The Formative Years of Robert Baumgardner

The Clique, IRTE's next show, opened Saturday, August 3rd 2013. The last performance (unless we bring it to a festival) is Saturday, August 17 at 8:00 pm. It's about those high school years we all remember and love so well. At the top of the show, our principal, Jeff O'Leary will interview a member of the audience about their high school experience. So, to be fair, we decided to interview some of the cast members of The Clique before we subjected anyone else to such experiments.

This time we hear from improvisor Robert Baumgardner:

BIRTE: Where did you go to high school?

Robert: I went to an all boys prep school in northern New Jersey run by Benedictine priests.

Jersey Boy

B: Who were your friends? Were you part of a clique?

R: I think the school was too small to really have strictly defined cliques. There definitely were jocks, and I suppose nerds. I played soccer, then ultimate frisbee, and sat in the library a lot. I guess my closest friends were nerds and stoners. At least the latter had a reputation for being stoners. I actually never saw weed until I went to college.

B: Did you ever get bullied/picked on by someone?

R: By students or faculty? Ha! I don't really remember anyone getting picked on a lot. Not that there weren't days...threats of chocolate swirlies, your-mama jokes were big, etc. One guy who got picked on in my class was actually the biggest kid in the class. I think he was an offensive lineman on the football team, and others would pick on him because he wasn't the sharpest pencil in the cup. He would take their crap, but sometimes if he thought someone else was getting picked on, he'd put the bully in a headlock. That pretty much ended the bullying for awhile.

B: Did you ever get sent to the Principal's office?

R: We didn't have a principal. We had a headmaster, a very strong priest who had been living for over a thousand years. Oh, sorry. Let me turn off "True Blood". There we go. Where were we? Oh no, the headmaster was probably in his forties. I don't ever remember getting sent to the office. The priests scared me, so I stayed in line.

Check out The Clique this Saturday, August 17 8:00 pm at

Gotham City Improv
48 West 21st, 8th Floor - Buzzer #801
New York, NY 10010
212-367-8222

Tix: $6

Reservations: IRTEinfo@gmail.com

Special Discount!!!: $3.00 for High School / College Students with advance
reservation.
$3.00 for groups of 3 or more with advance
reservation.

The Formative Years of Graceann Dorse

The Clique, IRTE's next show, opened Saturday, August 3rd 2013. The last performance (unless we bring it to a festival) is Saturday, August 17 at 8:00 pm. It's about those high school years we all remember and love so well. At the top of the show, our principal, Jeff O'Leary will interview a member of the audience about their high school experience. So, to be fair, we decided to interview some of the cast members of The Clique before we subjected anyone else to such experiments.

This time we hear from improvisor Graceann Dorse:

BIRTE: Where did you go to high school?

GRACEANN: Bishop Hannan High School in Scranton, PA. It's now a defunct, empty, two-story 60's style building. It was right in the middle of downtown Scranton, so sometimes there were homeless dudes hanging out on the front steps. And because it was a Catholic school, everyone felt bad for them and didn't want to chase them away because Jesus would probably have been cool with homeless guys near 16-year-old kids, right?

Car Bouncing Valedictorian

B: Who were your friends? Were you part of a clique?

G: I guess I was part of a clique in the general sense of the word, but we were not exclusive jerks, which is the intended meaning of the word. I was friendly with everyone. I performed social osmosis with the fluid grace of mitochondria, or whatever performs osmosis. My "clique" consisted of pretty normal people, speckled with some dorks of all kinds: comic books, drama (me), and grunge. It was the 90's and my friends were the type of people who watched The Crow thirty-six times. And we never drank. Instead we would get a Little Ceaser's pizza and some Shasta (I think that's a local thing- it's just really bad and cheap soda) and would drive up to the top of this mountain and look over the city all lit up. One time, another car drove up, which never happened, and we wanted them to leave. So we all got down and started bouncing in the car to make them think there was naughty stuff going on. The other car drove away, probably because they were just lost and not necessarily because they were scared by a bouncing car.

B: Did you ever get bullied/picked on by someone?

G: Just my own fear of failure, and the constant stare of the Virgin Mary.

B: Did you ever get sent to the Principal's office?

