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

The Schwab's Moment

June 2nd - 8th 2004

My face is adorning the front cover of The San Francisco Guardian. On it blares the inscription: "OUT OF THEIR HEADS: Bay Area Improv players have a winning strategy for turning San Francisco into a world-class performance city: Making it up as they go along."

Above that the inscription explains to all of the Bay Area who this Black woman with the braids and the butterfly necklace is:

"Head Games: Shaun Landry, artistic director of sketch comedy ensemble Oui Be Negroes and cofounder of The San Francisco Improv Cooperative, is a major player in the city's burgeoning improv scene."

I'm in my own hell as I walk to the stand and see the front cover.

I begged the Guardian to do a cover shot of the entire improv community on the roof of the now defunct Climate Theatre, cut out our heads in the insert and put numbers in them and then name every person and the company they were with.

Not having it. They wanted ME.

I begged them to at least get a picture of the two other founders of the SFIC with me: Sam Shaw and Bryce Byerely. Not having it. Just wanted me.

I was the queen of the quote. I was the most interesting person in the room. I was the Second City Chicago Girl. I was the one who knew Del Close.

I knew my life would be a living hell looking at the front cover of The Guardian from there on out.

I was singled out in a "Cooperative Situation." I had only lived in San Francisco for four years, and I knew members of Bay Area Theatresports (Now BATS Improv), who were there for decades beforehand, were going to give me the ugly stink eye.

I stood on the corner of 8th and Mission, opened the paper right there, and read it. My friend Paul Killam likened me to herding kitties. The writer talks about Elaine May coming into town and swearing nothing her or Mike Nichols did was written down. The article ending with something I jokingly said while talking to him writing on the phone: Shit...do you have a pen...are you writing this down?

He just compared me to Elaine May.

This was not going to be a good improv life in San Francisco after this. It wasn't for me when I finally got into The Second City Chicago and was singled out for the first show I ever did in the Chicago Sun Times for their Children's theatre:

They are all good. Landry, is a standout.

I stood out. That not so smooth round peg. I was fired a year later from The Second City Chicago.

No matter what improv city you are in. No matter what you do, your peers are not going to like it when you are the one singled out in a form of theatre that is supposed to be based on "Group Think."

I turned around to walk home and noticed my face was all over the sidewalk. There was a homeless man sleeping on my face. He looks up at me and says: Hey! Don't I know you?

I pointed to my face and said: You have been sleeping with me all night.

***

I couldn't have been more correct from that Wednesday to that Friday. I was mercilessly made fun of by SFIC members. I saw the beginning of the end of me way before it even happened with the members.

The cruelness of having senior BATS members at a table during the festival gatherings staring in my direction and ruefully laughing, dismissing me like a gnat when I tried to be social.

"You might be the face of improv now but oh, that will change," was etched in big block letters on their faces.

It was everything I imagined it would be. Everything and then some. And that was only a few days after the article came out.

That Friday, I got a phone call.

Me: Hello?

Bob Zagone: Hello. My name is Bob Zagone. I'm a director. I saw your face on the front page of The Guardian. You have a pretty face and a pretty smile. I was wondering if you would like to be in a movie.

Me: (Exhausted) Come on! Who is this? Sam? Stop FUCKING WITH ME.

Both Bob and I have told this story at the Mill Valley Film Festival when the movie premiered there. He was not Sam. Nor was he a crazy stalker who wanted to come to my home and drop off a script with me opting for a more crowded establishment to meet.

We told the story of meeting at the Brainwash. He showed me headshots of Karen Black and Danny Glover and said they were in the movie. He gave me the script and in turn I gave him my then Black & White Headshot. I said I would read it and call him if I was interested in playing the role of Marcia.

He left the Brainwash. I got up and from the door, looked down the street to make sure he was completely off the block and I yelled at the top of my lungs in The Brainwash Café: HOLY SHIT! I'M GOING TO BE IN A MOVIE WITH DANNY GLOVER!

The place erupted in applause. I screamed: THAT WAS MY AUDITION! Someone yelled, I didn't hear you audition! I said I KNOW! I ran to the stack of Guardians in the Brainwash and I held one up to my face: HOLY SHIT! THIS PLACE HAS BECOME MY SCHWAB'S!

Everyone was laughing their ass off. Hipsters got the reference. I realized then, I was probably a hipster too.

It was like a present from the improv gods.

It was like the ghosts of Don DePollo (who died in 1995), Del Close, ('99) and my wonderful angel when alive Martin DeMaat (2001) all looked down (well...maybe Close looked up) and said: It's time we intervene here with Shaun and this bullshit.

All of a sudden, The San Francisco Guardian article didn't seem that bad.

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