Hosting at Ian Atlas’ Comedy Brawl at Crown & Tiger wasn’t so bad after all
June 22, 2010 by vongsundara · Leave a Comment
I just got back from a great night hosting Comedy Brawl at Crown & Tiger in Toronto. Ian Atlas runs a terrific room, and I was really happy to be apart of the show. The Comedy Brawl is basically a competition where the audience votes for their favourite comedian. The top comedian is awarded $50 for the night and the top four comedians move on to the following round. Tonight’s show was round one, so there were a lot of faces performing I didn’t recognize, but some of the comedians definitely had potential.
Tonight’s show was my second time hosting and the first time since my disastrous hosting debut a while back (when I overwhelmed myself by both producing and hosting a show for the first time). Tonight I was much more composed and prepared for the show, and I think it showed.
I’m not going to say that I love hosting or anything, but I’m definitely much more comfortable with it now.
Watching George Clooney in Up in the Air at the movies had me thinking about life
January 22, 2010 by vongsundara · 1 Comment
Why oh why do people have to ruin movies for me? I went to go see Up in the Air yesterday, and it was actually quite a well done film. Unfortunately, the entire plot along with the ending had been spoiled for me by a random person I met at a friend’s party. After going on about how she hates people ruining movies, she then of course proceeded to tell us the entire plot and ending. I’m still bitter. Anyhow, on to the movie.
I’ll leave the plot synopsis to the Wiki entry and movie trailer you can find at the bottom of this review.
George Clooney’s character definitely had me thinking. I suppose that’s the power of movies; they sometimes take my mind to places it would otherwise not go and often have me examining the different aspects of my life. This movie had me examining my decisions around choosing to focus on my career and not making too many connections.
Like the lead character in Up in the Air, I could very well end up old and alone. I have dedicated almost all my time to my craft and couldn’t possibly see myself putting a relationship above my dreams. Heck, if I wanted to live for human connection, I wouldn’t have thrown that all away and moved to Toronto where I effectively know no one. Who knows, maybe the movie is right, but at least for the next few years, I am content to focus on work.
The plot was well thought out, and the actors turned in terrific performances, especially George Clooney in the last third of the movie when his character is beginning to go through some changes.
Overall, I’d recommend this movie to anyone. A movie that can make you think about your life is definitely worth watching.
Downtown living in Toronto reminds me a bit of Winnipeg life minus the crazy
January 18, 2010 by vongsundara · 2 Comments
I’m living in downtown Toronto now, my first time living downtown in any city ever. It’s quite the experience, I must admit.
The best part of living downtown is that I feel so close to everything. I can walk down to the Eaton Centre and go shopping, and there’s no shortage of great places to eat. I’m even starting to feel the health benefits, as it’s much easier to walk to where I need to go than to take transit or a cab.
There are definitely some interesting characters down here, though. It’s a bit different than the crazy people from Winnipeg. I think in Winnipeg you can only be so crazy, because there’s always the risk of getting shot or stabbed if you anger the wrong person. Here it’s like people are crazier because they don’t worry about the immediate consequences enough. People have just shouted absolute craziness at me which doesn’t happen a lot in Winnipeg (since in Winnipeg they wouldn’t know if I’m crazy enough to be carrying a weapon). Strangely, that extra layer of fear helps people to be nicer to each other.
The place I’m living in is quite nice; I definitely lucked out. The rent is insanely low for this area, and I’ve already painted the walls and am well on my way to fully decorating the place. Next up on the list is a new rug for the living room.
Personal Performance Review and Recap: Homo Night in Canada 2009
July 2, 2009 by vongsundara · 1 Comment
I had a great time performing at Homo Night in Canada 2009 on Saturday night during Toronto Gay Pride Festival at Buddies in Bad Times theatre in the heart of Toronto’s gay village. I went to see the show last year when my friend and fellow comedian Julia Stretch was performing at the show, and I knew then and there that I wanted to be a part of the following year’s show. Luckily, I was able to secure a spot earlier in the year.
