Sketch troupe Thank You, Kiss is doing two live shows at the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival — Friday, September 18th and Saturday, September 26th at 7pm at the Focus Theater (Sibley Building) — grab tickets for $18 at rochesterfringe.com and come laugh with them.

Check out the episode on Just Can't Not wherever you get your podcasts or on Lunchador.org!

https://player.captivate.fm/episode/2cd87f09-d8bf-4229-a2b5-2237fe759866/

What you’ll see is sketch comedy — everything is written, rehearsed, memorized and blocked — but a lot of those sketches were born out of improv jams, so the spirit of “in the moment” is still there even when the lines are not. For folks who aren’t deep into the lingo, improv can mean short-form games or long-form formats like the Die Hard Herald style John loves (think recurring scenes and theatrical storytelling), whereas sketch is more like a mini-play — planted, pruned and polished. We chat about how the group formed back in 2013, how we write together (bring your five-page “same joke” drafts and we’ll lovingly murder half of it), and why trust and tiny moments — timing, eye contact, that perfect grunt — make the whole thing sing. The Focus is a real hub for local comedy and classes — there's even a free “improv plate” the first Saturday of every month where anyone can jump on stage — so after Fringe, consider taking a class; improv teaches listening, confidence, spontaneity and how to be less freaked out in real life. Come support local art, enjoy some weird meme-y sketches (our show’s title never quite matches the content — it’s our running gag), and bring your friends — parking’s easy nearby and the elevator noises are part of the ambience. Seriously, go to rochesterfringe.com, buy too many tickets, and they’ll see you at the Focus — they'll promise to be funny, heartfelt, and mildly selfish with their favorite inside jokes.

Mentioned in this episode:

Joe Bean Roasters

Visit joebeanroasters.com to get fresh roasted specialty coffee either by the bag or with a Perpetual Joy subscription!

Well, that music means it's time for another episode of Just Can't Not.

This is part of our Preview for the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival, happening from September 15th to the 26th in scenic downtown Rochester, New York.

Go to rochesterfringe.com to get your tickets for as many events as you can possibly go to.

And you do want to do that.

And I'm here with some guests.

Guests, why don't you introduce yourselves?

Hi, I'm Megan Mack.

I'm a member of thank you, Kiss, a sketch comedy group in Rochester.

My name is John Thompson.

I am also a member of thank you, Kiss.

Yeah.

And thank you, kiss is doing two shows on both Friday, September 18th at 7pm and Saturday, September 26th at 7pm at the Focus Theater.

Tickets are $18 at rochesterfringe.com so this is, you know, this is a improv troupe that's been going on for a while, and you've been doing fringe shows for a hot minute now, right?

It's been a while, yeah.

You should think about how long it's been.

We took some years off for various things like children being born and Covid.

We took off, but we've been at it for quite a while.

Wow.

Yeah.

I didn't even know that was that long ago.

So, John, it's part of our intro.

I suppose you say it enough, you don't think about it anymore.

Yeah, it's true.

All the lines are a blur right now.

That's true.

Yeah.

It's like when I do the intro at this point, I'm not really thinking about the words.

I've done it so many times now.

It's just like rolling off your tongue.

You don't even think about it.

I had moved here.

I'd been here about five years and had moved out here.

I'd gotten married and my spouse at the time got a job out here and was actually from the area, so we relocated here.

The story of every Rochesterian that has from somewhere else.

Yeah.

And I grew up in Chicago and moved out here.

I had a corporate gig, but I found improv through Improv Olympic in Second City.

It's now I.O.

Chicago, and found myself smack in the middle of that in its absolute heyday.

And it never occurred to me like that you could make a living, like, writing comedy or anything.

And then all these people started becoming famous and doing it.

So it was.

It was very bizarre.

Yeah.

When.

When was that for you?

When you were diving into it?

The first, you know, in Chicago.

Yeah, 99.

So.

Oh, yeah, I. I mean, I worked for AT&T, a big company, and I. I did a professional development, like, begrudgingly got, you know, dragged to this theater, and then it was with this woman named Sharna Halpern, who owns IO Theater, or did at the time.

And, yeah, again, I just fell in love with it.

I've been doing it ever since.

Well, I mean, you're also coming, like, it's so ingrained in Chicago as one of the hubs of improv comedy, if not the hub.

Between that and obviously Toronto and areas like that, there's so much depth in history I have to imagine, even stepping in, it's hard not to have feelings about it because it's kind of pervasive in the area.

Oh, yeah, it.

Yeah, it's the culture there, and it.

I mean, it even spreads into the music scene, you know, Wilco, and there's a lot of other, you know, bleeds into many different art forms.

