Comedic Pursuits Comedic Pursuits

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Kristina Martinez, 2019 FIST champion, is on WIT ensemble Uncle Gorgeous. She has toured the country with her duo with Neil Baron, Goodison. She was a former artistic director of Atlas Improv Company in Madison, Wisconsin. She is now a coach of many teams in DC. She’s an influencer, you could say, in the improv community.















Kristina sat down with Puss and Kooch to talk about running an improv theater in the Midwest, doing what she likes doing, and giving herself permission to have fun.







Kristina Martinez on Heavy Flo with Puss and Kooch







The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. To hear everything Kristina has to say, listen to her podcast episode.







Getting comfortable in your craft







When I started doing improv, I always wondered, “Oh jeez, what’s everybody going to think when I say, ‘I do improv,’ or, ‘I own an improv theater.'” But I forgot that nobody really thinks about that. And when I get on stage, for whatever reason, I then give myself permission to not think about what everybody thinks. 







I think I did that out of survival when I first started doing improv. I just had to turn that part of my brain off and not think about what other people are seeing while I’m improvising. But then the more I did improv, the more I realized no one cares at all what this looks like or if I do improv or what that means to them. And if they do, it doesn’t matter. 







Improv is just fun. It’s what I’m choosing to do all the time. But it took a long time for me to figure that out.







Was there something that made that idea click for you?







When I started at Atlas, it was a boys’ club. I love all those boys, but it was a boys’ club, and it was also very white. I tried really hard to play like everybody else. I tried really hard to play like this 6’2″, mega-strong, physical player. I thought if I made choices like him, I’d get all these laughs because he was killing it. And it just didn’t make sense. That’s not me, and that’s not my vibe. I can’t manufacture his vibe. 







Kristina Martinez flexing like a 6’2″ dude-proviser







Especially when theater leadership started stepping down and I was put in charge of the company, that’s when I realized I had to do me. Otherwise, I was going to get exhausted.  







We’ll be really sad for a second. I used to have such a hard time running the theater. We would do shows and then do notes, and then I’d get in my car and just drive around Lake Mendota and cry. I was trying so hard to be the perfect artistic director and the perfect improviser and the perfect scene partner.  But I was doing it all under what I thought was supposed to work without letting myself listen to me.

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DC improviser and actor Darnell Eaton talks with Puss and Kooch about who he wants to meet when he dies, playing like your heroes, and how to have better auditions.















Darnell Eaton on Heavy Flo with Puss and Kooch







The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. To hear everything Darnell has to say, listen to his podcast episode.







The indoor kid lifestyle







I’m very introverted but with extrovert tendencies. Mostly, I’m an introvert, though. I stayed in the house when I was a kid. I used to watch Nick at Night all the time. My mom would have to kick me outside, and I couldn’t wait until night came so I could watch Nick at Night.







What were your favorites shows? 







There were too many! Bewitched was my favorite. I had this aspiration that I was going to meet Elizabeth Montgomery, but she died in the 1990s. I think everyone who was on that show is dead now.







But moving on, I Dream of Jeannie was another favorite. Barbara Eden is still alive, so I may meet her one day. Larry Hagman, who played the husband, died in 2012, so he’s out. I can’t meet him unless I die. I felt like the people on these shows were my friends. 







I also loved The Patty Duke Show, Dobie Gillis, Dick Van Dyke. Dick Van Dyke is still living, so I could still meet him. I loved him. He was very physical and witty and charming and attractive. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was amazing.







I Love Lucy was the shit. I loved it so much. I loved that kind of wacky physicality. But my favorite show was The Martin Lawrence Show. That will always be my favorite show. I aspire to play the different types of characters Martin Lawrence can play. 







He’s using a lot of his own experiences, things that have happened in his life and his culture and bringing them to light. With his ability to snap into those specific characters, it’s so much fun to see them all live. I loved Sheneneh, when he played his mom, and a few of his other characters.







I often try to play Jerome on stage. Sometimes I fail, but sometimes it’s a success. It depends on who you’re playing with and if they actually get it or not. But he’s so much fun. If you don’t know who Jerome is, he’s this greasy old-school player. I see these people on my streets—I live in Southeast—and they just have so much character and flavor. I want to be more of that.