G: Once.... to be told I was the valedictorian. Boo ya! High school was great. Everything else since then has been a slow downward spiral.

Check out The Clique Saturdays August 3 - 17 8:00 pm at

Gotham City Improv
48 West 21st, 8th Floor - Buzzer #801
New York, NY 10010
212-367-8222

Tix: $6

Reservations: IRTEinfo@gmail.com

Special Discount!!!: $3.00 for High School / College Students with advance
reservation.
$3.00 for groups of 3 or more with advance
reservation.

The Formative Years of Danielle Montezinos

The Clique, IRTE's next show, opens Saturday, August 3rd 2013. It's about those high school years we all remember and love so well. At the top of the show, our principal, Jeff O'Leary will interview a member of the audience about their high school experience. So, to be fair, we decided to interview some of the cast members of The Clique before we subjected anyone else to such experiments.

This time we hear from Danielle Montezinos:

BIRTE: Where did you go to high school?

DANIELLE: I wound up going to three different high schools. We moved a lot and I also tried a Performing Arts School one year.  I wound up graduating from Spanish River High School in Boca Raton, Fl.

Friends with smart kids

B: Who were your friends? Were you part of a clique?

D: I was friends with a lot of random people but I mainly hung out with artsy people who liked good music and wore a lot of black.  And when I say good music, I mean The Cure and Depeche Mode.  And Skinny Puppy. And Tori Amos.

I did have a lot of friends into theater, as I was into that.  Plus,  I was friends with a lot of smart kids, stoners and punks.

B: Did you ever get bullied/picked on by someone?

D: Nope.  People didn't mess with me.  Seriously.  That was junior high. In high school I was cool. I had purple hair and that was bad-ass.

B: Did you ever get sent to the Principal's office?

D: No, but once, senior year,  me and my friends got caught skipping school and I was  sent to "in school suspension" for three days.  It was awesome, I got so much work done!

Thanks for opening up to us, Danielle.

Check out The Clique Saturdays August 3 - 17 8:00 pm at

Gotham City Improv
48 West 21st, 8th Floor - Buzzer #801
New York, NY 10010
212-367-8222

Tix: $6

Reservations: IRTEinfo@gmail.com

Special Discount!!!: $3.00 for High School / College Students with advance
reservation.
$3.00 for groups of 3 or more with advance
reservation.

The Formative Years of Jeff O'Leary

The Clique, IRTE's next show, opened Saturday, August 3rd. It continues every Saturday through August 17. It's about those high school years we all remember and love so well. At the top of the show, our principal, Jeff O'Leary will interview a member of the audience about their high school experience. So, to be fair, we decided to interview some of the cast members of The Clique before we subjected anyone else to such experiments.

This time we hear from Jeff O'Leary, who is also the director of The Clique.

BIRTE: Where did you go to high school?

JEFF: Evergreen High School (Home of the Cougars). Evergreen is a small town in Colorado, about 30 minutes west of Denver.

Perfect evening: Lobster and Joy Division

B: Who were your friends? Were you part of a clique?

J: In my school there were the cool outcasts, and then there were the loser outcasts. I was one of the loser outcasts.

I was a goth kid but not too crazy -- I didn't wear makeup or anything. I had long dyed black hair and dressed in black, listened to The Cure, The Smiths, Joy Division, etc.  I think it was early in my junior year that I transformed overnight from a totally normal looking kid into a goth. It probably would have been a lot less awkward if I had waited until the summer to completely change my identity but I guess I just couldn't wait.

I had a small group of close friends, and we were all a bit tortured but in different ways. My friend Eric was really attractive but tortured in a James Dean kind of way. He could have easily hung out with the popular kids but for some unknown reason hung out with us instead. Last time I saw him he owned a Taco House restaurant

I had another friend Chris who was a tortured rich kid. He had his own American Express card and used to take us out to Red Lobster all the time. Every month his parents would get the bill and flip out, take away his card and ground him for a week. He would eventually re-appear, looking sort of shell-shocked (his Dad was a Marine boxing champion and not someone you would want to piss off).  Another week would pass and then we would all be getting stoned and someone would say "Hey, I've got an idea -- let's go eat at Red Lobster!" Chris would always give in and then the whole cycle would repeat itself

B: Did you ever get bullied/picked on by someone?

