Robber t-shirts. We took an Uber to Brattle Theater around 1:10pm.

The Uber driver shared with us that Boston is the third most popular city in the world to visit, right after Paris and another city he could not remember. I found this suspect, but he reassured us he heard it on the news.

David took a photo of me in front of the theater, but my smile looks desperate and nervous, so no one will ever see the photo. Also it was empty around the theater, so I was worried we were at the wrong theater or that we were going to be the only ones in attendance. So my smile also looks a little crazy.

We soon learned that it was empty around the theater because the theater wasn’t open yet. The person at the check-in booth was getting settled, and they told us we were the first ones there, and that we could check-in and then return when they opened doors.

I shared my name and somewhat proudly said, “I have a comp ticket under the film First Female Bank Robber.”

She couldn’t find my name, so she asked me to repeat the title several times. This was mortifying, because one of my fears was that the film had not been accepted and there had been some kind of email distribution mistake. Finally she wrote down my name and gave me a ticket.

At this point we decided it was a good idea to get a snack. We walked over to the pizza place Isaiah and Elizabeth had raved about: Otto Pizza. It was pizza by the slice, and it was excellent. The crust was thin, soft, and the toppings were generous. I also ate half a cookie. We walked back to the theater and they were allowing people in, so in we went! A volunteer handed us a ballot so we could vote for our favorites, and she informed us we had to vote for three. First Female Bank Robber was on there! Here’s a picture of the ballot.

WICF-ballot-sm

We decided on some seats in the second row, and shortly after Jennie, Ian and Matt entered the theater and joined us. They were wearing their t-shirts too! The theater started filling up: I think it was completely full. The hosts welcomed people to the film screening and announced there were 360 entrants, and they had chosen 16. That felt really nice.

The lights dimmed and the first film started. It was about a commercial shoot that casually phased out the minority woman business owner. It was funny. The second film was a man-on-the-street film where men find out a movie they had seen was directed and written by a woman. It was also funny. Then came a film called The Hungry Games, which was such a brilliant title.

I had decided early on that I would rather all of the films be really good than all of the films be mediocre and Female Bank Robber be the standout best. But I was not prepared for how exceptional they would all be. Laughing at the different shorts made me momentarily forget my anxiousness. Momentarily.

As soon as Female Bank Robber started, my heart started beating very loudly. I froze in my seat.

And then something wonderful happened: Ellen’s line played: “As the first female bank robber, you are going to be representative of all female bank robbers, because that’s how it is for woman today Jane.” And people laughed OUT LOUD. Strangers laughed out loud at a joke I had written. And then they continued to laugh at other jokes. It was the most exhilarating three minutes of my life. I was over the moon. When the film finished, people cheered. People were cheering for all of the films; it was a supportive theater, but I was happy. After Female Bank Robber was Amaretta, a film from New Zealand about a little girl who draws vaginas everywhere. It was so good I was flattered to be a bookend on that one.
When the films were done, I was a little relieved because I knew First Female Bank Robber hadn’t won, there was no way.

The winning short was Woman of a Certain Age, and the director was a professional actor. She got up there to accept the award and shared that she felt honored to be up there with all of the other shorts. She was gracious and eloquent, and I was happy for her and her team.

I was also super touched by the whole experience. There were all of these talented women in the room, putting themselves out there. Jennie and Ian had come out to support the film; David had changed flights in order to make the screening. And people had laughed at my sketch. They laughed at jokes I wrote. That’s the best feeling in the world.

Festival Day

We are on the way to Boston for the Women in Comedy Festival!

Episode 1 was selected to be screened in the film competition. The winner of the competition gets a mentorship with Paul Feig, the director of Bridesmaids, The Heat and Spy. He knows Melissa McCarthy. So, this is the closest I could come to her, aside from her Hollywood Star.

Equally importantly, this is the FIRST time Episode 1 will be shown in a theater, on a large screen. There will be some friendly faces in the audience, and there will be strangers. This will be the first time I watch people who do not personally know me watch the short. I’m so nervous.

I once read (or watched?) an interview with Jennifer Lawrence, who was dating a director – Darren Aronofsky. Jennifer Lawrence said the difference between being an actor and a director is that as an actor, you can walk away from a negative movie review. You just go on to your next project. As a director, if your life’s work is received poorly, you are beside yourself. Relationships crumble, dreams collapse, and you can’t look anyone in the eye because you have brought great shame to blood and non-blood relatives and friends.*

*She didn’t say this last sentence, but the subtext was there for sure.

