There's Quirky and then there's Creepy

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Theatres are fascinating places to observe humans. So many fake people. So many socially inept people. A comedy theatre is a slightly different flavor as it also has people who so dearly want to be thought of as funny. It’s depressing at times to see so many people struggling to be noticed and to get a laugh.

I want to stress that tonight’s story is 100% true. I’ve embellished no facts. I’ve changed only names to protect those that it involves. I must insist this because it’s something I wouldn’t have believed had I not been present. It’s the stuff of bad teen movies.

It’s the story of what one young lady did and how she thought it would be funny, but it wasn’t and it was actually really really creepy.

My improv theatre also offers a series of courses about improv comedy. You learn the games, you learn how to think on your feet and generally get over being nervous about looking silly. We’ve got multiple teachers teaching different levels and one of them is quite well known for the love she garners from her students. We’ll call her Sarah.

Sarah got her start out West, came to Orlando and has settled in nicely. She’s lots of fun and has a great personality. Her students love her and often wish that she could teach all four levels of their classes.

One such student, I’ll call her Nicole, was just as described. She came in with improv experience, so she skipped the first level of classes, starting right off in level 2 with Sarah. Nicole, from the start, told Sarah how much she enjoyed the class and repeatedly mentioned how excited she was that her sister, Natalie, would be taking Level 2 with Sarah in the next session after Nicole moved up to level 3. Nicole just rambled on and on about how much Natalie would enjoy the class throughout the entire eight week class session. At the end of the session Nicole told Sarah repeatedly that she dearly wished she could take level 2 all over again.

Today was the start of the next improv class session and I have Nicole in my class (level 3) which is taught by another guy. After our class is Sarah’s class. So when our class finished Nicole headed out and said goodbye to Sarah. Sarah starts her class and meets Natalie. They look a lot a like, talk almost identically, but where Nicole had no glasses and fairly short hair, Natalie had long long hair and thick glasses.

Sarah remarked several times how similar Natalie was to Nicole, then, during an opening game where in you introduce yourself to the others, Natalie stumbled and introduced herself as Nicole!

Sarah picked up on it and called her out, “Nicole??? Is that you?” Nicole pulls off the wig and the glasses and just grins stupidly, “Heyyyy told you I’d be back!” Sarah was shocked and sort of stuttered and finally got out “What are you doing here? Are you taking level 2 again?” I mean, it’s kind of shocking for this sort of thing to happen.

Soon after, Nicole leaves, holding wig and glasses in hand, grinning like she had just made the biggest joke ever. No one was laughing. The class was dead silent and in shock. After Nicole left one of the guys in the class said “What the f*ck was that about?”

This girl had not only been planning this exact event for weeks, but she had been talking about a non-existent sister all of last semester. Then today after her real class had let out, she went out into the car, changed her clothes, put on a full wig, glasses, shoes, the works.

Nicole is an unusual girl. Her comedy strays almost immediately into what Sarah had termed as “crazyland.” She will immediately launch for the non-sensical and crazy rather than the logical or “normal” realm of comedy. A good example of this escapes me at the time.

This sort of thing has the underlyings of what could be a funny idea, but it just crosses into the realm of creepy and weird. The idea that if she hadn’t stumbled, would she have revealed during the class? Would she have gone the entire eight week session without revealing? I think she would. I think she wanted to see if she could fool Sarah and then only when she got caught did she really put it off as a joke.

Sarah thinks Nicole thought that she would find it funny, and she felt bad for not, but I just think Nicole has a screw loose.

Maybe Nicole is crying for attention, I was told later that she came in under false pretenses. Saying she had improv experience from the West Coast but her skill level clearly showed that to be a falsity. I reserve judgment on that, but given today’s shenanigans, I don’t think it is too far flung of an idea. She could be a fake. In which case, her skills will reveal the truth.

Turds either float or sink, they never sit in the middle.

– IG

2

People at SAK? A little weird, a little off? The hell, you say!

3

So if she hadn’t stumbled she might have pulled it off? Perhaps she’s a pretty good actress??

4

A lot of people come to theater because they have a lot of passion and creativity but lack direction and understanding. Frequently these folks come from sheltered backgrounds where they’ve been denied (what most of us would think of as) normal human interactions. They’ve grown up as the wierd kid at the back of the class, living in their own little worlds. They can’t relate to normal people in normal ways, they’re lonely, their definition of humor or drama has been twisted by their circumstance. They turn to theater as a way of learning to model the behavior of a normal person. Theater becomes therapy, if you will.

I don’t have a background in professional psychology, or any cites to back this up - my description above is from my observations drawn from 20 years of participating in community theater in many different locations and venues. Every theater has at least one or two people like ‘Nicole’ passing through at any given moment. They are very eager, but they turn people off by blasting everyone with a thousand percent of their emotions where they ought to be restrained or subtle. They’ll never shake your hand when they can give you a bear hug, they never whisper when they can scream. They’re used to being ignored - now they have people listening and reacting to them, and they’re addicted like a drug.