J: I was never bullied but I did get into a fight once. My locker partner was gay and people used to give me grief about it constantly. One day I was in a really awful mood and this kid who was about half my size came up to me and said something like: "Hey man, where's your butt buddy? Are you and your locker partner butt buddies?"  He looked genuinely shocked when I grabbed him and tossed him into the lockers a couple of times. A few punches were thrown but it was broken up pretty fast.

I was suspended for three days and my friends were very impressed. Weirdly, my mom was proud of me but my Dad was very disappointed. When I went back to school, the kid who I fought with apologized to me and tried to give me a rat (he had a bunch as pets)

B: Did you ever get sent to the Principal's office?

J: I spent a lot of time in the Principal's office. Actually, the Assistant Principal (Mr. Hathaway) was the main disciplinarian so I got to know him quite well. But I did eventually move my way up to the Principal.

My problems began when I started to ditch classes too much. My school had this "attendance line" -- it was basically just an answering machine that your parents had to leave a message on in the morning if you weren't coming to school that day. I left messages on the machine pretending to be my Mom, saying I was sick and proceeded to miss tons of classes. I got away with it for a couple months but eventually I was busted. My mom refused to believe it was me impersonating her voice and suspected that one of my female friends was responsible. She still doesn't believe it was me.

Then I started an "underground newspaper" where I wrote nasty things about people I hated. At one point, the parents of one of the kids I made fun of were threatening to sue my high school unless I was punished. And I also got in trouble for fighting (see above). Eventually, I was considered such a pain in the butt that they gave me the option to either 1) drop out or 2) they would kick me out. So I dropped out of high school, much to my parents' dismay.

B: And then you became an improvisor...

Check out The Clique Saturdays August 3 - 17 8:00 pm at

Gotham City Improv
48 West 21st, 8th Floor - Buzzer #801
New York, NY 10010
212-367-8222

Tix: $6

Reservations: IRTEinfo@gmail.com

Special Discount!!!: $3.00 for High School / College Students with advance
reservation.
$3.00 for groups of 3 or more with advance
reservation.

The Formative Years of Alex Decaneas

The Clique, IRTE's next show, opens Saturday, August 3rd 2013. It's about those high school years we all remember and love so well. At the top of the show, our principal, Jeff O'Leary will interview a member of the audience about their high school experience. So, to be fair, we decided to interview some of the cast members of The Clique before we subjected anyone else to such experiments.

Up next, Alex Decaneas:

BIRTE: Where did you go to high school?

Alex: Londonderry High School, Londonderry NH... Land of Apples and Applebee's.

B: Who were your friends? Were you part of a clique?

A: My friends were (still are) the creative types: musicians, drama kids, writers, and school newspaper peeps. Wouldn't say we were terribly unpopular... but we were certainly out there. So, the kind of days spent swiping a friends video camera to film toy soldiers melting as part of an essay on "War and Peace" would not be an uncommon occurrence for our gang.

AfroMan

B: Did you ever get bullied/picked on by someone?

A: Oh hells to the motha f'n yeah. But not in high school. Mostly in junior high... But I put an end to it when I created a comic called "AfroMan" in which basically I made fun of myself and my hairstyle (can you guess what it was?) better than any other bully could imagine... Once I turned the joke in on myself... it took away the bully thunder.

B: Did you ever get sent to the Principal's office?

A: Again, quite often... In junior high and in high school. Most fun for me was when friends and I orchestrated an early morning rooftop concert for students hanging out before class. We spent about a week planning it out and execution was perfect... "Another Brick in the Wall" was the concert opener of choice...

Thanks, Alex. You don't need no thought control.

Check out The Clique Saturdays August 3 - 17 8:00 pm at

Gotham City Improv
48 West 21st, 8th Floor - Buzzer #801
New York, NY 10010
212-367-8222

Tix: $6

Reservations: IRTEinfo@gmail.com

Special Discount!!!: $3.00 for High School / College Students with advance
reservation.
$3.00 for groups of 3 or more with advance
reservation.