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Del liked to party and so do the UCB.
Ben Schwartz:I have been performing at UCB since 2003 and have always loved the Del Close Marathon.
I think one year I did 16 shows and loved every second of it.
Countless insane Hot Sauce (Adam, Gil, myself) shows.
It was so packed and sweaty and cramped and wild.
It was truly alarming the passion they exhibited and I was intrigued and titillated.
And I knew we would be friends.
It was the summer of 2002, and I had just moved to New York a few months earlier.
I knew then that I was going to be just fine with this new community.
Paul Scheer:My favorite part of DCM are the late night fuck around shows.
But of all those shows, the one that is my favorite is Match Game 76.
Wed been doing the this show since the the very first DCM, which was only 12 hours long.
It was essentially an improvised re-creation ofMatch Game.
Every year we did it, it just got more and more insane.
In real life, everyone loves Jack, but in this show people just physically and verbally attacked him.
It got so intense that even the audience would boo Jack whenever he spoke.
Hes the consummate team player.
They would take that suggestion and repeat it to each other and start walking toward the Chelsea theater.
This suggestion would mutate as more improvisers would join them, meeting at designated corners en route to UCB.
or marching through a CVS chanting Someones having a birthday!
This would become our suggestion to kick off the weekend.
There were only a dozen or so of us watching.
When the crowd realized this potential fiasco was on the horizon, they relentlessly shouted Tequila!
every 30 seconds or so.
Shannon called their bluff and went hard each time.
It was captivating, in both an artistic sense and a disaster level.
She owns a video tape of the performance and has never let anyone see it.
Shannon ONeill:One of my favorite DCM memories happened at the party space.
Unfortunately he loved it more than I wish.
Sasheer Zamata:This photo is from 2010.
We bought 40s from Gristedes and brought them to the party for some reason.
I dont know why we thought we had to go so hard we were excited.
And I think I did.
They still let me come back so I think it worked.
Anthony Atamanuik:Ive been doing the marathons forever I came around in 2001.
I pitched that idea and they said Lets do it.
After Dar Silicon there was a mandatory cleaning, so everyone had to leave the theater.
Also I saw everyones dicks.
It made no sense unless you were a psychopath.
Im sure it was upsetting to watch.
I was backstage and thought it would be really cool to come out totally nude.
(Sooo shocking, sooo edgy.)
So I decided to use duct tape to to hide my D/balls/combo.
I drunkenly wrapped all of my privates up into a nicely-taped package.
I stood up and then realized what Id done.
The duct tape was stuck all over the most sensitive skin in the world.
I couldnt peel it off.
It was going to rip me apart.
I panicked and ran backstage trying to unglue my scrotum-majora.
I remember thinking I was going to faint.
Dont ever do that.
Kegs, bits, and ridiculous things like four square tournaments would happen back there.
One DCM I played drunk four square for an entire night.
It kept the line moving fast, and I got the chance to meet everyone in the room.
One year everyone there got to crowd surf to their favorite song in the world.
The DJ would start playing something and everyone would yell, Oh my God, its Kulas favorite song!
And then wed all pick Chris Kula up and hed crowd surf to his actual favorite song.
It was the best.
Betsy Sodaro:I believe it was nine years ago.
This is when we all decided to party as hard as we could the entire weekend.
At some point during the party, the pipes broke, causing all the water to become so hot.
When you entered the bathroom it was like entering a sauna.
You couldnt touch a toilet or youd burn your shit off and the toilets were all steaming.
No one cared and it was the best.
We were all sweaty and stinky and just losing our damn minds together.
That party just felt so DCM-y and New Yorky that Ill always remember it.
We got wild, the theater itself got wild, and it was GREAT.
And Horatio Sanz did a Bruce Springsteenstyle song about a Pocket Pussy factory closing down.
I think these were old Second City bits they had.
Then they did Drunken Sonic Assault to force everyone to leave the theater.
I think people DID leave, but I remember them just sort of contentedly walking out.
Then, when UCB L.A. first opened up, it brought all these new people to the next marathon.
and high-step-hopping the whole time.
This would have been 2006, I think.
Emily Tarver:Favorite DCM memory?
Very ironic as I dont remember much.
I was an intern mopping up barf and cleaning the toilets during my second or third DCM shift.
I chose to work multiple shifts because I was obsessed.
People came up to me after the show and told me how realistic my sign language was.
Well, thats because I studied it for three years in college.
I didnt say that, of course, because Im not an asshole.
I simply signed, Thanks.
Go get me a beer.
No one got me a beer.
But someone bought it, so we were going to use it.
Surprisingly, and thankfully, this did not hurt or cause any bodily damage.
Jeff Hiller:This is the first DCM in recent memory that didnt fall on Pride weekend.
We ended up sitting in the second row in those dirty ass chairs, buck naked.
So DC, Justin, and I decided to get up and make ourselves breakfast plates.
Gil Ozeri:I love DCM for the chaos.
As corny as it sounds, coming up, it really did feel like improv Christmas.
It was a long sleepover with all the funny people I looked up to.
DCM is very much tied to NYC for me.
