On January 8, 2015, we lost one of the greats.
I met Jason Chin in 2011. While I can’t recall our first encounter, he was the lovable curmudgeon who stopped by the old iO box office during my weekly shift. During these visits, he would lean through Box Office kiosk window in a wizened Wilson from Home Improvement manner, making delightful and bitingly critical conversation about what everybody was reading or watching. He’d usually come bearing leftover snacks from his last meeting or rehearsal (powdered sugar mini donuts and gummi worms were generally involved) and regale us with stories from the olden days of improv. Occasionally, conversation would drift toward comparing various depictions of Batman or decrying the historical inaccuracies of HBO’s John Adams miniseries (“He wasn’t even AT the Boston Massacre!”).
In truth, when it came to all the major performers, teachers, and staff at iO, I was usually too worried about sounding stupid or un-funny to contribute to the conversation. I was under the impression that I had to play the political game correctly, make the right friends, and impress the right teachers if I wanted to have a future with iO. The truth is, you really only need one powerful advocate. One friend. One ally. Jason Chin was that person for me and for so many others.
I was lucky enough to experience Jason as a teacher. As a Level 4 instructor, he was endlessly supportive of his students and devoted to preserving the legacy of Del Close. See Exhibit A) Our first day, Jason arrived with a stack of printed flowcharts outlining the beats of The Harold, iO’s signature form. This broke down the seemingly unachievable into its simplest form, leaving us free to take The Harold and run with it. The comedy world can make you feel like all of the greatest things have already been done, but Jason seemed to believe that the funniest and smartest comedy had yet to happen. And more importantly, he helped us see that we could make it happen, if only we look for the answers in ourselves and our scene partners.
If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to take a stroll down memory lane…
Some of my favorite experiences and memories of Jason came from a lesser-known show called Saturday/SATURDAY. This show was, first and foremost, a fucking amazing opportunity. We were just a bunch of weirdos, most of whom were fresh out of (or still enrolled in) iO’s Training Center. In passing, Jason asked us each if we would like to be part of a new variety show he was planning for Saturdays at 10:30. The houses very often full, and we could pitch anything we wanted: songs, sketches, stand up, short improv sets, or moments of sideshow tomfoolery.
In time, Jason seemed to trust his cast so wholeheartedly that we could pitch any idea on Tuesday to be self-produced and performed, with little to no rehearsal, the following Saturday. For a little over one year, I got to perform with a rotating cast of incredible, funny performers, tried solo performance for the very first time, played to full houses at a well-regarded comedy theater for the first time ever, and got into an exhausting but incredibly rewarding rhythm of creation that I have longed for ever since the show ended. Our fun was palpable, and our audiences tended to respond accordingly. Through Jason and his vision for Saturday/SATURDAY, we found a home for some of our silliest ideas and advocacy for even the meekest voice in the room. Because everybody has something to say. Staged concepts included: a School House Rock style song about “Daddy Issues,” a rant about the medical dangers of grapefruit, a guy who couldn’t stop falling to the song “Wipe Out,” an Andrews sisters parody about climate change, a family breakfast scene during which we never stopped Irish dancing, and a scene where Mary of Nazareth played the ultimate Jewish mother.
Jason’s favorite sketch I wrote for Saturday/SATURDAY was called “Flash Mob Proposal.” As the title suggests, the sketch simulated a proposal between two cast members and involved a lot of plants both onstage and offstage. The logistics of gathering that many doofy comedians in one room and trying to perfect a dance routine with them proved to be insanely complicated. So, “FMP” was only performed four or five times total. Jason introduced us simply by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, we at Saturday/SATURDAY have something very special for you tonight. We’ve never done anything like this before,” and he would invite Alex Nichols to join him onstage. Alex would dedicate the performance to his girlfriend and castmate, Emily Williams, planted in the audience.
In our first and greatest performance of “FMP,” dancers emerged in waves from all corners of the Del Close Theater to perform a choreographed routine to “Happy Together” by The Turtles (I also envisioned ribbon dancers, but that never came to pass). The sketch culminated in the high stakes moment of emotional proclamation. All eyes were Alex and Emily, with tons of audience smart phones recording, as Alex dropped to one knee and presented a small black box. The crowd fell silent. Audible sounds of “Aw!” and “Oh my God!” eminated trhoughout the room.
“Emily [middle name] Williams,” he said, “Will you… do anal?”
A roar of laughter and groans ensued. One older female audience member even cried from disappointment at the punchline. Nobody saw it coming, and it was the perfect ending to the first act of the show. Jason could not have been more pleased. He bolted backstage at intermission, positively giddy with the irreverence of the whole thing, to say, “It was so perfect! The whole audience is freaking out. We’re doing that every week!”
The validation and satisfaction I felt from writing, choreographing, staging, and seeing the audience’s response to “FMP” is a feeling I will chase for the rest of my career (and sidenote: Alex and Emily are now engaged in real life). The last time I saw Jason was at the iO Holiday Party. He said, “Hey, you know what I was thinking about today? That proposal sketch. We should totally do that again.” I’m positive that I’ll tear up the next time I hear “Happy Together” by The Turtles.
When I heard the terrible news of Jason’s passing, I was in complete shock. I thought it must have been a terrible joke. The reality hit me hardest on my walk from the train to iO, where we planned a toast in Jason’s honor. As I approached the building, it began to dawn on me that Jason would not be there. I was about to come face to face with the lack of him. The heaviness of his absence. It felt almost like approaching the unavoidable truth of a body in a casket. But, instead of his physical body, I was approaching his body of work, the people whose lives he touched. And we were all going to miss him so damn much. The rest of the night, I kept expecting to see Jason walk out from around a corner straightening the theatre, putting up a flier, or just chatting with other performers. I expect I’ll have these phantom visions for awhile.
The very sadness I feel at Jason’s passing means that I did not take him for granted. I only hope he knew how much he meant to so many. When I looked through Facebook for photos of us together, I assumed that there would be many, but I was wrong. The closest thing I could find was this backstage photobomb from Saturday/SATURDAY.
I realized that Jason was so often the photographer, the host, the producer, the stage mopper, the tucker of secret dinosaur figurines around the theater. The facilitator of everybody else’s growth and great time. Continue to do his work. Continue to have a great time doing it. Love one another. Progress. Excel. Take flight. That’s what Jason would have wanted.
maggiegottlieb 