This year’s show was hosted by the always hilarious Richard Ryder, gay comedian extraordinaire. He did a wonderful job of running the show and keeping the energy of the crowd high. I was up first and was definitely nervous. I don’t get so much nervous for the occasion as much as I get nervous for the material I am performing.
The general rule in stand-up comedy is to start with your second-best joke and end with your best and never never never start with new material. Well, I don’t have much choice in the matter since my comedy style is storytelling. I can’t start with something old since all my sets are minimum five minutes long. The set I performed at Homo Night in Canada 2009 was basically ten minutes of all-new material from beginning to end (barring the last 30 seconds of the set, which I borrowed the ending from my Ugly People set).
Anyhow, here’s the video clip, so you can judge for yourselves:
Vong Sundara performs Super Power Bottoms during Homo Night in Canada 2009 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13sBHm6M4Og
The crowd as absolutely amazing. The crowd's reactions definitely added to the performance and helped me feel a rhythm. Overall, I was very happy with the performance. A bigger surprise to me is that the performance taped even better than it played live. After reviewing the tape, I was pleasantly surprised at some of what I missed while on the stage. Sometimes you never know unless you review the tape. I had the reverse happen when reviewing the tape for my performance of The Ghetto Truth at Spirits a few weeks back, so it was good to see the opposite happen with this performance.
I had a couple of audience members come up to me after to mention that they thought I had crossed the line a couple of times during the performance. I wasn't too upset, though, because it's always my goal to offend five percent of the crowd. Any more than five per cent means that I probably went too far, but anything less than five per cent usually means that I didn't say anything with substance that was worth thinking about.
Another quick note before I go: Mae Martin. Last year, Mae absolutely came away as the breakout star of Homo Night in Canada 2008 (at least for me anyways). I was really excited that she came back this year and performed, this time closing the show. Below is a clip of her song Showers:
Mae Martin performs Showers during Homo Night in Canada 2009 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXhrr2txcog
Learning the comedy business is starting to get very expensive
June 19, 2009 by vongsundara · 1 Comment
I’m very fortunate to be living in Toronto right now. There are so many resources available here that were not available to me in either Calgary or Winnipeg. Because of this, I have concentrated on getting better at my craft rather than trying to propel my career forward before I am ready. The only trouble I’m running into right now are expenses.
There are many, many great classes and courses to take in Toronto, especially with Second City in town along with many great acting studios like Sears and Switzer. I definitely believe in taking classes, and I have gotten a lot out of each and every class I have taken, though I do have to watch out for how much money I have been spending lately. It’s definitely a difficult balance at times.
The Second City classes have definitely helped me improve my comedic range. Coming from a stand-up background, my character skills were definitely lacking. At least now I feel more comfortable going forward with different types of comedy outside of stand-up such as improv and sketch, making me much more well rounded and marketable.
My next seminar revolves around personal publicity. This is definitely the most important seminar for me in a while. If there’s one thing I need to learn before opening my one-man show early next year, it’s going to be how to promote the show and get people in the seats. Otherwise, I’ll just be performing in front of an empty audience.
I think I can manage my expenses for the time being, and hopefully the dollars coming in from performing will start to balance the expenses going out. Luckily for me, I’ve kept my day job, which is allowing me to overspend a little bit on the comedy side.
The Improvisation Program, Level B with instructor Cary West at Second City Training Centre, Toronto, Improv Class
May 3, 2009 by vongsundara · Leave a Comment
I’m currently taking Level B improv classes at The Second City Toronto Training Centre with instructor Cary West. I’ll be blogging about my experiences below. This post will be updated after each class (as opposed to me writing a new post each class), so bookmark this page if you want to follow along with my experiences.
DAY SIX – Sunday, May 3, 2009: The Improvisation Program, Level B with instructor Cary West at Second City Training Centre, Toronto, Improv Class
My last day at Level B intensive was a great culmination of everything we learned so far. I skipped out on Saturday’s class due to a personal engagement, but I’m happy I made it back for the finale. Our final day was a lot more relaxed and more a review than anything else. We were able to play some games that I saw at Wheel of Improv, so now I hope to be more comfortable when playing along on Mondays.
