Christmas – or at least, Halloween – came early this year when these photos arrived in our inbox, along with a note from Tom Vest:

“I took the Harold course at Second City in 2003 with David Shore. After doing six years of short form, this new, ‘long form’ instantly felt right. When the course was done I went down to the admin office and asked to put on a Harold show using our class. They said ‘We don’t do that sort of thing.’

I decided to take the course again immediately, and at the end of it simply tell this class we were now a team and going to put on shows. So that’s what we did.

I named it ‘Dude, What’s A Harold?’ and we played at Bad Dog and the Blue Moon, every other week. It was the only show of its kind, and as far as I had heard, the first Harold show in the city. Yes, there had been other long-form shows, but I believe Dude was the first ‘classic’ style Harold. And it was great fun.

When students finished the course with David Shore they could come and play at Dude, and that gave us a large, rotating cast. It lasted for over a year until I moved on to another show.”

“A team of improvisers fully explore a suggestion through scenes and games creating disparate stories, themes and characters that eventually weave together seamlessly.”

Dude, What’s A Harold? Halloween show

Photos © Tom Vest

And how about that slogan, ladies?  Thanks Tom!