Lesbian Dancing After The Show: An Improviser's Non Improvised Life

Chapter Two: The Chicago Lesbian Cha-Cha: So. I met Charles Manson.

So. I Met Charles Manson.

I seem to stun people on a regular basis in "Los Angeles Town" (a town where, lets face it: every one acts a little dumber to prove they are still young), when it comes to what I have done in the theater world.

I have a tendency to not mention the things that I have done. I'm starting to realize that people just don't know, and that is my bad.

Well here is a piece of non-fictional storytelling to share just a little bit about a time when I worked in prisons.

Once upon a time, a long time ago (1984), I did the American Version of this theatre ensemble called Geese Theater Company.

I remember it well. A woman named Ellen Stoneking (formally of the Annoyance Theater in Chicago) and the Artistic Director of GTC interviewed a nineteen year old black woman who was really ready to not only do theater for a living, but also to get the hell out of the South Side of Chicago.

I remember the front room of that audition at The Geese Company apartment (where everyone involved with the Company lived communally) after riding for almost an hour and a half to the North Side of Chicago.

It was a smell I will never forget in my lifetime: Dog Hair? Whiff of incense? Dust from the clay of mask-making? Is that the smell of an animal that should not be a house pet? (Stare into a cage at a Ferret named Tut.) Yup. That is ferret smell.

I remember they were replacing members. Some cat named David Razowsky was leaving, along with others. They informed me that they toured all over the country to prisons and asked if I was okay living communally with a bunch of actors not only on a bus, but in this apartment off of Cornelia and Broadway.

You know what? At nineteen years old living in not the cleanest of houses in the world? The Geese Company House in the heart of the North Side of Chicago where all these "Nice looking men seemed to live" (oops. GAY!) and touring all over the country seemed like the best thing in the entire goddamned motherfucking world!

I remember meeting the other members who were staying on. One member thought I was lying about my age. He thought I was older. I had to show him my ID to prove that I was only nineteen. The irony now that I have to show ID to prove that I'm forty eight.

I remember the masks. They smelled like cigarettes and sweaty cheese. I happily put that mask on, and with no formal improvisational or Commedia training outside of The Goodman Classes for High School Students? I pretended to act like I knew what I was doing.

I remember staying with my then boyfriend Greg and my friend Monty. I called home to ask if I got any phone calls. I was informed Some guy with an English Accent called. Greg and Monty took pictures of me on the phone while the artistic director informed me that I was accepted into Geese Theater Company and I could move in. I was trembling; I was so excited. I remember screaming after I got off the phone: I DID IT! I'M IN A PROFESSIONAL TOURING COMPANY!

That day we headed to Jewel to grab boxes to pack up my pathetic stuff: My bed without a headboard. My clothes still packed in a tiny four drawer dresser. A black and white television set. My diary. A radio. My hopes and dreams.

I remember packing up stuff with Greg and Monty; putting it in their friend Jose's car. My mother was fixing the kitchen cabinets in the house. I went into the kitchen and said Well, mom...I'm leaving. My mom calmly looking out from under the cabinets and in an icy cool voice said Go ahead. Ruin Your Life.

I looked at her underneath that sink in that house and thought to myself "No. This will not work." And in a calmer, icier voice said Okay. Sounds like a plan.

I got in the car and drove off. I cried from the time I got into the car up until I hit Lake Shore Drive. Once I saw the North Side of the Lake? I knew I was going to be fine. I was going on an adventure! I was about to see the country! I was about to get paid to do the one and only thing I ever wanted to do since I could remember!

It was like being a grownup.

For about two years I worked with Geese Theater Company. I worked in hundreds of prisons and have seen the country back and forth doing improvised Commedia Style with a splash of Brechtian Theater.

I learned to juggle. I learned to walk on stilts. I learned Physical Comedy. I learned the history of theater. I learned how to improvise in the most extreme of circumstances, which to this day makes me unafraid to be in front of any audience in the world: Once you improvise in front of rapists, mass murderers, and Charles Manson? Some cat screaming Show me your tits! or GYNECOLOGY because he's drinking too many fru fru drinks is a drop in the motherfucking bucket.

Out of complete necessity, I learned how to cook for myself and a large group of people. I learned how to camp, fish and sod tomato cans into makeshift mufflers.

On of the skills I learned was how to talk to the media, as they all seemed to wish to talk to me...the twenty-year old black chick. I learned how to get quoted in the newspaper and became "The Queen of the Quote" because of Geese Company.

Between being patted down for contraband, and counting every single piece of metal that we brought in to make sure we were taking it out, it was the most socially and politically aware time in my life.

The actual touring, though, was the best part of the experience at such a young age. By the time I was twenty I had:

Seen the lights of New York (getting stranded in the city for twenty-four hours was incredible, in hindsight).

Walked the hills of San Francisco and Berkeley and my saw the Mime Troupe (Fact Wino) for the first time.

Found myself floating naked in a tire tube from being served hash brownies on the outskirts of Philadelphia.

And you have not lived until you have been to a party in Iowa City in the home of a man named Guy Snodgrass.

I had seen the landscape of Texas. The Truck stops of Indiana. The Hospitality of South Carolina. In North Carolina, discussed with a woman my age (over the BEST southern food) why the hell she would vote for someone as racist as Jesse Helms.

Seattle to New Hampshire. Salt Lake City to Tennessee. I had seen more than half of this country while performing, from 1984-1986. In a bus. In an International Harvester Refitted School Bus. Painted in bright colors, a big goose on the side with a big explosive tank of gas running to the makeshift stove inside.

I was performing for people whose names are not your normal name drop. Not too many people are dropping the name of Charles Manson, having met him as an actor after a show. Great story. Doesn't look that great on a resume.

Just before the age of twenty-one and feeling ten years older than I was, I left Geese Company. I wanted to do theater outside of prisons. I also needed to get out of "The Compound," as the magic of the company had faded away.

But my favorite part of it all, to this day, was the idea that we were creating theater in a completely improvisational manner, with a lot of research in drama therapy. I wished to do that outside of prisons, and without the drama therapy.

I wanted after I left Geese Company, to do Improv Comedy. You know. Something light. Something funny. Something that did not make people break down into zero state, but yet had an edgy social and political commentary to it.

Something like, well....The Second City Chicago.

So with Hans and his friends coming over and helping pack up my pathetic belongings: My mattress without a headboard. My clothes in a tiny four-dresser drawer. Some metal milk cartons with knick knacks from touring. My Radio. My diary. My hopes and dreams.

My Black and White Television was long dead by then.

I was on a new adventure.

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