Thanks to everyone who attended the Group Home premiere last week! I wasn’t there, because I was busy insulting black people and women in South Dakota, but if you went, tell me how it was! We were supposed to get reviewed in that week’s City Pages, but the writer who was doing the piece suddenly left City Pages and took his work with him. Boo.

I started rehearsing with the National Theatre for Children on Saturday with my tour partner Mike Rylander. Over the course of three weeks, we’ll be teaching kids in North Dakota, Alaska, and Wisconsin about financial literacy with a show entitled Mad About Money II, which is a revamp of their previous Mad About Money. It’s also sometimes referred to as “the improv show,” because it involves improvisation. This is a lie. We don’t improvise any scenes; we pull audience suggestions during the course of the scenes and ad-lib with them in what basically amounts to Mad Libs. The show is funny and leaves a lot of room for us to play, and Mike is hilarious. We’ve been having a great time in rehearsal, and the show has been progressing so well that Mike and I were given a day off. Hooray! I’m spending it at my day job! Hooray Boo!

Were you aware?:

1. NTC staff member Nate Metcalf was a one-day champ on Jeopardy!
2. The other two actors training with us are also doing a newly written revamp of an older show! One of them is a guy named Ashford who is the friend and roommate of Sam, the guy I was just touring with for GTC! OMFG!!!1!!
3. It’s profoundly difficult to do kid-friendly improv! How will we stifle all of our dark urges in front of the children? Time will tell!

Examples of horrible things we’ve said in rehearsal that we can’t say in front of a real audience:

1. After I find out that, because I spent all my money, I can’t afford airfare to travel with Kanye West (audience-suggested singer): “God doesn’t care about black people!”
2. My character, an elderly future version of a student volunteer, upon realizing he can’t do fun things because he spent all his money: “Awww! Dagnabbit! I didn’t get to go to New York City and I didn’t get to go on tour with ___, because I got no money! And my life is almost over. I’m living on a fixed income! I can’t afford my prescription medications! Ooooh, this is how we all end up, kids!”
3. In the introduction, Mike says, “We’re going to talk about what to do with your cash,” and I interject, “Or your lack of cash.” After I say that, he likes to say to the audience, “Right, because you’re poor!” and we point into the audience and laugh.

In other news, the new Indiana Jones title has been officially announced: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Dear Lord, I hope it’s a good movie. After the six-year-long slap in the face that was the Star Wars prequels, I don’t think I could handle having another icon tainted like that again. Harrison Ford said the new Indy script was incredible, but then again, every movie he’s done since 1996 has been crappy. And after Transformers, I’m not betting that Shia LeBeouf is a guarantee of quality either. But hey, they’ve got Karen Allen back as Marion Ravenwood! I’m betting that Shia LeBeouf is Indy’s and her son. This is wild speculation.

That reminds me of another ridiculous exchange I had while on the road with GTC…

Me: “…but that’s just wild speculation.”

Amber: “There you go speculating wildly again.”

Me: “I don’t know how else to speculate.”