Serious commute: Oklahoma man drives 1,700 miles each week for comedy class at iO Chicago
Posted by Plague | Filed under News, Talkin' Shop - We talk improv. Any questions you want discussed can be. Email us @ captain@ussrocknroll.com., The Plague
Thanks to Sean Monahan for sending this one to us!
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Oklahoma man drives 1,700 miles every week for iO Chicago class
Long-distance commuter
Thomas Crane, of Blanchard, Okla., takes a three-hour class each week at iO Chicago. He drives about 15 hours each way.
Thomas Crane is driven.
Which is nothing new in the world of improv. iO Chicago, the famed improvisation company and school, has had students drive from Detroit for classes. Second City once had a student who flew in every week from Georgia. Thomas Crane is special. He is 24 and unemployed. Until recently he served as emcee at a dance club. After seeing iO on a TV report about improv, he decided to take a class where Chris Farley, his favorite comic, took classes.
But the commute stinks.
Crane lives in Blanchard, Okla., closer to Texas than Tulsa. Every Thursday for the past month he has climbed into his 2006 Scion and driven 840 miles to Chicago — for a three-hour class on Fridays. Immediately after class, he gets in his Scion, and drives home, another 840 miles.
He wonders if he can keep it up; the plan is to take classes for a year. But gas costs $150 a week; then there’s one night in a hotel every week. His only regret is that his grandmother isn’t alive to see him try. He said he played football in high school, and that he was good — he is from Oklahoma, after all.
“But to be honest with myself, I was in choir, and when I performed I got a bigger thrill. It’s like I found that thing in life that wakes you up and tells you what you should be doing,” Crane said.
“After high school I started thinking of being an actor. But my grandmother, she didn’t believe in that. I wanted to prove her wrong. I hate that she died before she could see me achieve anything. I was disappointed. Because you want family to succeed with you.
“But this is definitely insane. I know it is. I really am a sane person. Still, this is not the most intelligent thing you could probably do. You think ‘Oh, I can slam 1,700 miles a week!’ Then on the drive back, you start talking to yourself, and maybe, you know, you even start making videotapes of yourself talking to yourself, because you have got to do something and talk to someone, you know?”
Sure, but 840 miles — what is that in drive time, each way?
“Oh, that’s like 15 hours,” he said. “Depending on the traffic.
Tags: Chicago Tribune, Chris Farley, iO Chicago, sean monahan, Second City, Thomas Crane
3 Responses to “Serious commute: Oklahoma man drives 1,700 miles each week for comedy class at iO Chicago”
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monahan Says:
November 20th, 2009 at 6:55 pmh/t to the CIN Improv Forum
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Hawkins Says:
November 20th, 2009 at 7:26 pmA more local angle, a couple guys who started the Torch Theatre and run the Phoenix Improv Festival used to drive every weekend to LA
I'm still not sure if it's crazy or awesome. One of them went through 3 cars over the course of his training.
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tilt Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:43 pmit would probably be cheaper to just move to chicago for the duration of class.
