Abby Fudor

Grad Student

I needed a topic for my Professional Speaking class this past fall during my first semester of graduate school.  It could be "anything"  (I love when teachers say this, and then add the stipulations like, "...as long as it's about a subsection of Renaissance poetry during, oh, go ahead, you pick the year")  --but this was actually wide open.  Anything that you care about, want to inform others about, and exists outside of your brain so you can gather data on it (that's "logos" kids!)  I chose Friday Nite Improvs.  And after attending this honey of a show off and on for about five years, it was this past fall when I sat down and realized how amazing Friday Nite Improvs really is. 

FNI is a place to go on a Friday night when the bright lights of Hemingways, Gene's, and the Top of the "O" just doesn't do it for you like you once thought it would.  And while I phrased that with a charming dose of comedy, that's actually something pretty awesome.  What do college kids--and by college kids, I mean everyone-- do on Friday nights?  They drink.  They party.  They make bad decisions.  And while I'm all for free love man, I also think it's pretty cool that FNI is there for the funny, quiet, interesting, interested, intelligent, bored, down-on-his or her luck student with a small wish for something else to do.  We are something else to do.  That's our new marketing campaign, incidentally.  "FNI.  We're something else to do." 
 
FNI gives a great deal of money to charity, sets up workshops, often free, for audience members who want to learn more, encourages people to try something new, scary, and difficult with the constant reminder that there is no way to fail.  It charges next to nothing so that poor students aren't excluded.  It welcomes everyone from the community, so that when those students become 32 year old dentists, they aren't excluded.  It is a constant in a world of change...ok.  You get the idea.
 
I am so grateful to Friday Nite Improvs, Ben, Lou, John, Liz, Chris, Reg, Megan, Laynie, Neil, Robin, Lexi...and so many others for leading, helping, capturing, laughing, and of course, making me laugh.  I am grateful for a place to call home each and every Friday night from 11-1.  And after a long day of database analysis or grant writing, I am grateful for a well-timed, properly-constructed poop joke.  I remember the FNI after my first workshop class with Mr. Chris Griswold.  I was given the confidence to play Freeze.  I jumped up and ended up staying in for about 3 scenes in a row, and I was the best I'd ever been on stage, hands down.  I hadn't felt that type of confidence in a great while and I rode that high for the good long while it lasted.
 
I think I alluded briefly to the "failure is OK" rule just a bit ago. That's how I like to think of FNI and its future.  Failure has kept us OK for 18 years and will continue to do so for another 18 (and another, and another, and another).  Ben tells us every week that not only is failure OK, it's pretty much impossible.  Because it takes guts to do something scary, hard, and something that seems doomed to fail with the odds of success against it.  That's why you can't fail the second you're out of your seat.  FNI has always had the odds against it, and it keeps on succeeding.  Why?  Because FNI will always be just like the moments, those handful of moments you can  count on every show, every fucking show, I swear:   
 
When it works, it's magic.