A lot of theater types get really sick of these people, and frankly, I get tired of them too. They’re very self indulgent and will take up a lot of class time focusing on themselves. But show me the actor who isn’t an emotional mess! If you give these types enough rope, eventually they either turn into pretty decent people, or they disappear into the mist. They just need to figure life out, and where they fit. Read interviews with some entertainers now thought of as geniuses, and you’ll realize they started off this way - Steve Martin and Elton John leap to mind.

You might wonder how you need to handle them. My advice - don’t. When Nicole’s a pain, let her know it isn’t acceptable. When she does good, cheer loudly. She needs to fall on her face a few times. A couple years from now she’ll tell the story in the OP herself, starting out with “Here’s what a geek I used to be!” and she’ll have everyone rolling in the aisles.

5

That is just creepy, in a Norman Bates kind of way.

Props to that one guy for the obligatory “wtf, mate?”

6

That is so Andy Kaufman.

7

I don’t know if I’d go all the way to creepy, but it certainly is odd. No odder than a lot of practical jokes that people play on each other, but if Nicole already has a reputation for being a weirdo, I can see where it would be taken that way. Now, when Nicole shows up at Sarah’s house…

8

Yeah, she really needs to learn to focus if she’s going to make that schtick work.

9

What have you got against Crazyland?

10

It reminds me of Michael from “The Office” in his improv acting class. He always ended up shooting everyone dead.

11

While this is definitely off-the-wall, my first thought is that many theatre-types are quite sure (conceited?) of their own abilities. I wonder if Nicole was just testing her acting abilities in that she truly believed she could pull off this double-life for a full round of classes. Being as how she proved herself not as good an actor as she apparently believed herself to be, I wonder if she will continue showing up for class. I wouldn’t be worried about a stalker-type based on what you said, but I would not want to be the one to give this girl (even constructive) criticism on her acting abilities or lack thereof.
Of course she set the whole thing up weeks in advance, otherwise, it would be too easy to be ‘found out.’ Think about it, if I tell you I have a sister who will be taking your class next round, you will expect her to look/talk/walk/etc like me, but if I never said a word, you would be highly suspicious of my (almost) identical twin in your class.

12

Ah, but perhaps she really did have a sister, a sister who is now unable to attend the classes due to being chopped up in several rubbish bags in the garden. :smiley:

13

Anybody else reminded of the Scrubs episode when the Janitor pastes on a fake mustache and pretends he’s his own twin?

14

Leviosaurus - You’re quite right that a lot of us are odd, I certainly won’t disagree. But odd is the volunteer I have who had a full conversation with my Sobe drink display, asking each in turn to plead their case as to why they should be spared.

Improv is therapy in its own way. I’ve said that on stage I’m freer than I ever am anywhere else and I can do anything I want. Quite the release from a reserved geekish childhood, heck, I even remember an older woman from one of my classes who always played the abused child. Talk about improv as therapy.

I am pretty sure that she got the message after her stunt. No one laughed. No one gave any positive feedback. It was all stunted WTF moments with no smiles or applause. And yes, if another stunt is pulled, she will be talked to. :slight_smile:

Litoris - I do think she was trying to see how far she could go. But I doubt this stumbling will stop her from coming back. She’s got a tenacity to her.

Celyn - God I hope not. chills

– IG

15

That’s the first thing that came to my mind. He was always skirting the line between quirky and creepy (and many other things… annoying comes to mind.)

16

But that made perfect sense. What’s the most exciting thing that can happen in any given situation? Someone has a gun.

:stuck_out_tongue:

17

Years ago I had to attend IBM’s “Stepford” secretarial school. Part of that training was a 1-week course in public speaking. The first day, everyone had to get up and do a 5-minute speech. Needless to say, most everyone was freaked out.

So this one girl get up there and is shrinking and stammering…she’s a nervous wreck and on the verge of wetting herself. She was noticeably more shook up about it than most anyone else in the class.

The following day, we have training and do small group exercises.

The third day we have to do another 5 minute class utilizing our new skills. This Nervous Nellie girl gets up there and does her speech as smooth and confident as anything we’d ever seen. A real pro.

At the end of her speech she lets on that she’s an “actress” and the whole nervous thing was just a put-on. I guess it was her way of letting everyone know how much better she was than the rest of us. It was definitely creepy.

18

I actually find your story more creepy than the OP, Kalhoun. Playing with other people like that for no apparent reason is creepy.

19

I was thinking Master Thespian.

“Ahcting!”
“Brrilliant!”
“Thenk yew!”

20

It was creepy. She stood up there all smug with all her public experience, after mocking those who were losing sleep over having to take the course. There was a slightly sadistic edge to the whole thing.