But, yeah, I mean, it's.

It's his.

It's historic in the fact that improv was invented there.

Viola Spolin, back in the 30s and 40s, and then came through the University of Chicago and up.

So if you trace most American comedy back, I would.

A good percentage of it goes back to that Chicago strain.

Yeah.

So prior to being part of the group, what was your.

What was your knowledge about improv?

Meghan?

Oh, gosh, I think we.

All four of us, and we're representing Mark and Beth as well, who are members of our group.

I think we all just grew up loving comedy and being exposed to it in different ways.

For me, I loved Gilda Radner.

I grew up loving Gilda Radner and wanting to be her and doing little sketches in elementary school that I got in trouble for things like that.

But I was in the conservatory program at Second City in Toronto, and I met John.

I was commuting back and forth, so I met John at some kind of theater event you were coaching Left four Dead at the time, which was an improv group of improvisers, ages 55 plus.

That was around for a while in Rochester.

They've all ventured off and done other things since, but John was nice enough to invite me to come hang out with them and learn and be part of things.

So we knew each other from there.

And then Mark and Beth had their own group called the Manchi Chronicles, and they had met John through a different group.

This community is very incestuous in the best way.

I went to their show when I first moved here.

Oh, yeah.

They were with Unleashed.

Oh, right.

Yep.

And I weaseled my way into the team with Mark and Beth.

So we all said yes and to each other, basically.

That improv term.

Yeah.

But I think that's also part of that thing is, like, it's finding it's not just people who you are compatible with, but that you.

You amplify each other in the best possible way, and sometimes in these beautiful, antagonistic ways as well.

Because that's.

That's the chemistry of what.

Of what a group needs to be to have longevity.

Because otherwise it's a lot.

Right.

It's that performing.

It's a lot of work, and it's a lot of practice, and it's a lot of these other things.

So you're all meeting and coming up and finding your crossing paths.

What was the impetus to starting a group together?

Like, specifically starting a group?

We were at a comedy festival at a theater that John owned.

Well, he still owns.

Co.

Owns the theater, but we were at the prior iteration of the version of the theater we have now.

And we were in a workshop with Jimmy Corain, who's an improviser out of Chicago.

He was doing a teaching session, and we all kind of finagled our way to do a scene together, and we improvised a scene about a group of people who were on a road trip, and things go terribly wrong.

And.

And after we did it, we thought, oh, that was a lot of fun, and maybe we should write that.

That's probably a good sketch.

And that became the first sketch we ever wrote together.

And we decided, hey, maybe we should.

Maybe we should figure out how to be a group.

Yeah.

And then we started writing and doing shows, and then we took some time off.

Mark and Beth went to Chicago.

Beth, when the Second City tour company was here, they auditioned some locals, and Beth was chosen.

And then she went and did a cruise with Second City.

She's a big shot.

She's the most famous of the team.

Oh, isn't that a thing?

And the most.

And the most talented, really.

Well, I think that's also a great thing, too.

Like, it's also great when you can speak so highly of your, you know, of your partners in performance.

Right.

It's.

I think it's one of the best things you can ever do both in, you know, having Complementary performers or people that you work with in your passion projects.

You know, it's, it's the thing that keeps things running because all of it is work and it can be a blast on stage, but the stage is the, the stage is the easy part in the end, after you've built the skills.

It's the, it's the rest of it that is the work and the prep.

So what I kind of want to talk about is.

So improv is many different formats, right?

It could be pure sketch, it could be, you know, that is, everything's written and very little is in the moment.

It can be purely, it can be, hey, shout out the words and do that.

You know, it's the stereotype of many of these performances.

Where, where on the improv spectrum do we live as.

Thank youkiss.

Yeah, I'm a I.O.

Chicago improv Olympic.

Die Hard Herald is the name of the format and really it's a precursor to, I mean, Seinfeld follows the same pattern, really, and it's just a specific outline to follow of scenes and recurring scenes in games and what you call long form improv.

So it's the more of the theatrical side.

And I think a lot when I was at IO, they always said we were the red headed stepchild of the theater world.

But Del Close, who was a man who really kind of developed the modern form, you know, he wanted, he always said, treat your audience like poets.

And, you know, and if, and if we try to do something great and say something and do something smart and really aim high for high art, then we might end up with a nice little comedy show.

Yeah.

And I love that mentality.

Right.

Like, it's hard to make something great on accident.

You can make something good on accident.

It's hard to make something great or transcendent on accident.

Right.

And that preparation, that intent, you know, opens up that opportunity for greatness.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think we always say when we teach improv, the funny comes.

