Last Lottery Show

Last night was the 7th anniversary of the Lottery at iO. For those that don't know, the Lottery is a show where one student from the first 5 levels of iO is picked to play with veteran improvisers for one class session. These 5 young student improvisers then meet every Monday night for the length of the show (2 months) to rehearse and then come back Tuesday nights at 10:30pm to perform their show. Usually they invite 4-6 veteran improvisers to play with these students. When it was started 7 years ago, I was in classes. In fact, I was in level 5, which is the last class level you are eligible for the Lottery. My fellow classmate, Josh Chamberlain, was one of the first students in this show. It's a great way for people to get known and a lot of current improv veterans are alumni of this show.

The Lottery is taking a hiatus (hopefully just during the summer). This is due to low attendance, which I think might be due to people taking this show for granted. It's no longer the spectacle it once was that drew huge crowds. Same thing could be said for the Armando. Anyway, last night was the reunion show where the 6 Lottery casts of the past year get to play with more veterans. This year the veteran groups were Dutchess, Improvised Shakespeare, 3033, The Reckoning, Revolver, past Lottery hosts, and Rattlesnake High School.

I think ours was the largest grouping on stage. We had 5 students (Robert, Margaret, Prescott, Blythe, and Travis), 6 members of Rattlesnake (Paul, Mark, Carrie, Rex, Bill, and me), Noah, and TJ. We opted to mirror the first grouping of the event and decided our form would be a tag-out form. It was a lot of fun and it was neat to improvise with TJ and Noah. But it was even more great to be on stage with Rattlesnake again. I really miss those guys.

One more thing. Jorin, one of the current co-hosts of the Lottery, was giving away 17 of his old T-shirts that are now too small for him. He passed several out in between groupings. During one grouping show, I found myself in the green room and a wonderful thing happened. We were looking at the shirts Jorin was giving away. I tried on one over my clothes and it fit pretty tight. And I'm pretty skinny. So then Danny and Noah decided to try a shirt on. It was quite hilarious and I just HAD to take a picture.