Playing characters in improv







If it’s a looser format, I usually just go out and do whatever my impulse tells me to do. If it’s a more restrictive format, I have to think about options that makes sense. It’s a good thing, but sometimes it can be a little constraining if there are people I want to eventually play.







In teaching students, I’ll tell them to think of their heroes on TV and try t...

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DC sketch writer and performer Elizabeth Kemp, of Bad Medicine, talks about owning self-defense weapons, what she wants sketch comedy to look like in the future, and her favorite Midwestern grocery chain.















Elizabeth Kemp on Heavy Flo with Puss and Kooch







The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. To hear everything Elizabeth has to say, listen to her podcast episode.







Getting started in comedy







I finished grad school in Iowa and then immediately took a job with Mayor Bloomberg’s office in New York. 







I’d never been to New York in my life. I just packed a suitcase and got on a plane. It was the financial crisis, and that was the only place that would hire me. When they were interviewing me on the phone, they were like, “You’re from Iowa? That’s weird. We’ve never had that before. Let’s just see how this goes.” So I ended up taking a job out there. 







Did you do comedy while you were in New York? 







I did not. I did comedy stuff in undergrad and then was so busy in grad school that I didn’t have time to do anything. I don’t think I went to a single comedy show when I was in New York because I was working all the time. It wasn’t until I’d been in DC for about a year that I started getting back into it. 







I went to a couple stand-up shows and remembered how much I liked comedy. I’d also started picking up work over time from contacts who needed help punching things up for speeches, fundraisers, campaign events, that kind of thing. I was kind of trading that work for beer money or however one gets by and forges a creative outlet in DC. Then I ended up taking a sketch class from Murphy McHugh.







Was taking this sketch class your first step into comedy in DC? 







Yeah, and it was there where I met a couple of the people who ultimately started Bad Medicine with me: Julian Morgan, and a woman named Maura. Then we found Isaiah Headen at one of the very early Sketch Jam events in a basement bar and recruited him. I basically badgered him on Facebook Messenger and tracked him down through mutual friends. 







Then we all gathered at a bar on U Street. We had a massive plate of tater tots, and that’s how Bad Medicine was born. 







Bad Medicine and sketch comedy in DC







I’m one of Bad Medicine’s head directors and a performer-writer. I also help with production stuff sometimes. 







How did you come up with the name?







We were pitching various names, and Bad Medicine was one I pitched. 







I don’t know if it’s the Midwestern roots, but I use comedy to deal with a lot of stuff and get through it. Comedy makes people feel better, and you’re never going to leave a situatio...

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DC improv royalty Eva Lewis sits down with podcast hosts Puss and Kooch to talk about starting improv in Chicago, what bad shows feel like, and what she’s still learning.















Eva Lewis on Heavy Flo with Puss and Kooch







The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. To hear everything Eva has to say, listen to her podcast episode.







Starting out in Chicago







I took my first class when I was studying for the bar in Chicago. All through law school, I would go out to Second City, iO, and some other theater places with some good friends. My friend Mike wanted to take an improv class before he left to practice law in New York, so I said if he signed up, I would sign up. He did, and we took the class, and it was fantastic.







So in 2009, I went through Second City, then did two levels at iO. As I was studying for the bar, once a week there was this nice highlight, taking level one at Second City. Then we’d go drinking with the class afterwards every week. It was a ton of fun. And I’ve stuck with it, and so has my friend Mike. But that’s how I got into improv. 







Then I moved back to the Washington, DC, area and started in level one at WIT. I went through that curriculum and started joining teams and Harold and special projects. 







Eva Lewis gets ready to start from level one so she can learn some new things







I don’t think most people would have come here from Chicago with the experience you had and started at level one. I think most people think they can jump in at higher levels.







I think most people do that. But I felt like I was still learning, and I knew I could learn something from level one. Even though I’d been through the Second City curriculum and had taken classes at iO, I loved the craft, and I wanted to learn more. I didn’t mind going into level one. Most people in my level one class didn’t have any improv experience. Some probably had theater experience. But you can always learn something.







Watching improv as an experienced improviser







I‘ve noticed some more experienced improvisers don’t particularly like going to shows. And I understand why they don’t like going, because they already know how the sausage is made. 