Don't try to be funny.

And it does in these beautiful moments that you don't expect.

And that's the high that we keep going on as a group.

And I know a lot of other improvisers think that way.

What we do with thank you, Kiss is sketch comedy, though.

So everything that people will see in the show on the 18th and the 26th is written and rehearsed and memorized and, and blocked and all the work that goes into that.

But a lot of the sketches that we've written come from improvised backgrounds or us just kind of sitting around talking and, and playing with ideas.

So the root is still there.

I think it's an important context too, because process, it's something I've.

This year I've kind of been fascinated with process.

Because those are the choices that.

Those are the choices that make a show.

What it is, is process.

And that that genesis of the show is through creative work together.

It's not just sitting in a room and writing.

You're writing this beautiful treatise and doing these things and writing every moment.

You're writing a singular script or a one person show and then you perform it, having never done it before or whatever.

This is through performance.

When you're creating something together with a group mindset, how does that process go?

Like, do you perform it and then write it?

Do you record and watch?

Or do you just discuss it after and then say, oh, we want to tweak this.

How does that whole process work?

Oh, I never want to watch our stuff.

It's painful sometimes.

No, but, you know, I think most of them will come to the table with some sketches or some ideas or some suggestions for them.

Others.

And then once it's out there, I think for a lot, most of our sketches, we kind of tear them apart, deconstruct them and everybody has some input.

And that, I mean, when I'm writing, that's actually what gives me relief, is because I know I can put in front of them and it's just going to be that much better.

So I kind of take more risks and I know that they're going to pull me back or push me or just make it funny when it's not funny, or tell me like, don't ever do that again.

But then sometimes you get in your own head too, because you've been working on something for too long by yourself.

There's one sketch in our show that I wrote that was maybe five, six pages long, too long.

Same joke over and over and over.

I brought it into rehearsal and John was like, well, you're repeating this same thing like three times that I don't want to reveal too much, but there was one character who, you know, we had to get off that storyline really quickly.

So with John's suggestion, I took half of it right out.

It's so much stronger now.

Yeah.

And so part of what we do too is just being open to criticism in a very constructive, positive, like, loving way.

It's not nasty.

And I think the other thing for me, having worked with each other for so long now, writing stuff for them and writing characters that I know they can.

They can do that.

I can't.

And then also receiving that.

I mean, Mark wrote this beautiful sketch called Nervous dad.

And it's the biggest gift of my life to be able to perform it because it's so much fun and you get so many laughs and it's all him.

And I'm always like, why don't you want to do this?

You should do this.

So.

But if he's going to let me keep doing it, I mean, it's awesome.

I love that skill.

But it's also knowing somebody else really well because that it might just be a tone, right?

Because they know you can play overly serious, right.

Like your tone of voice can be very, you know, very.

Could be very serious.

And that could heighten a certain comedic moment that somebody else might not be able to do.

Right.

The glasses do something right.

Everything is part of that whole experience.

But that, what a, what an amazing gift to be able to know somebody, to then be able to write for somebody else.

Because if you're just writing for yourself, you get a little bit self, you know, self serious or too much.

But when you're, when you know somebody, you're giving them that gift and then that's, that's collaboration too.

Is that feedback?

And then, hey, I see I'm seeing you as a person too.

Yeah, that's so true.

We're very good friends too.

At the end of the day, if we weren't doing comedy, we would still hang out and be friends.

But it is knowing each other so well and just wanting the rest of the group to shine that I think we have fun.

We have fun writing for each other now.

We have a lot of several sketches throughout the years that we know the audience isn't gonna like, but we love them so we put em in.

We have a lot of stuff just for us.

It's very selfish.

I'm a huge fan of that in.

And John's really good about putting Easter eggs in different sketches, which you always say, like if one person gets this reference, then that.

I love that.

I love that my favorite laugh is back of the room.

Just one.

Yeah, that one.

And I'm like, yes, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, I'll take that any day.

Well, I think that ties back to what you mentioned earlier, right?

It's like, yes, you're writing for a general audience in many ways.

But it's something that I like when we're developing new shows or I'm talking to a host that's working on improving or doing other things or has an idea is you can't be.

You can be super specific, but then you also have to think about being general.

Because if you need to do a show all the time, it has to be specific but general or general but specific.

If it's purely general, you have to be so amazing at being purely general to execute on that.

If you bring some specificity into it, then you can easily bounce around and do different things.

And I love the idea of that this is just for us, but when that person gets it, that's a person who's going to talk about that moment.

And it's not about the publicity thing.

It's that that moment is the thing they're going to talk about.