In all, I’m super happy that I took the Level B intensive and am now caught up with my Level A class so that I can take Level C with them starting next week. The intensive format is definitely different from the weekly class format, and I think that I enjoy both forms.
As for Level B itself, I feel a lot more comfortable with environment, though it’s still not my strong suit. I’ll have to work at it some more for sure in the later levels, but I’m looking forward to it.
DAY FOUR – Friday, May 1, 2009: The Improvisation Program, Level B with instructor Cary West at Second City Training Centre, Toronto, Improv Class
Today’s class was all about environment. I was really tired and a bit beat down from the week, so I had to really pull from all my energy banks to be able to tackle some of our exercises. I still have a long way to go as far as environment, but at least now I know what exercises I can do on my own to improve.
My favourite exercise involved performing the same action in four, eight and 20 steps. I was given the action of getting ready in the morning. Performing this action in four steps was funny and showed how disconnected we can be as performers when we don’t add in the little touches. Expanding to eight steps felt a bit better and is probably closer to where I’m at right now as a performer. Trying to add up to 20 steps was really difficult for me, as I ran out of things to do. Now, getting ready for the morning in real life obviously takes a lot more than 20 steps, so I’ve just got to concentrate more on the little details.
The ultimate goal is to be able to perform any action in 50 steps. I’m a ways away from doing this, but now I know how to move forward. I will definitely practice on my own.
DAY THREE – Sunday, April 26, 2009: The Improvisation Program, Level B with instructor Cary West at Second City Training Centre, Toronto, Improv Class
I had yet another great day at my Second City improv class. I’m really starting to feel more comfortable working with environment, which has been my biggest weakness by far.
Today’s class was really well structured. We worked on several smaller exercises leading up to a final exercise that used the skills we learned throughout the day. This is the first time I’ve felt this type of progression in an improv class. The fact that we got to use everything we had learned gave me a great sense of accomplish when we were done.
We started out with free association, kind of similar to when stand-up comedians perform stream of consciousness. I had a great time with this exercise, as I do with most thinking and talking exercises. We built on the free association by introducing an environment. Once we were in our environment, we had to continue talking about an unrelated topic while still continuing our activity. I found this incredibly difficult to do, but I’m sure it will get easier with time. My thoughts were much more muted, and I had difficulty remembering what I was saying.
The new techniques we learned for environment were really helpful. Cary West showed us how to sustain an activity that isn’t overly repetitive. After learning this technique, I was able to try using them during our final exercise. Putting free association, environment and adding an extra improvisor, the final exercise really stretched our improv skills. I was given the environment of a clothing store and had to carry out a conversation while shopping. I think I botched the conversation since I was thinking we were still doing free association and thus spoke way too much.
At the end of the day, though, I felt the most comfortable I’ve ever been while doing environment work. Our instructor Cary is really great with giving us helpful tips and suggestions.
DAY TWO – Saturday, April 25, 2009: The Improvisation Program, Level B with instructor Cary West at Second City Training Centre, Toronto, Improv Class
Today I felt a lot more comfortable than yesterday. A lot of the rust came off, and I was definitely more in the moment.
I was really excited because today we worked a lot on environment, which is my weakest skill for sure tied with character (which will be covered more in Level C). We had an exercise where we had to establish an environment, and the audience had to figure out where we were. I decided to establish a wrestling ring. The good part is that I conveyed the environment well enough that the audience guessed correctly. The bad part is that I have a long way to go as far as committing to a scene.
Now, I fully understand that I have skills that need to be worked on, but I shouldn’t have to work on committing, as that’s something I can do right now whether I have the other skills or not. That’s my takeaway from this week is to always commit fully as much as I can. Cary had some great recommendations after the scene about how I can improve by being more in the moment and adding all the extra little details.
The second part of today concentrated on free association and being generous with our fellow performers. Now this is the part of improv where I feel I shine through much more. Any exercises where it’s about using words and nothing more are where I feel at home. I definitely know I can develop more in this area too, but it’s nice to come back to something I’m good at after spending hours working on my weaknesses. It’s a nice confidence builder for sure.
