Dear friends, loved-ones, liked-ones, blog-readers, and people who signed up for our mailing list, whether because of coercion, random chance, or just to practice your reading skills, your reading skills practice has arrived in the form of this, HMtB’s November Newsletter! So take out your eyes, pop them in, and read on!
Good job!
Rehearsing right before the Ume Group's Halloween fundraiser.
Since our last newsletter, His Majesty, the Baby has been busy writing, reading, editing, rehearsing, and filming. We gathered in studios where we could be loud, and apartments where we had to stay quiet, and all of them had pianos. In creating new material (“art”), we let the boundaries of music, dance, and comedy dissolve, and we improvised new choreography, new ways to play Wagner opera, old ways to play Wagner opera, newer choreography, solid jokes, and unsettlingly liquid sketches, and we improvised all of them over and over until they became the same each time we improvised them. (See us in our own media that we scattered throughout this newsletter!) And we had shows! We performed at The Ume Group’s spectacular Halloween Fundraising Party, alongside The Ume Group, Jon Schoss, Leslie Erin Roth, the Lampazo Group, Margherita Tisato, Leah Beltran, Borts Minorts (aka Chris Carlone), and Chango. Our next show was “us alone” at the PIT on November 7th! Thank you to all those who came out for it; we had a great time watching you from the stage. And now, not even one month later, we’re proud to announce that we’ve given birth to another show, and the new little guy is due any day now, specifically December 5th, at Dixon Place! The show is at 10pm, and the house opens at 9:45pm. Dixon Place is at 161 Chrystie St, New York, NY. Want the zip code? It’s 10002. Want our zip code? Take us out to dinner and get to know us first.
The following section, entitled “Names and updates about what each name has been up to, and the names were made up by our parents and correspond to real people in the group,” may help you get to know us first.
Graceful moods.
Shon Arieh-Lerer is currently interning at Slate, where he has written about Robin Williams and the Sad Clown Myth, analyzed Mr. Show, and made droll videos "covering" the GOP primary. He has also appeared on the Charles Adler Show (Sirius xm Canada), where he talked about comedy, mental illness, and healing.
John Griswold is working as a standardized patient at Mount Sinai Hospital and a screenwriting apprentice at the famous Jacob Krueger studio. We’re very proud and we love him so much.
Andrew Kahn programmed and wrote annotations for an interactive text of "Bartleby, the Scrivener," mouthed off about a book he didn't like with some smart people, and completed Improv 101 at UCB. He wants me to remember and repeat the funniest joke he made at his improv show, which I saw. Andrew was very funny as the mom in one of the scenes where he walked on as the mom character.
Max Ritvo is pressed into the throat of Death, watching the light go out on everything he's ever loved as Death closes its mouth. He's working on some short prose, and enjoying time with his wife and family. Time isn't enjoying him back, it seems.
Jeremy Senie continues to study improv in the Upright Citizen’s Brigade’s advanced study program, and recently formed a new three-person indie team called Classy Old Dames. He is an intern at the New York Legal Assistance Group, and long ago passed his Red Cross Level IV swimming examination.
Thank you all so much for supporting us and loving us and tolerating us. It’s mutual. Until the next newsletter, take care. Hope to see you at our December 5th show!