Can I Get A Napkin Please?
When I was growing up in East Texas, there wasn’t very much to do along the lines of entertainment, so my friends came up with the idea to do something called “Freaking” (not associated with the common understanding of the word), the meaning of the title was emanating around the idea that we would “freak-out” the people in common public areas around where we lived by dressing up in costume, assuming a bizarre character persona and acting it out for the rest of the night. We got some amazing reactions from people, most of which quickly turned their heads when we looked to see if they were staring at us.
As I tuned into the Hollywood Reporter’s blog entitled “Past Deadline” this morning, I was greeted with flashbacks to my childhood as I read blogger Ray Richmond’s post entitled “The day the mall stood still” , which informed me of an amazing group I hadn’t previously heard of, named “Improv Everywhere”. Apparently, as the name implies, and as their site (improveverywhere.com) describes:
Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 70 missions involving thousands of undercover agents. The group is based in New York City.
Their latest “scene of chaos and joy in a public place” went down in a Los Angeles area mall, where “16 agents staged a spontaneous musical in the food court”. They “used wireless microphones to amplify the vocal performances and mix them together with the music through the mall’s PA system”, and then proceeded to film the performance with masterfully placed hidden cameras, of which most were hidden behind two-way mirrors! According to their site, only the performers were aware of what was happening! See for yourself below: