From time to time, Miss Dorien Davies will be allowing us a secret glimpse into her life as she takes the Advanced level course at The Groundlings. This is her third dispatch. The first can be found here. The second, here.

Advanced is like an old-timey water pump that you crank for a week to get three drops out of. Actually, three drops is being kind of generous. Some people from my class don’t even have three rewrites from three weeks of cranking. But, I’m pretty glass-half-full. Because, when it comes down to it, all each of us really needs, is two or three strong pieces to put in our March 12th show. Something that will make us stand out.

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From time to time, Miss Dorien Davies will be allowing us a secret glimpse into her life as she takes the Advanced level course at The Groundlings. This is her second dispatch. The first can be found here.

Call it dedication, delusion, or perhaps even a smige of self loathing. I’m not sure.

What would you call someone who goes to her six-hour Groundlings Advanced class despite having woken up at four ‘o clock in the morning, sweating and shaking, with a fever of 102? (And let me just preface this by telling you that I’m still fighting whatever horrid virus has taken up residence in my body, so my rationale is not completely reliable.) I’m calling it dedication, people!

After a week of writing and preparing for last Sunday’s class I was going to be dammed if anything was going to stop me from putting up my new material. I had four new co-writes and two new solo-writes that I thought definitely had some kind of legs, at least enough to grant me some kudos and a handful of rewrites. But the thing is, with Groundlings, even if something is pretty good, all you hear about is what needs to be changed and worked on. Our accolades will come from our performances, not from our teachers. Our teacher’s job is to make our material the best it can be, not to kiss our boo boos.

One of my favorite sketches, of the forty that went up on Sunday, was written by some friends of mine. It was an adorable piece about a woman at work who finds love in the arms of the Sparklets man. It was a silent piece, all set to music and made me, for a moment, forget I was so sick. And then my teacher then gave them ten minutes of notes. By the time they were done, they had no idea that the sketch had killed. All they knew was that they had a lot of work to do on it.

The day was tough for me too. Some of my sketches were too similar to other people’s, and some were just not funny. “It’s cute,” said my teacher, “but it’s not funny.” I also got a, “so what is this scene about?” I ended up with three “if you want to” rewrites and three hearty “NO!”s. Which is actually not that bad.

A rewrite means that there is something that our teacher liked, and if executed well, could be considered for the show. I have eight now total, which is more than some people in my class have written all together. But compounded with the fluish feelings of someone slowly cutting off my oxygen supply to my head, I found myself wanting to cry, more than once. I knew I wasn’t going to get any sympathy from class because most of them felt the same way and they weren’t even sick, so I waited until I got to the car. Then I went home and fell asleep. I dreamed of character arcs and black out lines. And when I woke up, on Monday afternoon, I started thinking about sketch ideas.

Call it what you will, but next Sunday, I’m taking my dedicated delusion and going back to that theater and putting up six new pieces dammit!

From time to time, Miss Dorien Davies will be allowing us a secret glimpse into her life as she takes the Advanced level course at The Groundlings. This is the first of her dispatches.

Last week I started Advanced at the Groundlings. It’s the final class in the school’s curriculum where I’ve been actively studying since 2003. So, and I just realized this, I’ve been doing Groundlings as long as I spent in college.

The program has levels: Basic, Intermediate, Writing Lab and Advanced. Basic and Intermediate cover Improv and Character work. Once you’ve passed Intermediate the wait is sometimes as long as two years until you can take Writing Lab, which focuses almost solely on sketch writing. After Lab the wait to get into Advanced is often long. I think it’s because the upper levels of the school involve performances and teachers and theatre time are limited. I’ve heard that the queues are getting shorter in recent months because they’ve added another audition between Intermediate and Lab, knocking even more people off the list. But in the mean time, you can take electives, which include some of the best classes offered in LA. No one who has taken it will deny that Ted Michael’s Long Form Improv class is one of the best classes around.

You can only become a Groundling if you make it through all the levels of the school, get into the Sunday Company, get renewed three times, and get chosen to become a Groundling. There are plenty of cutoffs. If you have to take Intermediate more than twice, you can’t go any higher. If you don’t pass your Lab audition twice, you can’t go any higher. If you don’t pass Lab, you can’t retake it. And if the Groundlings vote doesn’t go your way in your Advanced show, then you’re done.

Groundlings is a tough school. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an idiot or an absolute comic genius. Honestly, it’s the most challenging thing that I’ve done as an actor in L.A. And consequently, because I’ve invested so much in it, it’s very close to my heart.

Advanced is the end of the road for me as far as the school is concerned, and I’ve got mixed feelings. Part of me is honored to have been able to make it though the whole program, and I’m satisfied with that because so many people don’t make it this far. But part of me is really hoping that I kick crazy ass in our two shows and make it into the Sunday Company. Regardless of the outcome, I realize that the only thing I can do is write like a mad fool, listen to the notes my teacher gives me, and commit to my choices as if my life depended on it.

My teacher, by the way, is pretty intimidating. Fantastic teacher, but she never lets anything slide. She will never tell you that something is good to save your feelings. She won’t even be polite. But honestly, she puts up good shows and I respect her opinion implicitly. At Groundlings, the job of your Advanced teacher is to showcase you in the best possible light to the Groundlings Company which is important because, after that, the company votes on whether to invite you into the Sunday Company, or say goodbye for good.

When I walked into the theatre on Sunday morning, I had six new sketches that I had co-written with other members of my class. It’s kind of a trial-by-fire. You don’t pitch your sketches, you actually put them up on their feet in front of everyone and the teacher gives you notes. I was lucky to have some strong performers to work with to compensate for my own nervousness.

Groundlings sketches are often character based. I’m realizing that it’s hard to commit to six brand new characters, one after another. I think I kind of spaced out after putting a few of them up. Not to mention that my teacher will yell things like “Is it over yet?” and “Oh god!” in the middle of your sketch. But you know what, she’s never wrong. The responses are always deserved. It’s really what everyone else is thinking anyway, just not what they’re saying. I’d rather know when I’m sucking. I’m realizing that it’s not about ego, it’s about putting up your best show and learning how it’s done. Honestly, I’d have it no other way.

One of the sketches that I put up was a disaster. We sang “Kung Foo Fighting” while I interjected comments about how racist the song was. It got an “Okay, what was that?” comment. So that idea was trashed, but some of the others had a twinkle of promise. This week I’m tackling five rewrites and bringing in 6-7 new sketches. Some people bring in even more, but I haven’t figured out how that’s even physically possible with my day job and performing in two improv show a week.

More and more, drugs are beginning to make sense.