It might not be anything else you did, but they're going to say, oh, they saw me, and they're not gonna say that.

They say, oh, that was such a funny moment.

I got it.

What a great thing to feel.

Yeah, it's fun.

The other thing I love about our group is we're mostly family friendly.

I mean, we're committed to being clean and smarter, and we want people to leave our show thinking.

I think, yeah, I think that's fair.

So that's something I wanted to talk about is there is a theme.

Right.

So this is all written and, you know, I see that the theme this year is please excuse meme, but, you know, there's a choice for what.

How are you going to name this?

Are you going to have an overarching theme for a show or is it just going to kind of bounce around this thing?

When you were deciding on, I don't know, the theme or the through line, how did that go this year?

Well, we're looking at each other, like, who's going to take this one?

Yeah.

So that is something we decided before we wrote the show, and it didn't really play out the way we expected.

We do.

I will be honest, I completely forgot about the idea.

I know.

Well, we got so far down the rabbit hole of writing sketches.

We were excited about that.

We were like, oh, shoot, the meme thing.

There are references to memes in the show, and Beth in particular has done a really great job making sure that they shine in a very specific way, which you will see if you come.

But.

But this year is not as strong as previous years.

I would go so far as to say that that's one of our inside jokes, that our show never really matches the title, but our audience is kind of like, oh, I wonder.

They must have missed it.

You know what?

It's for you.

It's for you.

To discover you tell us what you learned.

Cause you could have just not had a theme to start with and just picked where it ended up with all the sketches and found your own own through line.

But I kind of like that it has an anti through line.

Yeah, yeah, kinda.

That's it.

Yeah, that's it, Chris.

Exactly.

See, you get it.

Yeah.

This is counter.

Counterculture.

It's kitsch.

Yeah.

So like this is the fringe show.

How does the rest of.

How does the rest of the year look like for performing and practicing and doing stuff around improv?

How does the rest of the year look like as.

As a group?

I'd say John is the most active.

You do the most improv, I think on a regular basis.

Right now we're only doing about one show a year.

As.

Thank you, Kiss.

We'd like to do more.

It's just a lot of work to put sketch together and we're all pretty busy, but one to two shows a year.

But John, if you want to talk about the Focus and all the work you're doing, please do opportunities.

I'm a small part of the the Focus Theater, which we are dedicated to sketch, improv and stand up comedy and other art forms.

Our whole purpose is to curate and showcase local art in the comedy vein.

And so we've been around for, gosh, 10, 11 years now.

And we are in the Sibley building on the third floor.

We are, I would say we have that.

I can empathize because we are hard to find.

Yes.

Sometimes the elevators don't work or the doors are locked.

So they make great noises too, those elevators.

Tremendous noises.

But it's really.

We're actually transitioning into a nonprofit.

I think the whole purpose was to turn it over to the community.

And again, I am a very small part of it and have stepped back probably in the last year.

But Austin Scott, Keith Gomez, Roger Sutton and BJ Scanlon.

Yeah, Colleen.

There's just.

There's so many people that run the theater and that, again, talk about collaboration.

That's what makes that place so great.

Yeah.

And when we're talking about fringe shows, I mean there's just this beautiful, you know, shows that run the gamut of comedy in different ways.

I'm going to list them off.

So I mean, one, go to rochesterfringe.com, go to find a show, click on Focus Theater in there, you'll see all the shows.

So you've got Battle Royal Improv, you've got Comedy as a Drag, Comedy, Sports, Buffalo Conspiracy Council, Dads for Democracy, Eno and Dan French.

Duh.

Game show.

Game show.

Game show.

Gilton Mirrors Improv troupe.

Have I told you about Penny Sterling Show?

I had her over a few days ago, which was awesome.

Jackboxing, Mouth Harpos, Movie night.

Nerds in a Basement, the Roustabouts, Night of a Thousand Johns, and then Stagecoach.

Stand up for drag.

Thank you, Kiss.

And I had the three gentlemen from.

Sorry for the wait over.

They're so funny, man.

That was.

We had a blast.

And I gotta say, it was like, I got to be the counterpoint because they were on for, you know, they probably did what, five or ten minutes with connections that day.

It was a short segment, but we were cracking off.

Oh, God, they are hilarious.

So funny.

And I got to do like 45 with them.

Oh, that's cool.

45 Minutes to an hour.

And man, we just like, what a great hang.

But guys, I've never met before and are trying so hard and I love to see that.

Right?

That's.

I think it's one of the delights about doing Fringe, doing the previews and then, you know, being involved in a theater like that, you get to see so many people just trying to do something that's something that they care about, something that's cool, something for the audience.

