A recap of my weekend attending the 16th annual Del Close Marathon, a festival of nonstop improv hosted at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater in New York City.
Original members of the Upright Citizen's Brigade: (From left) Horatio Sanz, Ian Roberts, and Matt Besser.
Alison Vingiano / Via BuzzFeed
Watching 56 straight hours of improvisational comedy could kill a man. Granted, a weak man. A man who had pre-existing diseases or was impaled by a chair, or something. But still, it's no easy feat.
Nevertheless, once a year, thousands of people line up outside New York City's Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater in Chelsea and seven other nearby spaces for the Del Close Marathon, a 56-hour comedy festival that takes place over a single weekend in June in honor of legendary Chicago improv teacher Del Close.
During DCM, dedicated comedy nerds stay up all night waiting for hours to see some of the funniest people in the world perform, all of whom got their start at UCB, a theater and school for improv and sketch comedy that was founded by Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts, and Amy Poehler in the late 1990s. Since then, it's grown tremendously and helped launched the careers of dozens of writers and comedians, from Ed Helms to Donald Glover to Aubrey Plaza. Messy, exhausting, and always hilarious, DCM is Christmas for UCB performers and comedy fans, myself included.
This year I had the golden ticket (aka a press pass), meaning I got to skip lines and gain access into any show. I felt spoiled. I was riding first class all weekend, like a traitor to my comedy peers. To take advantage of this rare gift, I tried to see as many shows as possible. Here is a recap:
11:22 a.m.: To prepare for the weekend, I try to sleep late. I get up around 11:30, which would be amazing if I didn't toss and turn throughout the night, haunted by my dream in which both Kumail Nanjiani and Leonardo DiCaprio were hitting on me in a bar. I was getting along better with Kumail, but then I was like, Wait a minute, that's Leonardo DiCaprio. He's super hot, or at least was in 1996. Paralyzed by indecision, I chose neither and left. This almost perfectly mimics my real dating life.
12:15 p.m.: I pack a bag with a book, my notebook, my press pass, some granola bars, two types of lipstick, and Band-Aids for the inevitable blisters I'll get. I wear a dress and new open-toed shoes with a heel because I love them, and I don't have to perform in any shows until tomorrow.
3:30 p.m.: The first event of the festival is a press conference. When I arrive the theater is already packed. When two UCB founders, Matt Besser and Ian Roberts, and honorary member Horatio Sanz (SNL), finally take the stage, the crowd erupts. Then there's the inevitable sigh of disappointment when they realize Amy Poehler and Matt Walsh aren't there.
The men riff, answer questions, and make fun of the press, saying things like, "Press who cover improv are inferior to the rest of the press," and asking me a number of questions about what, exactly, the word "BuzzFeed" means.
Sanz deems "chaos" the theme of the weekend, and that seems appropriate.
"Now is the perfect time to start fucking things up," he says, and with that, the press conference ends, and the shows begin.
