As far back as college, which is not that long before our story begins, I remember thinking that I didn’t have a “thing.” My housemates had a variety of hobbies: acting, guitar, death-defying sports, hell even Native American dancing. I was into… poking on the pre-Facebook Internet and watching the Simpsons. I remember telling my best friend that I needed something.

That was my situation in mid-2001, soon after graduating, when my college pal Andy Crouch fatefully invited me to his improv graduation showcase at the Hideout Theatre, where he’d been taking classes from my other college pal Shana Merlin. 

Sidebar: I always need to remind myself that this wasn’t the first improv show I’d ever seen. During college I attended a ComedySportz show on the UT campus; an exceptionally lewd set at a conference in Oklahoma; and most vividly, a show in College Station where I was an audience volunteer onstage.¹ 

But anyway, all that was prehistory. Andy’s show was the first time I’d ever bought an improv ticket with enthusiasm. And given my lack of a “thing,” I was improv-curious as I walked into the Hideout for the first time. But I thought to myself what everybody probably thinks: I can be funny, but I don’t know if I can just… walk out onstage and be funny.² 

Here’s the important part of the story: the show wasn’t that good.

My last performance on the Hideout Theatre stage was February 29, 2020, an otherwise-typical Maestro where we gossiped in the green room about this “COVID” thing. My next last performance was a weird one—four months later, filming a political ad for a fictional audience in an empty, locked-down building. Then I moved to Amsterdam, but there were additional last performances too, on subsequent visits home. 

So you’ll understand that I hesitate before declaring that my October 8th Out of Bounds performance with USS Improvise, the improvised Star Trek musical³, really was my final one at the Hideout’s current location. I’d love to be wrong! But I think it was. The Hideout’s losing their building at the end of the year and raising money for a new venue and their next chapter. I support this effort, but I also believe buildings can have souls, and this one sure as hell does.