Summer of shows!

You guys! It's show time. Steph and I just made it on a Six Ring team, which is the graduate level of the Brave New Institute, so we perform every other Tuesday starting tomorrow. Also, you may recall this delightful performance of in-the-dark improv called Batgirls. Well we'll be performing this three more times at a real show in June and July. Also, you might remember Zombie High School from last year. Well, the cast that brought you that piece of magic will be bringing you a new piece of magic this August. Get excited.

Six Ring Circus improv ($1):
Tues. April 26 at 7:30 pm brave new workshop
Tues May 10 at 7:30 pm brave new workshop
Tues. May 24 at 7:30 pm brave new workshop
Tues. May 31 at 7:30 pm brave new workshop
Tues. June 14 at 7:30 pm brave new workshop

Batgirls at Improv-a-go-go ($5):
Sun. June 5 at 8 pm HUGE Theater
Sun. June 12 at 8 pm HUGE Theater
Sun. July 3 at 8 pm HUGE Theater

"History Camp" Fringe shows ($12):
August 5 at 7 pm Mixed Blood
August 7 at 2:30 pm Mixed Blood
August 9 at 5:30 pm Mixed Blood
August 11 at 7 pm Mixed Blood

See you there! Unless you don't go. Then I'll just pretend you're there and do my best anyway. It'll still be fun. Don't worry. Ok love you bye.

Allow me to serenade you.

For the record, my a cappella group has been together far longer than Glee or the Sing Off ever existed.

Moving on.

Last night we had a little recording session and one of the songs is a Rilo Kiley ditty that I sing the solo in. Please enjoy.

Download or play: Breakin' Up (Rilo Kiley) by Late Night Menu.

And just to prove to you that I actually can successfully rap at times without making a complete fool of myself, last night we also recorded that Duffy song that I embarrassed myself with during our last performance.

Download or play: the sweet rap part of Mercy (Duffy) by Late Night Menu.

Ok. Happy day to you! Seacrest out.

White girl can't rap.

I recently joined a small vocal ensemble and last week was my first performance with the group. The song we performed is Mercy by Duffy and it would be accurate to describe my role in this song as one of the "yeah yeah yeah" girls, with one exception. Halfway through the song there is a vocal percussion breakdown where every member of the group except the soloist and myself repeat different vocal beats, thus denoting the breakdown. My part includes 8 bars of rapping. That's right. Rapping. Having a little experience in the karaoke Gangsta's Paradise realm, I wasn't really nervous or anything until I realized that the audience we were performing for was about 100 students from the Black Student Union at the University, and maybe a handful of others (mostly consisting of our out-of-place ultra-white group)*. So the first stanza of my ridiculously non-sensical rap goes like this:

You look at me and think we're the same kind
'Cause you don't know what I got and
I want a bit more than I'm asking for
but I just don't want to waste my time

Pretty easy right? Theoretically. But for a rowdy theater full of yelling, snapping, clapping, boisterous college kids, they were essentially silent when we got up there. The lights were blinding, the mood was one of full-on skepticism. From them, it was probably skepticism over "who the hell are these kids coming to our show to perform in a format we're not used to", and from us, it was skepticism over whether we would perform well, mess up, be accepted, etc. Most of my group was calm and ready to rock. But something came over me when it was almost time for me to rap. I locked up and I got so worried about forgetting the words that this, to my horror, is what came out of my mouth:

You look at me and think we're the same kind
'Cause you don't know what I got and
I want a bit flim flattadata dat
bada blip blop bee boop dip dap dap

I finished the stupid rap unable to look anyone in the audience in the eyes, which meant, since it was stadium seating, that I had to stare at the floor until the song was over. I would like to think I can rap...but scat-rapping is not something I hope I never have to face doing again.

*Truth be told, one of us is 1/18 Hawaiian. That counts towards diversity, right?

Naming a band is difficult.

If you want to hear what it sounds like when a rowdy and ridiculously unproductive a cappella group tries to come up with a new name, one of our members secretly taped our discussion last night. THIRTY-EIGHT MINUTES WORTH OF IT.

The discussion features poop, farting, wikipedia, Garrision Keillor, Suri Cruz, noisy neighbors, and a stranger named Pam.

Listen: Kill me now.

p.s. I didn't mean to do a deaf voice when doing an impression of the "Noisy Neighbors". It just came out, ok?

And no. We never came up with a name.