But Seriously, Folks

All those hours doing Don’t Throw Shoes improv prepared us for something in the real world – not cubicle comedy, though.

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Karen Cordrick Haely ’92 doesn’t claim to use props or punchlines in her classroom. After earning her Ph.D in philosophy, she finds herself back at the scene of the crime, teaching in Wooster’s philosophy department. She recalls being at a weekly roundtable with the majors when Henry Kreuzman, the department chair, offhandedly mentioned, "You know, Karen was a founding member of Don’t Throw Shoes." "The students were shocked," Karen reports. "Like: ‘She doesn’t seem that funny!’" Of course, students tend to resist any evidence that professors were ever real people who cared about anything besides Karl Popper or Alfred Tarski or the importance of putting your name on your blue book exam.

I know for a fact that Paul D’Addario ’92 is putting his thespian skills to use as a member of The Gift theater ensemble in Chicago, because I’ve seen him. Well, I mean, I haven’t actually seen him in one of his shows. That would be thoughtful of me, though. He filled in a couple of weeks ago when we were doing a reading of my play, Mouse Cop. It was just like Shoes all over again. Except it was in a real theater. And there was a script. And everyone behaved professionally, and no one was running on the tables.

Either Paul credits Shoes with instilling his love of ensemble work, or he is being really, really indulgent when he says, "Ensemble acting, working together equally for a common goal – that was Shoes. No one ever complained about the amount of time they were onstage in a show – the creative dynamic definitely whetted my appetite for the type of acting experience I would pursue later."

It’s Justin – the aforementioned veteran of plastics and rubber-related journalism– who most succinctly summarizes the broad vocational value of Shoes experience. "Anyone can gain the skills to, say, convert sewage into drinking water, but not everyone can make it fun," he says. "Quick comic instincts are a great way to weasel out of responsibility. I haven’t had to own up to a mistake in years."

Andy Cobb ’93, one of our founding members, is acting and writing in L.A., but until recently he was a writer/performer in a resident stage company at Chicago’s legendary Second City comedy theatre, playing everything from George W. Bush to a hip-hop monk. Surely he can credit Shoes as good preparation?

"Shoes was absolutely no help in getting me jobs," he says. "I never meant to pursue a path of improv comedy after college. And when I did, I found out that in Shoes, we did improv all wrong."

I got discouraged that Shoes was of no value to him whatsoever. He accused me of twisting his words the way the media is wont to do. We had a tiff; we made up. Then Andy got insightful.

"Touring to other colleges with Shoes was great preparation for Second City – the experience of going to a different town and the fear of being run out on a rail," Andy says. "Don’t Throw Shoes taught me how to fail on the road, and I’ve done it many times since. It was a good way to learn how to suck and still feel good about yourself.

"Improv, sketch comedy, setting up a tour – this was stuff we had no idea how to do, but we were doing it anyway. Nowadays if you want to learn about improv, there are resources available to you on the Internet, or there’s a ComedySportz in every town, or maybe you watched ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ on TV. We didn’t know anything, we were starting from scratch, for no particularly good reason. That prepares you for a career in innovation. Take the arts: No one’s going to hold a gun to your head and make you write a screenplay. So if you make it to 120 pages anyway, you’re a certain kind of person who’s going to do things. Shoes helped make us those kinds of people."

Shoes

Eric Pfeffinger ’92 lives in Toledo, Ohio, where he writes plays and calls old friends. His latest work, Mouse Cop, opens in September with Chicago’s Noble Fool theater company and runs through November 13. "Mention my name at the box office," Eric notes, "and you’ll get a patient smile." He married Melissa Gregory ’92, an English professor at the University of Toledo.

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