Anyway, we made it into the festival, so someone liked it! Bless that person.

I’ll write tomorrow with an update.

The Pen

When doing laundry last night, my primary concern was that a new, dark blue, flannel shirt would discolor some of my lighter attire that I brazenly washed in the same batch.

This morning I was rummaging through the clothes dryer to find a shirt to wear, and I found a ballpoint ink pen! I don’t know how this happened. I must have been walking around with a ballpoint pen in one of my pockets. As a writer, we must always be prepared.

Anyway, I felt silly when I found the pen in the clothes dryer – and then blessed when I saw the pen had not destroyed everything. The flannel shirt also spared me.

I can only take this as a sign that I should be writing. And I might make mistakes along the way, but that’s okay.

Inspiring

I’ve seen some beautiful productions recently, and it’s so humbling.

Here are the three I cannot stop thinking about:

The Greatest Showman

The Marvelous Ms. Maisel

The Disaster Artist

I’m so blown away by these masterpieces that my twitter feed is essentially just the cast and writers behind The Greatest Showman, The Marvelous Ms. Maisel, and The Disaster Artist.

It doesn’t make for a particularly informative twitter feed, but I do not care. All I want to see is thoughts from the actors of these productions and like-minded praise for these works. It warms my heart.

Criticism

I got some negative feedback on the show this week, so I’ve been eating a lot cheese. St. Andre triple cream is smothered all over my keyboard. It’s French. I’m very fancy, duh.

The critic said it was beautifully animated (nice work Dan) but the writing “lacked subtly”. <–YES THEY MISSPELLED SUBTLETY. They also wrote:

“You ultimately didn’t trust your audience to understand the implications of each scenario and thus created Ellen to spell it out for us. It made the film jarring rather than entertaining and it was hard to like your characters at all. ”

This was super hurtful, because Ellen is not there to spell anything out. She’s there to sow chaos! And her zealous interruptions are part of the joke, both within each scene and throughout the series. The Bank Robber would have stopped if it weren’t for Ellen pushing her to do better, which is a ridiculous thing for a woman to do in this case.

They also said the explicit narrative would have made sense if it was made for a feminist or equality summit. This feedback was very confusing, because the show pokes fun at feminism and masculinity. It would be rude if I made this for a feminist summit.

Anyway, someone obviously thought the show was NOT funny, and I am distraught.

Progress?

The trailer for the short is now available on the site. Perhaps you noticed it as you visited the homepage!

I also posted the trailer on reddit, and that has been a roller coaster ride. The trailer got 119 views! The post received 4 likes, then 5, then 6, then 7, then 8, then 9, then 10! Then it dropped down to 6 and it has been going between 6 and 8 likes this morning.

Also, someone left a comment on the reddit post. Here is a copy and paste of the comment. I made sure to include every word to maintain the integrity of the author’s sentiment.

“Huh.”

That’s it. That’s the only comment. I checked the user’s other comments, and they were more thoughtful than that. They weren’t entirely coherent, but slightly more effort had been put into his (I have to assume it was a man) other comments. Why…would someone go through the effort of posting that as a comment?

I have decided to interpret it as, “Huh, what a fun concept, I look forward to seeing more.”

 

 

December Part Deux

This morning on the Peloton, I saw that I had completed 192 rides. Today is December 28, so that means I have three and a half days to complete eight more rides to reach 200 rides. There are different types of rides available: there are 30 minute climb rides, 20 minute interval rides, 45 minute high impact rides. There are also five minute stretch rides and five minute beginner rides. I think one option is just breathing exercises?

Anyway, I immediately went all Rain Man on myself and tried to figure out how to reach 200 rides that would use the LEAST amount of physical exertion.

“What does this have to do with the show, The First Female Bank Robber?” you might ask. This has nothing to do with the show, but it does have something to do with robbing yourself of a good workout. If I follow through on this plan to “earn” 8 rides so that I can say I had 200 workouts on the Peloton, what kind of person will I be?

I think we all know the answer to that – the kind of person who has completed 200 rides.

December

It’s December, the last month of the Gregorian calendar. The First Female Bank Robber has wrapped production, so now we share it with the world!

This process has proved challenging. I don’t really know how to share it with the world. At parties, I shift discussion to the show and encourage people to watch it. This grassroots outreach is very difficult for a couple of reasons:

1) I do not have a lot of friends. And frequently steering the conversation towards my show does not bode well for keeping said friends.

2) I am not invited to a lot of parties. Who knows why this is. WHO CAN SAY.