Like, what an amazing opportunity, too.

Oh, absolutely.

I'm.

Yeah.

Penny Show.

One of our.

The most popular classes at the Focus was our drag class.

Yeah.

And what a great experience watching those students and, you know, but any class, stand up, improv, just watching people come into their own, I would say.

I mean, I would shout out all the shows, but Nerds in a Basement is improvised Dungeons and Dragons.

And it's a.

Have to.

You have to see that.

It's such a great show, but the whole lineup is.

Is fantastic.

Yeah, I know they're pretty regular there.

I had that gentleman over last year and he was just, what a delight to talk to.

Just, just a character.

And I think that's what you need in that circumstance.

You need somebody who's going to bring that big, you know, that big energy.

And I think the genuineness, I think that's what you can say, like looking at the people who are performing, there is.

There's a genuine nature to how they're performing.

This isn't a put on.

This is, you know, might be a heightened version, might be big, might be comedic, might be this.

But there's a lot of people who are just being genuine and really wanting to do this thing.

And what a great thing.

And the amazing part about it, especially with Improv is.

The audience is part of it.

Yeah.

Especially with most shows, they start with a suggestion.

Right.

So they inspire it, and they're along for the ride.

Right.

So they.

They know what the actors are up against.

But it's that authenticity of knowing that I'm not being fooled and that we're in this and creating this world.

It is an amazing art form.

Yeah.

So speaking of, you know, creating an art form, I know something that you've done a lot is you've also done improv education, Megan.

So how does that.

How does that process go?

Like, is that still something that's part of your.

Part of your repertoire?

And how do you enjoy doing that?

It is, yeah.

And John teaches a lot, too.

It's so fun to be in.

My favorite types of classes are with people who have never tried improv before, and most of them were like me.

When I started, I did not want to do it.

I had to take an improv class in order to take a writing class at Second City.

So I begrudgingly signed up.

I was terrified.

But in the first five minutes, I just fell in love with it because everyone is equal.

Everyone's doing the same thing together.

And that's what I love.

When people come together, they're nervous.

They don't want to be there.

In some cases, they.

And then they just see it's a conversation.

Everyone's being silly together, and it's fun.

It's so fun.

So I'm doing a lot of corporate gigs here and there.

John does the same.

They offer those at the theater.

And I really just love helping people find their voice.

And it's not about the comedy.

It's how to find.

How to be more conversational, more spontaneous, think on your feet, understand social, emotional intelligence, things like that that are.

That translate off the stage into your work life or school or whatever it may be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's something I've actually been talking about a lot recently with people, is there's a lot of these skills when you're interacting with an audience and kind of all dives back to confidence, and not in the.

Not in the context where, like, for me, is, like, somebody was not a very good social person as a kid.

Like, it felt like this vague thing that you're yearning for is confidence.

Right.

You see others that have that veneer of confidence at that age, and it seems like, oh, man, that was so natural.

Like, this is all there, and it was all.

It's all fake, right?

The.

It's this.

It's this thing where it's how much.

How much you can you be while still functioning in, you know, general society and everything else is.

How do you.

How do you let go of all those other things, all the insecurities, and then love showing that, hey, I can be this.

And I'm okay if you don't like this in the moment.

I'm okay if this isn't for you.

I just want to do it because I love this.

That has to be.

It has to be a challenging thing to try to teach, because in the end, like, being a successful person in any situation like that is confidence and, like, letting go of some of those other things.

Letting go, absolutely.

Yeah.

Trust your instincts is, you know, you got to do that, and that's hard.

That's really difficult.

But I often say, if you're a good conversationalist, you're a good improviser.

My partner thinks he's a terrible improviser, and that's not true.

You're a great conversationalist.

You just got to get out of your head.

Yeah.

That's the barrier for a lot of people, I think.

Yeah.

I tell a lot of my students, and I forget which teacher I stole it from.

Probably Liz Allen.

But I don't know.

When you improvise, especially when you don't have a huge character range like myself.

You have a character range, but all my improv, it's just a thin veil of a character over myself and either pick what I really love, or I might flip it and try to play it the opposite.

So a lot of it is authentically, at least, how am I reacting to this?

And.

And you can.

The safety is that thin little veil, and then the extra safety are the people around you that are going to support it no matter what you do.

That's the beauty, the improv.

So.

But to your point, when you don't have that.

Yeah, right.

When you navigate yourself towards the, you know, in the world.

For me, though, I think, you know, improv has made me a better person, you know, and definitely a better listener, more patient and just enjoying the moment, I think.

