Uncle Roger's Notebooks of Daily Life

Whose Diane is it Anyway?

Last night, we had a special celebration for Diane's birthday. Given that it was her seventieth, we wanted to make it special. After dinner, everyone planned some sort of entertainment.

Chris and MaryJo made up a song on the way up, Cassie played guitar and sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", Jake sang "You've Got the Cutest Little Babyface" and Jared chimed in with "You've Got a Friend in Me".

I came up with the idea of doing some improv comedy a la "Whose Line is it Anyway?". I came up with three games to do, a hoedown, Party Quirks, and Scenes from a Hat.

We did the hoedown first, and for that I asked for volunteers. Johnny, Steve, Colin, and Chris all volunteered, and did a great job of it. The subject, of course, was Diane. The idea is that each person makes up a four-line song about the subject on the spot and sings it. Not having any accompaniment didn't seem to be a hindrance. It was quite hilarious.

Next came Party Quirks. This is a game where one person is having a party and the guests arrive one by one. The thing is, each guest has a strange quirk or behaviour and the party host has to guess or figure out what each quirk is. Each guest sees their particular quirk for the first time at the start of the game. For this, Diane was the host, of course.

For this, I had selected four people for specific quirks. The first was "A Primadonna who just found out she didn't get the part she wanted" which I gave to Steve. (The show is notorious for assigning female roles to men, since most of the time, there are only men on the show.) Steve did a great job of it, hamming it up properly. He even included a "Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up!"

Next was "Someone waiting/running for the best table, first thing in the morning in Calistoga". They open the pool area at 8am every morning and Diane always gets to the gate at 7am to wait so that she can get the table she likes right by the pool. Johnny did this one, and played it up great, rushing in as soon as Diane opened the door, racing across the area and squatting defensively at his imaginary table.

Third up was Rachel with "A famous tap dancer trying to get the other guests to participate in a challenge." Diane is, of course, a wonderful tap dancer. (Rachel is too, so it made sense to have her do this; she's also familiar with the concept.)

Lastly, Mary Jo got to try to come up with "Bits and Pieces: The Complete History of the Company in 60 Seconds" -- quite a feat, given the 20+ year history of the teen theatre company that Diane started and grew.

After that came Scenes from a Hat. This is a game in which ideas are written down and selected at random, then the players try to come up with quick, humorous examples. For this game I simply asked for volunteers and got quite a few. They lined up, ready to step forward when they had an example. The scenes I came up with were:

• Reasons why Diane will do another show
• Names for Diane's next grandchild
• Things heard backstage at one of Diane's shows
• People or things about the same age as Diane
• Diane's secret Fantasies
• Crimes and transgressions to which Diane finally confesses
• Things will do with her time once she finally retires
• Diane's latest diary entry

All in all, it was a load of fun and Diane seemed to enjoy it, which is, of course, the important part. We also got it all on video, so it will be fun to watch in the future.