I AM cut out for this job!

Dear You Guys,

It’s Raychel. Winstead. Of The Ones Your Mother Warned You About. You know, that Raychel.

So, how’s it going? How are the wife, kids, and house pets? Anything new for you?

That’s nice.

Oh, me? Well, some friends and I just finished doing a little something called Villain: the Musical. Improv musical comedy. You may have heard of it. It’s a completely improvised, almost an hour-long musical where we see the story of the rise and/or fall of a fictitious villain from the villain’s perspective. Think Wicked or Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

I can’t get over how amazing and terrifying (deliciously terrifying, as Cristela might say) it was to do this thing. I mean, to be onstage making up a story as you go along is one thing, but to be onstage making up a story and SINGING about it? That’s insane. You have to come up with a melody, lyrics, and a relatively sane plot all at the same time, all completely on the fly. Not only that, but if you want to sound decent at all, you have to get your fellow improvisers to sing with you, and THAT has to sound good too! Ever tried to improvise a group harmony when none of you knows the tune or the words and you’re pretending to be a snake? My god.

And you guys who saw the show have got to know this: 99% of that form was improvised. We knew the melody and chorus of the opening and closing song, but that was pretty much it. We don’t have a structured plot outline or a set list of songs that we pull from. We have the suggestions that we take from you, a box of hats and scarves, and a boatload of trust in each other’s abilities.

That, it turns out, was all we needed. The form was beautiful, the songs memorable, and the crowd wowed. It was everything I had hoped for and more. I mean, sometimes you come offstage thinking, “I stunk”, only to see the tape later and realize you were fine. This kind of fog-of-war blindness to your own show is normal. But THIS time, we couldn’t even contain our excitement and triumph until we got offstage. We were jumping around and hugging each other and laughing as soon as we hit the green room. The tape review was not necessary. We knew we had rocked it.

Thanks, You Guys, for coming out. Thanks for laughing. And thanks for standing and clapping at the end.

Love,

Raychel

PS: I got to rhyme “chronic masturbation” in a song. I win.