And I try to remember that when I'm not in my improv life.

Yeah.

And I like that you mentioned that, too, because it is that being present is, you know, the way I've been describing a lot of these things is the finesse.

Right.

You might be able to do the big moment.

You might be able to write the thing and do the big character and do this, but it's those finesse moments that people don't notice that are the Things that tie everything together.

Right.

It's the, how did you move between, how did you use your own experiences?

But I think that's also like living a life makes you a better, makes you a better conversationalist, makes you a better improviser, makes you a better, a more engaging conversationalist as well as by living a life.

And not.

It's not just writing in a room by yourself.

It's if you don't live and you don't experience things, you don't fail, you don't succeed, you don't feel hurt, you're not going to be able to mine those things dynamically because they're not real.

They're not like you're always mining something from your personality or from your experiences.

One of my biggest notes for students is, you know, they get stuck in the scene, they don't know what to do, and they always tell them, get out of your head.

And it's hard to explain that to people.

But really what I tell them is make eye contact with your scene partner and if you're stuck, reveal something about yourself or tell them something that you like.

And no matter what the scene is about at that time, you can always stop and have a non sequitur to, you know, gosh, you're amazing.

But it does, it personalizes it and it takes it in a direction that grounds it and really.

Empathy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's, I imagine, during the education context, like, describing that is simple, but it's also one of the more complex things to do just in life is like being a, you know, awful ass adult is knowing yourself, knowing your strengths, knowing your weaknesses, knowing how you interact with others.

That's a hard thing to.

It's an impossible thing to teach.

You can say the words, but teaching, it's really hard.

It is.

It is really challenging.

I remember we often work with college students and some students come in the room thinking, I was the class clown, I'm going to be great at this.

And then others are like, I'm taking this because I need the credit.

And I. I'm terrified.

But it's all about who you are and what you can bring so you don't have to be that big character like you just said.

Or it's about, how are you feeling in that moment and how can you bring something, even if it's a grunt.

Sometimes there are games where you're like, you have to contribute something.

And even if it's a grunt that tells you something about it.

But that's also what I love about your Writing.

Because when you bring a sketch, it's like, oh, you know, what's going on?

Or what you've observed and found interesting.

So it kind of tracks with your life events, and it's always a pretty interesting and smart take.

So you're very, very unselfish in terms of putting yourself out there.

And some of it, I love how it's ridiculous because sometimes I read it and I'm like, oh, my gosh, did that happen to you in an airport?

Or, you know, but.

So you don't know what's made up and what's real.

But I do appreciate how authentic that is.

Oh, thank you.

And I think that's why the audience.

Because people.

It's a shared experience.

So.

Yeah, because being too general doesn't work.

But that's like what I mentioned before, like that specificity, Right.

You have to have felt something and then heighten or lower and write you or that perfectly timed utterance.

Right.

I mean, there's, like, there's a reason why, you know, for people of a certain age that I think we all fall within.

Like, you know, when you watch, like, amazing writing, like you watch old school Simpsons episodes, right?

Where the writing is so perfect, right there, it's an insanely perfectly crafted.

And these are highly educated, amazing comedy writers.

And then the funniest moment is the dumbest thing that they could possibly put on screen.

But it was so perfectly dumb.

And the timing was perfect.

It doesn't have to be the fanciest thing.

It needs to understand context and understand timing, which is also the other thing is timing.

Right.

You're reading the person next to you.

You don't want to be the person that jumps in.

You want to.

The person that, you know, stomps over somebody else, but you don't want to miss the moment either.

How does that.

Like, you're building that relationship over time.

How long did it take, like, as a group to feel like you had that?

That's a really good question.

I'm looking at John because I don't know how to answer it.

I think it developed so organically over time that I don't know if I can pinpoint anything in particular.

But there's so much trust in our group.

We're like some other groups who say, got your back?

And we pat each other on the back before we go on stage every single time.

And it's true.

Like John said before, we know that if something is to happen that's unexpected, the rest of us will be there to support.

And that comes with a Lot of spending time together and trusting each other implicitly.

And we've always operated with kind of the REM model of, you know, everybody has a vote, but if one person is against it, we just don't do it.

Yeah.

It's just not that big of a deal.

And we.

We've never had a, you know, any kind of grudge about leaving something off or.

No, it's just.

It's easy.

Mm.

Well, I think that's also right.

That's a real relationship, is.

It's a negotiation.

Right.

If you feel really strongly about it, maybe you can help.

Maybe you can get somebody in the right mindset for it, but it needs to be honest.

And if somebody's like, I just can't do it, you're like, okay, I have to give this up.

And that's trust, too.

