Today is an exciting day.

Today marks the day that Tall Grande Venti, an improv troupe composed of Sarah, Casey, and I, begin our drive from Los Angeles, California to Soldotna, Alaska.

(Follow our adventure on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, where we'll have frequent video blog posts updating along the way!)

The road trip is part improv tour, part web series filming, 100% zany adventure. Over the next 7 days, we'll be marathon driving up through Canada to a small town in Alaska. Our destination: The Moose is Loose, a donut shop and bakery. We will be performing improv shows in San Francisco, Ashland, Richmond (Canada!), and Anchorage along the way, as well as teaching improv workshops and classes.

Also, we will be filming an improvised web series, [Donuts in Alaska]. The story follows two best friends ... who just found out they were dating the same girl. And both just got dumped by said girl. So they swear to not let girls get between their friendship anymore... only to end up picking up a girl hitchhiker who leads them north to Alaska. For donuts.

How It Started

On a random Wednesday:

Me: That was a nice rehearsal, guys.

Casey: Yeah.

Sarah: I'm hungry.

Casey: We should go eat a thing.

Me: We could go grab some donuts?

Casey: I like donuts.

Sarah: You know what place has the best donuts? The Moose is Loose, this bakery back home in Alaska.

Casey: Let's go there.

Everyone laughs.

Me: ...you guys wanna?

--

That's where we'll be in 7 days.

Okay, so some artistic license was taken there. The trip actually spun out of our original intent to attend the Last Frontier Theater Conference as invited performers in Valdez, AK, and possibly driving up to the conference. However, this year the conference started the DAY after CalArts' graduation, and since Casey and I both were graduating, it wasn't going to work. However, we really wanted to go to Alaska still, and so the reason of going to get donuts came up.

Like many of my favorite projects, it started as a joke, a "this could never happen" kind of moment. Then, 7 months and a bunch of grant applications and one very successful indiegogo campaign later, we got the funds and expanded the project into all the components it has today.

The Team

I'm so proud and happy of the creative team that made this project possible. Although only 3 of us are going on the trip, the project wouldn't have gotten where it did without the hard work of these people.

Casey Jackson

He's the director dude with the hat and shades and the badassery.

The "Venti" part of the three-man troupe, Casey Jackson is an amazing actor, improviser, and film director. His first film "Shop or Die" will also be available to view on our YouTube Channel. Casey brings years of improv experience and a sharp directorial eye to our web series.

Sarah Shoemaker

I'm not sure what's happening here, but it's happening in Belgium, where Sarah was last on tour, so it wins major cool points.

Sarah Shoemaker puts the "Tall" in... well, not much, really. But she is an awesome improviser, actor, dancer, and singer and rounds out our troupe. Hilarious and sharp, Sarah is also the reason we're going to Soldotna specifically (and also is the reason why I have a JOB in Alaska after our adventure teaching at TBA Theater)! Sarah is also a part of my next project, goose, which is bound for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. She is an actress and is the choreographer of the piece.

Cathrin Winsor Farrar

sugary confectionery delights - foreshadowing of this donut -driven project...

Cathrin is an AMAZING producer and manager and produced this project for us. She is the reason we have an itinerary and car rentals and plane fare and budgets all in order. Whenever I have Cathrin on my creative team, my stress level instantly drops by 80%. She is professional, fun, funny, genuine and sweet, and just outstanding at her job. I'm constantly torn between telling everyone how brilliant she is, and wanting to keep her a secret so people don't steal her away for their own projects.

Michael Yichao

Oh yeah. There's this guy.

The Next Step

By the time you're reading this, we will be hitting the road. Follow along on our trip and subscribe to our channel - we'll be posting regular videos and updates along the way! The next blog will be coming from Soldotna, AK, when I start teaching the improv camp for TBA Theater...

Until then, may your crazy projects come to fruition.