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 J:
What do you do in teaching? You have a Level 3 class where people are
further along.
NS: Yes. Previously I was teaching Level 1. I’m also teaching a
‘two-prov’ class which is where you sign up with a partner and I help
you develop a two-person show together, to find a form that’s a little
unique to you. I just started that so I’m feeling my way through that.
I also work with a company called Performance of a Lifetime, where we do
corporate training using the tools of theater, so we’ll go to a company
like PricewaterhouseCoopers, where they’re accountants but now have been
promoted to managers and now they have to interact with people and
manage and be leaders in a way they never had to do before. It really
comes down to teaching people how to listen really well and know when
someone gives you a look that’s not quite right and you know that
something else is going on, so when you say something and they look
scared, to realize that you’re scaring them, and maybe that’s not what
you wanted to do.
Over the last year, I taught the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team improv, which
was really interesting to do. The idea was they brought Performance of a
Lifetime on because they were concerned about how the Olympic team would
deal with the media in China. Obviously they need to be focused on their
sports, where they’re good or even the best in the world at that, but
they’re not necessarily good at talking off the cuff and dealing with
people asking them a bunch of questions all of a sudden. That was very
interesting.
As far as the levels at The PIT, so far my experience is that I enjoy
the Level 1 more than the Level 3. Maybe that’s because I’m used to
teaching people who don’t have any improv experience, through
Performance of a Lifetime. Sometimes you can learn just enough to be
dangerous. Like what I was saying before, about how you’re not as scared
to be up there anymore, you’re not afraid to make a jackass out of
yourself, but you’re still not listening well, so you’re making big,
strong choices, but you don’t realize they’ve gone awry.
A little hesitancy is a little bit better because you’re waiting for the
other person to do something, which is what you should be doing. You
should be building a bit together. Also the personalities involved -- by
the time you get to Level 3, you probably decided this is something you
want to do. The people who keep taking those levels are people who want
to be performers and can be in a place of it’s their time to shine and
it’s all about how they’re doing as opposed to what’s really going on.
Sometimes that hesitancy in Level 1, where you’re just a jeweler who
thinks this might be fun to try -- you’re listening to what’s going on a
little bit. It’s like when you’re in a car crash and things happen in
slow motion because it’s a survival instinct. It’s like that with a
Level 1 person. They want to survive up there, so they really are
listening to what’s going on. A lot of times you have to unteach a few
things at the higher levels.
J: Does performing improv ever spark sketch ideas for you?
NS: When I went from High Fife, there were a few improvs we took and
made sketches and short films out of. At Disney, we definitely would
work from improv to sketch. Something that really worked, we’d try it
again, and incorporate it in. With ‘As Sparks Fly Upwards,’ almost
everything we did was improv-to-sketch. I enjoy that process a lot. The
difficult thing for me on that is I feel like I need the audience to
really know what’s good or not, to get that reaction. Getting an
audience for those improv shows can be difficult, and getting the stage
time to do those, even though you’re not doing a full-on show. But
that’s the challenge involved in it. I never just went in a rehearsal
room from improv to sketch; I’m not sure that works as well.
J: Much less writing a sketch from nothing?
NS: Yeah. … When you don’t write from improv to sketch and you’re just
writing sketch, just you at your computer -- I did a one-person show
called ‘Starkey’s Machine.’ I did the show for a couple years, off and
on -- maybe less than that, but I would do a six-week run here, a
four-week run there. I did a one-off at UCB of that show. It really
wasn’t until the end of my run that I was starting to learn what works.
It’s probably the same thing for a stand-up. They do it for five years
before they really figure out how to do it. The audience reaction stuff
is pretty valuable, in my experience.
When you do a short video or short film of some kind, it’s really hard
to know how good something is until you put it up for an audience. Then
you realize you didn’t think about waiting for the laugh or you’re
missing a lot of jokes because people are laughing at something, so they
miss all the jokes that come after that.
J: Were you in some of the first shows at The PIT when it opened in
2002?
NS: I did a show called Hee-Ha, which I think was one of the first shows
at The PIT. It was sort of like Hee-Haw, flipped on its head a little
bit, a bit darker, with very blue humor, with music and drugs -- instead
of popping up out of a corn field, the people would pop up out of a dope
field. That was one of the first shows I remember happening at The PIT.
Then I took a Harold boot camp class from Armando [Diaz], when he was
still at The PIT. Then I took a bunch of … a sketch-writing class with
Scott Wainio, who was an SNL writer, a Michael Showalter class and a
couple other writing classes. I was on one of the first ensembles they
put together, they grandfathered me in -- I didn’t really go through the
improv classes at The PIT though; at this point you have to do the
levels to get on a group. There were a few of us who didn’t do that.
J: Have you always been on a house team?
NS: I think so. I’ve been on all the different incarnations. I’m pretty
sure I was on one of the first ones. I’m happy that they kept me around.
J: Have you done other sketch shows along with the ones you mentioned?