Right.

It's part of that whole thing.

What I kind of want to pivot into is, like, as somebody who is a.

You know, I was a huge standup fan, and then for me, when I was.

When I dove into sketch stuff, a lot of it was on the.

You know, on the indie scene of these.

Of these sketch performers who have become famous people, but they were also singular improv performers.

I think of, you know, like, one of the best movie podcasts, you know, is with Paul Scheer and Jason Manzoukas, you know, two of the absolute best improvisers of the last 20 years.

And I've seen them perform, doing those things, and it's astonishing.

The speed and their ability to sow chaos into a scene and their knowledge of how each other works is amazing.

But I think of also these performances that could only have been done by this person.

And I think of one of the more famous, you know, you know, creative performers is Kristen Shaw.

Oh, yeah, she's great.

And when you mentioned, like, when you were writing Megan, you wrote the thing that had these three things, the three callbacks.

That one is funny, two is funny, three is unfunny, four is unfunny, five is unfunny, six is unfunny.

But seven.

Seven might be the funniest thing you've ever heard, which, for me, evokes one of the more odd performances, which is Kristen show as a Horse.

I don't know if you've ever seen this.

It is one of the truly great performances.

It's her and Kurt Brownhauer who are just amazing, you know, improv people.

But it's just repetitive.

It's many, many instances of the same thing over and over.

Again.

And it gets funny and unfunny probably four times during the run of this bit.

And it's one I'll never forget watching for the first time.

Like, I can't believe that they did this and decided to record it.

And this is the thing that they're known for.

Do you have, like, one of those, like, Guiding Light performances from your memory in comedy or improv or sketch or otherwise that, you know, drives the way you think about comedy?

What a good question.

I think I need a minute.

Do you have one that you can think of?

I mean, I want to say, like, Python and Kids in the Hall.

Yeah, those were huge for me, but honestly, I.

When I was in Chicago, I was.

In addition to performing and learning there, I was a house manager.

So I was a house manager on Wednesdays for, I don't know, three years.

So I get.

There's a group called TJ and Dave.

Oh, yeah.

And I got to see them for three years.

And these.

And Sundays, these group called Zump and.

With Dan Bacadol and Miles Stroth and these.

I mean, just the masters of this craft.

And those are some of the best shows that I've ever seen.

And, yeah, it's also that Wednesday night when they might.

They might be just trying something, and it might not be something they're ever known for, but you got to see them push the limits of what they can do.

Yeah, I was fortunate.

We'd shut down the place on Sunday and all the performers, a lot of performers from Second City that were on the main stage would come over to I.O.

And we were supposed to close at 2.

So we'd lock the door and people would just drink and play till, you know, daylight.

It was pretty amazing.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it was, you know, people.

It was a hard life.

There's not a.

Not a whole lot of really rich, successful improvisers.

Yeah.

But you got to have that rich experience.

Oh, yeah.

And, like, what a luxury.

And it's something when you have that.

Those moments of luxury in your life.

Like, for me, it's, hey, I have people come over to record shows and I get to hear these unbelievable conversations and help facilitate them.

And it's easy to forget that you have this amazing.

This luxury to see those things.

And for me, get to hear these conversations and facilitate them, be involved.

It's just one of the joys of life is I get to be there in the room.

Oh, yeah.

It was like being a ball boy on, like, Murderer's Row for the Yankees.

Yeah.

I mean, it really was like, just being in the room was amazing.

Yeah.

I can think of a moment that kind of changed things.

I love that for me, when I was.

I was starting off just doing the regular levels at Second City in Toronto, and we would go watch mainstage shows just to learn.

And there was a moment where one of the improvisers, he took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

Object work, so miming didn't actually have it.

And he did it so beautifully and realistically that I could see it in his hand, like an actual pack of cigarettes.

Taking one out of the pack, putting it back in his pocket, lighting it, everything.

And I was like, that's.

I believe everything you're doing now, because that looked so realistic.

How do I do that?

So I don't know.

I don't know why that stuck with me all these years later.

But that one moment, I will say, now that you're speaking for that before, I kind of discovered improv and I was just a tourist and going to Second City, I saw a sketch, Rick Rich Telorico, who's a Utica native, and he's written for everybody.

Yeah.

So such a talented writer.

MADtv.

And just.

And the early years of that are just unbelievable.

But he's amazing.

And he comes through town a lot and does workshops, and he's amazing.

But I was in the audience with my parents, and it was shortly after Christopher Reeves had passed, Rich came out and they were doing a Superman sketch.

And he was Clark Kent.

Yeah.

And it was Clark Kent using a wheelchair.

