Jason Gordon
Jason Gordon was one
of the students in my first GS IMPROV class (September 1997). He became
an original member of improv troupe KLAATU and performed from its inception in
the Spring of 1998 until 2003. After about a year of threatening to do so, he
moved to
While in San Diego, Jason played the lead role in two wonderful short films. The role was a perfect fit for his cinematic interests. I invite you to view them at his MYSPACE home page: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=848474628
During one class, Jason was playing an Israelite following Moses in making his exodus from Egypt. His superb spacework herding his animals along was surpassed only by somehow working into his dialogue that his character's flowing chest-hair needed a "scrunchy."
Once the troupe was performing an improv where there's one cast member who has to guess a phrase. They get clues to the words in the phrase via scenes acted out by the cast. Jason was trying to help the performer guess "light" by playing a romantic scene where he's superbly debonair. He eventually pulls out an imaginary cigarette from a case and asks his scene partner "Would you ignite my cigarette?" If you're wondering why that's stuck in my mind for so long, well, you had to have seen Jason perform.
One of Jason’s many memorable moments onstage with KLAATU came during our spin rotation game. In this form the cast rotates through a scene. We begin with two people onstage. When someone enters, one of the people onstage leaves. When a bell rings, the actor who spoke last must change what they’ve said and change it as often as the bell rings – the last thing they say is the only thing that counts as the scene goes forward.
One night we began
this form with two fantastic performers onstage, Michael Rose and Liza Case.
Both are sharply dressed and, as fate would have it, Liza was wearing a pants
suit. Michael asks the audience for a relationship the two of them could
reasonably have and they get “incestuous”.
So they take it!
A creepy back and forth between a brother and sister ensues before Jason comes onstage and establishes himself as their dad, making it clear that he wants to continue the scene with Liza’s character. Michael departs.
Liza makes her discomfort with "dad" clear, moving downstage and taking a seat there. Jason joins Liza downstage, sitting beside her.
“Why the long face?” Jason asks.
The bell rings and Jason immediately changes the line to…
“Why the long pants?”
It brought down the house. One of the many strong responses Jason got while performing with the troupe.
It was nice to see old friends and meet and chat with friends of Jason at a get-together at Tavern on Jane in NYC on March 31, 2007.
For more info on Jason:
kurt fitzpatrick's remembrance of jason
http://www.wrgardner.com/film/SunBurns/JasonBio.htm