DAY ONE – Friday, April 24, 2009: The Improvisation Program, Level B with instructor Cary West at Second City Training Centre, Toronto, Improv Class
Ooh, today was definitely a little bit rough. Improv is like a skill that you need to keep sharp, and I definitely was not sharp today as it’s been about three months since my Level A class. This isn’t to say that the class didn’t go well; in fact, it was fantastic and I had a lot of fun.
My instructor for this level is Cary West, an experienced improvisor and actor. Well, instead of describing him, I’ll just paste his bio from the Second City website:
“Cary West has been teaching improvisation since 1996 including the Second City Education Department starting in 2001. A long-time graduate of the Second City Conservatory Program, he has also been involved with the Bad Dog Theatre and the Toronto Film College instructing comedy performance and writing. In 2000, Cary was nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award for Best New Sketch Troupe with the Closet Primadonnas and has appeared in numerous award winning short films.”
What’s interesting about Cary is that he started out in stand-up comedy for a year, which of course intrigues me since stand-up comedy is my first love as far as performing goes. Cary is very different from my last instructor, Natasha Boomer, though they both are incredible improvisors in their own right. Cary loves telling stories, which I love because it gives insight into the improv world outisde of just learning how to perform.
My new classmates are really cool too. It was a little strange, though, because 80 per cent of the class knew each other from Level A, and I was one of only two people who was new to their group. I wasn’t phased for too long, though, because the group was very welcoming.
The biggest thing I noticed in my first class back was that I was holding back way too much. I tend to be a little too caught up in my thoughts when performing instead of projecting outward. Hopefully I can start to learn a bit more and get better as the course goes on.
Second City Toronto Training Centre Available Improv Courses
http://secondcity.com/?id=training-education/training/toronto/course_descriptions
The Second City Toronto Training Centre
Back at the Eton House, Standing at the Danforth hosted by JoAnna Downey
February 25, 2009 by vongsundara · Leave a Comment
One of the great parts about moving to Greektown, Toronto, is that I’m right around the corner from Eton House, home of one of the best open mic comedy nights in Toronto. Standing at the Danforth, as the show is called, is one of two fantastic weekly shows produced by long-time comedy pro JoAnna Downey.
Standing at the Danforth is the second show I ever performed at when I moved to Toronto last year, so it will always have a special place in my heart. I wish I had recorded that performance, as it was one of my favourites. In fact, all my top performances in Toronto so far have coincidentally been hosted by JoAnna Downey.
Yesterday’s show was a special show produced for Mike McQueen, and his dad was in town. I was lucky enough to get to see three of my favourite Toronto comedians: Ted Morris, Nikki Payne and Debra DiGiovanni.
Ted Morris is incredibly likable on stage, and I hope to see a full set of his sometime soon. I’d love to see where his comedy goes when he has more time to expand his stories on stage. Nikki Payne, well, what can I say? Her aggression and energy on stage are absolutely unmatched.
Debra DiGiovanni is an interesting one. It took me a while to warm up to her style, but in the long run I think that’s a good thing as I appreciate her more for it. Debra is very wordy on stage and speaks very quickly. She also leaves no pauses for audiences to applaud. In fact, she’ll talk straight through laughter in a way that I’ve never seen before.
Now that I’ve gotten used to it, though, I think it’s quite amazing. With the speed that Debra speaks, she has to write probably double or triple the material to cover the same amount of time. I also quite enjoy her material.
Anyhow, that was my week at the Eton House. I can’t wait to be back on the stage, probably sometime in April. I’ll post the date once it’s confirmed.
SuperPowerBottoms up to G Pool in Toronto Spartan Volleyball League (TSVL)
February 10, 2009 by vongsundara · Leave a Comment
The SuperPowerBottoms volleyball team, which I happen to captain, has made its way out of the H Pool in our weekly league play. I’m super excited, as it’s the absolute best we’ve played as a team. Everyone on the team truly deserves the victory. Hopefully we can maintain the stellar quality of play next week when we face the tougher competition of the G Pool.