And everyone's kinda like, oh.

And then it switched to, like, the bad guy.

And then he came out as Superman using a wheelchair.

And when he came out, there was just the whole audience.

I mean, I had 200 people, everyone, at the exact same time, just.

They gasped.

And then it was just a roar of laughter.

And people were crying.

Yeah.

And it was kind of like, is this okay?

Right.

And then that shared experience.

But what a beautiful.

Yeah.

Sometimes that.

When the risk pays off.

Right.

Because that's a risky choice.

And you can be the person who just does the edgy thing and then it's just rote.

But when it's a risk and it pays off because somebody didn't expect it.

Ooh, man, that.

That is a special kind of laughter.

Because it's.

It's catharsis, it's dark, it's.

Oh, yeah.

And.

But when it hits.

Ooh.

That's a special kind of laughter.

Yeah.

But he's He's a genius.

I think he already.

I think he also did the AA run.

I think he wrote that.

Oh.

Oh, what a key appeal.

I think what an amazingly written sketch.

Yeah.

I mean, he's a genius.

I mean, that's resonated, too.

I mean, just that sketch, like, think of how much that has resonated in culture.

Right.

I know.

Even to now, like, that's over a decade, and it still feels like you can't go a week without hearing a random person say, hey, Ron.

Or the college football sketch or one of those other things.

Yeah.

I love that.

You kind of want to go back to that, you know?

You know, that object work.

Right.

It's something that has come up.

Came up a lot during Pittsburgh Fringe when I did some previews for them, was clown work.

Because that's really what that is.

Right.

And, like, it's something I haven't dove into, but I've started to get exposed to is just the diversity of that as a performance art and how much it dovetails with all of these versions of performance.

Right.

Because improv and then there can be acrobatics.

Well, that's clowning.

Right.

And satire.

That's also part of clowning.

And, you know, could be serious, could be.

You know, pathos can be all these other things.

And I love.

I love seeing these relationships between these art forms that people think are passe now.

Or it's one thing, Right.

It's a birthday clown.

Or for me, like, when I look at all these different art forms and people are playing bad guys and doing this, like, man, you're just doing wrestling in the end.

Right?

It's all.

It's all these beautiful, you know, archetypes and all these other things we can play against and these shared understandings of how things work to make this experience something special for people.

Yeah.

So let's get some plugs out for the show.

So, again, the shows are on Friday, the 18th and September 26th, 7pm both times at the Focus Theater in the Sibley Building.

You can park in the garage and then walk over.

It's a very easy walk.

That's probably the easiest way to get over to the theater.

Yes.

Is there anything else I missed that you want to tell people about that I didn't mention about our show or.

Yeah, whatever.

I don't care.

Yeah, no, just go see a lot of shows, support local art during Fringe.

After Fringe, take an improv class.

It'll change your life.

Yeah.

Where can people find you individually?

Oh, Focus Theater.

Yep.

And I teach and perform and support at that theater.

But yeah, Focus Theatre, come see us.

Beautiful.

Oh, please go ahead.

I would say there is the first Saturday of every month we have the improv plate.

It's an absolutely free show and anyone can get up on stage and do it.

So we have a mixture of first timers and people have been doing it 20 years.

Oh, what a great opportunity.

It's fun, it's great.

Yeah, I would say the same thing, folks.

Theater.

I'm not doing too much teaching right now.

I have a 13 month old so that's, that's taken up a lot of my time.

I can't, can only imagine.

But yeah, you can find me at the Focus most of the time when I am performing or teaching.

Yeah.

You can also find Megan Mac on weekdays in the producer booth on Connections.

As one of the finest people facilitating amazing content here in town.

Somebody I've respected the work for a very long time.

So it's great to have you over in the studio.

Thank you.

Nice to be in your space.

Yeah.

And yeah.

So definitely go out and see.

Thank you.

Kiss.

Go out to as many shows as you can.

Make sure you check out other shows on the Lunchadore podcast network.

Go to lunchadore.org want people to check out a couple of our new shows.

One shows launching I think within the next week is readers advisory.

This is our new show, Rochester's Book Club with four local librarians.

We've already recorded a few episodes.

Their chemistry is unbelievable.

It's off the charts.

And then I want people to check out both Rob Bell's show Plants and Beats.

He's doing lo Fi music.

His record just came out under his music name, Alofi.

It's phenomenal.

He's doing amazing work, great interviews.

Then check out one of the old school shows.

Check out Polygoogliamo show.

It's amazing stuff.

So go to lunchtime.org and we'll see you out on the fringe.

This has been a presentation of the lunchroom or podcast network.