NS: I did a show called ‘Iggy & Son;’ a show about G.W. [George W. Bush]
-- it ran during the fall, as our last chance to make fun of him. I
think it was called something like ‘Asshole Son of an Idiot’ or ‘Idiot
Son of an Asshole,’ or something like that. I did that sketch show. Matt
Oberg recently produced a Phil Collins-centric show, where he had a live
band that would play all Phil Collins music and all the sketches,
actually they were more like one-acts, were inspired by Phil Collins
somehow. So I was in that show.
Matt and I did a short-form set inspired by quotes from Phil Collins
songs. It was like a ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’ where we would draw a
quote out of a hat and that was the next line of dialogue we had to use.
The plays were all written by … one of those downtown playwrights wrote
one of the sketches. … Off the top of my head, that’s other things I
remember doing. It’s very time consuming to do sketch. Improv is the
lazy man’s comedy. You don’t have to write anything and rehearsal is
optional to some degree. Sketch takes so much time. What I really
appreciated about ‘As Sparks Fly Upwards’ is that we didn’t really have
props. That makes it a lot easier and less cumbersome too. You could go
into the next sketch without having to reset the stage or make the
audience sit during a blackout for a minute while you change costumes.
But I did a lot of High Fife stuff at The PIT. That’s the extent of the
sketch work I’ve done at The PIT.
J: Are there other projects or endeavors that you’re involved with?
NS: Mostly like video stuff. I have a small production company that
specializes in vanity videos, like a really rich guy will want a video
to show at his 50th anniversary, that’s a documentary about him or maybe
a pretend SportsCenter where he’s the star. So I put a lot of energy
into that for a long time but now that the economy has gone down the
crapper, nobody’s spending money on something like that which is the
first sort of thing to go. So no one’s spending money on that, no one’s
spending money on the corporate training stuff, so I’m putting a lot
more energy into writing pilots and trying to get meetings with people
and getting back on the track of finding a manager to send me on
auditions, which is good, because that’s stuff I want to do. The other
stuff was a distraction from that but on the other hand, I’m not making
any money. The only money I’m making is teaching classes and coaching
groups, which isn’t very much money. So I put a lot of energy into that
right now. It’s exciting but frustrating.
J: What would you say was your most satisfying performing experience?
NS: Doing my one-person show at the UCB, was … in terms of goosebumps
per minute or that performer buzz, it was good, because it was a full
house and was just my show, and it was received very well. The audience
reaction was everything a performer wants. That sticks out as a great
experience. That was in their new, or current space, which is a huge
space, so for it to be full is pretty exhilarating. For some reason,
size of the crowd sometimes plays a role.
With ComedySportz in Denver, we did road shows and I remember a show for
the University of Wyoming and it was a crowd of 2,000 or more people,
probably the biggest crowd I’ve played for. When I was in Orlando I did
a show with TheatreSports, again one of these road shows, for
Tupperware. Their headquarters is in Orlando and it was a crowd of all
women. I felt like the entire crowd of women had a crush on me at that
show, even to a point where … there was a point in the show where you
take an audience volunteer out of the room while the people on stage get
suggestions from the audience. Then you bring that audience member back
in the room and you have to get them to say five sentences that were
decided by the audience. I remember in the show, when you lead the
person up, they were chasing me, like they wanted to get me -- just the
vibe of the room was like I was a teen idol. There was a lot of that at
Disney.
You know, performance is sex. It’s like a flirtation you have with the
audience. At Disney, there would be that sort of flirtation that would
go on with audience members. It’s always like … maybe I’m shallow or
something, but that’s a lot of fun to feel like a group of people are
attracted to you. Any performer can probably relate to that.
Those are some highlights. … There are certain ensembles that you fall
into that stand above the rest. My Truck Boys ensemble at Disney was one
of those ensembles where … I can’t think of one particular show that we
did that was great, but consistently our shows were always very good.
There’s also a group with myself, Matt Oberg and Ashley. When we perform
together, our shows are consistently together. My ensemble with Chris
Grace, I think we have a good ensemble, our shows are consistently good.
We continue to get better. The stuff I’m doing with Dion, even though
it’s very new, I think there’s a lot of potential there.
J: How did you get connected with Dion?
NS: It was a mutual admiration thing. I saw him doing his show with Ali.
I thought he was really talented, and he saw me performing with Fancy
Dragon and made a point of telling me he liked my stuff. Then,
Performance of a Lifetime was looking for people to hire to do their
work and I gave them Dion’s name as a talented person that they could
maybe bring on. So they brought him on and we did some jobs together. It
was actually Dion’s idea, that he asked me to get together with him and
rent a little rehearsal space and just do some improv together, and
maybe develop a show or see where it leads. So we got a rehearsal room
together and Dion brought his tape recorder. We did some improvisations
and recorded them. Our enthusiasm sort of fizzled out; we each had other
things going on, but now and then Dion would listen to those tapes and
he thought there was some very funny stuff there. One of the things we
improvised was about two inmates being interviewed by a journalist or
someone in prison, and the idea came together that we should do an
improv show where we are two inmates who [are chained together]. We
thought it was a great idea, and I think it is a great idea. That’s how
we hooked up.
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