This week’s move came on the heels of last week’s amazing play. We actually scored enough points to move up to G Pool last week, but we were deducted six points for various infractions. We weren’t too happy about it last week, but it kind of makes this week’s victory all the more sweeter.
I think the one missing ingredient from our great early success in the Montreal Big Jump tournament last autumn was our athleticism. We’re all fairly new players to volleyball, the majority of the team having never played competitive volleyball before, so we can’t match other teams on mechanics and experience. The one bonus we have over all other teams in our league is pure youth and athleticism. We’re the youngest team in the league by quite a bit. We’re also all good athletes, especially considering the height of half of our team.
Last week, one of the other teams’ captains mentioned that we made them feel old because of our hustle and effort. It’s something I had forgotten about for sure. This week, I think we did a great job of continuing to hustle to every ball.
I think our biggest hurdle to athleticism was our hesitation in not completely knowing where we should be on the court. You can be the quickest person in history, but if you don’t know where you should be, then it’s all for naught. I’m really excited that everyone has come together so well the past couple of weeks.
Dangers and rewards of taking a break from Toronto comedy shows
February 4, 2009 by vongsundara · 1 Comment
Today was the first full day I’ve spent writing comedy in the past six months, and boy was it rough going. For all my hard work, I ended up with half a page of mostly unusable material. There may be a few reasons for this, though.
The first being that I decided to write about my sister and my life back in Winnipeg. I may actually have to shelve all my Winnipeg material for a while until I spend some good hard time in Winnipeg and get reacquainted with how life used to be for me.
The second reason could be that I’ve forgotten how to write. Now, I definitely don’t want to over-analyse it, as that could lead down to an even bigger mental roadblock, but I think six months is definitely enough time to forget some very important fundamentals of writing, especially comedy writing, especially when I was using techniques unique to myself since I combined my knowledge of comedy with my previous knowledge of classical narrative structure. It’s difficult to find that combination again after so long. So basically all the dangers I was worried about have come true. There are, however, some positive effects that I’m hoping will kick in shortly.
A part of my writing that I did purposely want to purge from my comedic style was my bitter viewpoint from my Calgary days. When I tried to write after moving to Toronto, I found my jokes were still too bitter, and it wasn’t the direction I wanted my comedy to take. This is a huge part of the reason why I wanted to absorb myself in Toronto life before writing any further. Considering that I couldn’t put anything on to paper at all, I would say that I have successfully purged my old viewpoints.
So here I am, starting with basically a blank slate. It’s both scary and exciting to think where my comedy will go from here. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely proud of the writing I have accomplished in my year in Calgary, but now I’m in a totally different space emotionally. I’m going to workshop my material some more, but I should be ready to debut my new material in the next couple of weeks or so.
Second City’s Level A improv class, week three, is all about environment
February 2, 2009 by vongsundara · Leave a Comment
Week three at my improv class at Toronto’s Second City training centre focused on establishing and working with environment. As with all of the A-Level classes, this week served as a nice introduction to the topic of environment, but I am looking forward to learning more in depth about environments in the later levels.
I definitely have a ways to go as far as environment work. I think I somewhat grasped the concept, but no one in the class seemed to know what I was doing in my scene. I think I tried to go for too complicated a gesture: opening a deep freezer and taking out some ice. Next time I’ll try to choose something more obvious (or I could just get better at acting it out I suppose).
We had a great exercise where we pretended to be in a hotel lobby and each person had to come in and establish a part of the environment using a character. Our class was great at establishing the characters but at times forgot about the environment part. It was definitely intimidating going through this exercise, as I was paired up with my instructor, Natasha Boomer, as one of the two desk clerks. She was so quick and witty, it was tough and intimidating to keep up, but I welcomed the challenged and tried my best. It was definitely lots of fun to be stretched in that way.
The instructor made a great comment about how I tend to enter the scene the same way. I suppose it’s my stand-up experience coming back to haunt me, as I have worked so hard to establish my likable quirkiness, and I’ve been overdoing the same type of character over and over in improv, which is a big no no. I believe Level C will help us with characters, which I seriously need, as the only character I have to play in stand-up is a slightly enhanced version of my real self.
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