If you’re watching new-ish people or beginners, it can be difficult watching improv when it’s not done well. But I do like the little nuggets people throw out there. I love surprises, so anytime someone does something I don’t see coming, that’s comedy gold for me.

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Improviser Katie Ozog sits down with podcast hosts Puss and Kooch to talk about what it feels like to be a veteran member of the DC improv community, constant failure, and the possibility of getting Botox.















Katie Ozog on Heavy Flo with Puss and Kooch







The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. To hear everything Katie has to say, listen to her podcast episode.







A middle child and her need for attention







Now that I’ve excavated my childhood through the beauty of being able to change VHS tapes to DVDs and streaming, I’ve realized I craved attention at all times. I was a middle child, and I was desperate for attention. So looking back, that might have been my first entrance into the world of performance, just being a human child in the middle of a bigger family. 







We have a weird layout in my family. My brother and I are very close in age: we’re 16 months apart. And then my parents took a four-year break, then had my brother. Then four years after that, they had my sister. So it’s almost two separate families with the same biological parents because there’s a younger generation and an older generation. 







How do you think that impacted you? 







I think when my younger brother was born, I was like, “What the eff is this?” I had been an only younger baby for four years, and I was not cool with it. Then when my sister was born, I became one of two middle children. And I’ll tell ya, it shows. Both of us are really always fighting to be heard. And we’re heard! My family’s like, “Shut up! We get it! You’re here!” to both of us. 







Katie’s reaction when she’s not getting attention (Photo credit: Jeff Salmore)







If you’re ever on my Instagram, there’s a video of me as a baby clown. It’s bananas that I was not immediately put into commercials. I had so much energy. My parents should have thrown me into something, but they never put me into any sort of acting classes. 







I actually didn’t start doing any sort of acting until high school, and I was not a theater kid. People often think I scream theater kid, but I was a cross country and track kid. That, to me, was a very formative comedy experience because it was a group of young women who were all so hilarious and were just ourselves around each other. It was wonderful. It was such a gift to have in high school, to be able to be goofy. We would go on long runs by ourselves and just be absolutely bananas with each other. 

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Improviser Jess Lee sits down with podcast hosts Puss and Kooch to talk about her thoughts on improv as it relates to theater, the expectations placed on women by society, and general budgeting tips for living in an expensive city.















Jess Lee on Heavy Flo with Puss and Kooch







The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. To hear everything Jess has to say, listen to her podcast episode.







The value of Jess Lee’s past selves







I lived in a suburban, idyllic place in Washington state. I grew up there for almost all of my life, except for this two-year period when we moved to a tiny village in the Cascade Mountains called Holden Village. It’s an ecumenical Lutheran retreat center. It used to be a mining village, and it was bought by the Lutheran church. It’s run by volunteers, and it’s inaccessible by road. So you take a boat 40 miles up and then a bus into the village. A hippie Lutheran community runs the village for people who come there for it to be a retreat center.







How old were you when you moved to Holden Village?







I moved there when I was 11 and lived there until I was 13. My family was part of the group of volunteers. There are a couple paid positions at the village, which were the directors and a pastor. They run things, but there are all these other supporting roles that need to be filled. So my dad, who is a family lawyer by trade, was the fire chief and head bus driver. And my mother, who was then a labor and delivery nurse and is now a NICU nurse, was the post eye and head librarian. Then there were folks who worked in housing because when folks came, they had to stay somewhere, and it had to be cleaned.







We had folks who worked in the kitchen because we all ate together. We ran on hydroelectricity, so there wasn’t enough power for everyone’s ovens to work. And there was a tiny school up there that was deemed remote but necessary. It was a three-room schoolhouse. There was the high school (seventh through twelfth grade) and the elementary school (kindergarten through sixth). There were two accredited Washington teachers who lived up there and taught the children. And I was one of those children, along with my siblings and a couple of other kids.







What are your impressions of doing that? How do you feel about it? 







We moved there because my dad was spending so much time away from the family. We’d gone there on a retreat before, for a week in the summer. And my family needed to take a sabbatical of some sort. But I ran upstairs screaming when my parents told me we were moving because I was going into seventh grade,