Okay, so I didn’t get out every night of Out of Bounds. I went out Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Sunday and Monday I reclaimed for love. I found myself in the super rare occasion in which my husband was actually home and free when I was home and free so we maximized the rarity by adventuring, galavanting, toasting, napping, cooking and entertaining. Together. I soaked that shit UP.

So I paid for and missed a couple of the big headliners, womp womp. When it all comes down to it, the best shows I saw weren’t the ones in big bold letters anyway. They made it worth the pass. They were the smaller troupes, the local troupes and the (amazing) Jill Bernard. Her one-woman show was so inventive and smart and well done that at the end I had to remind myself that she made the entire thing up on the spot. She SANG the whole thing. She was so physical and so BIG for someone so small. I love her!

Parallelogramaphonograph pulled off a homecoming show that was so touching and heartfelt it made me cry. It was really REAL. The art those four continue to pull together just keeps getting more and more amazing. I’m so proud Austin can claim them.

I saw Buddy Daddy, which means I got the pleasure of seeing Arthur Simone improvise with his dog. HIS DOG, Y’ALL.

And Billy Icon, whom I’ve seen only once before, pulled off another fantastic, wholly physical performance. Those two were in each other’s faces, picking each other up and climbing in the rafters. They’re headliner material. I wish there were more people in the audience to see it, because it was GRAND and probably one of the top five shows in the ranks of “funny” that I saw. I can’t wait to see them in a year from now.

I could write on and on about what I learned last weekend from what I loved to watch and what made me go, “Meh.” I learned I’m not a big fan of organic transition edits. (I learned, just now, that I don’t even know if that’s what to call it.) But most of what I’m bringing away from my first ever comedy festival is less tangible than show reviews and (missed) workshops. I got to witness, firsthand, the truly limitless capacity of the Austin improv community.

OOB is dead! Long live OOB!