This week I spoke to improviser and sketch comedian, Ronald Dario about how to play dumb, teaching with Blind Tiger Comedy, and representation in Vancouver’s comedy scene.

Studying and Teaching at Blind Tiger Comedy

Ronald began performing improv in his high school drama program, where his teacher was formerly a student with The Second City. However, Ronald’s first love was sketch comedy, and his main motivation to start doing improv was to grow his skillset and make him a stronger sketch comedian. From discussions he had with his teacher, as well as viewing the pedigrees of successful television and movie comedians, Ronald thought that enrolling in The Second City was the necessary next step in his journey to make a living in comedy. This naturally meant moving away from Vancouver, and he set his sights on a relocation to Toronto. However, before he was able to move, he fortiuitously received a Twitter follow from Blind Tiger Comedy. As a fan of The Sunday Service comedy group, he recognized that members of The Sunday Service were also serving as faculty members at Blind Tiger Comedy. As they were a new school looking for students, Ronald quickly enrolled and took this opportunity to get some stage time and experience from performers that he greatly admired.

Walking into Blind Tiger’s intro classes, Ronald tells me that “I remember going into it thinking that I would be really good, like automatically,” and that he was soon humbled by the talent of his other classmates and teachers. Amongst his classmates were performers that would eventually become some of his closest friends and collaborators, and they all felt a communal hustle in order to get as much stage time as they could. Ronald shared that for many improvisers, “it’s easier for us to fail together than fail alone,” and the support they had for one another helped them form deep roots within the Blind Tiger community. After moving through the curriculum, and building up his own experience on stage, Ronald returned to Blind Tiger Comedy, but this time, as a member of the faculty. As a former student who was enrolled in several inaugural iterations of the classes, Ronald said that becoming a member of the faculty was “always a dream, but was never something that I thought would happen”.

As a teacher, one hurdle Ronald sees students struggle with “is just being comfortable with being stupid and silly in front of other people”. Sounds like me in highschool. He noticed that especially for new students, this can be a difficult habit to break due to the “veneer of control and coolness” people can put into how they carry themselves in day-to-day life. Definitely me in highschool. Earlier this year, Ronald and Blind Tiger Comedy hosted a workshop on playing “dumb” characters, an archetype that Ronald has seen performers of all experience levels struggle with. For him, the key to giving a convincing performance is to “play these characters with love in mind” and not to punch down. Adding layers of humanity and sympathy helps make these characters more believable and multi-dimensional to watch. Ronald says that this approach also translates to other difficult character archetypes including creepy characters and gross characters, although one could also argue that these traits are not necessarily mutually exclusive. We all knew that guy in highschool.

Representation in Improv

As an improviser, Ronald has collaborated with many other performers, some of whom he has known for years, and some who may have been near-strangers prior to their performance. He applauds the talent that he has been able to work with, and says that “knowing that they’ll have your back on stage, regardless of what happens” has made it much easier to jump in between different teams. Ronald also spoke on the increase of BIPOC performers in Vancouver since he began performing. He cites that he has been fortunate to not encounter any difficulties in his career as a BIPOC performer, but acknowledges that not seeing yourself represented onstage has been a powerful barrier preventing other performers from joining the community. The pandemic halting all performances has stalled the progression of many performers, BIPOC or otherwise, but Ronald is encouraged by the movements being made in our community. Seeing more representation amongst the performers he was working with meant a lot to him as he was coming up, and “made me feel like I could make my comedic voice whatever I wanted; I didn’t need to conform to a certain stereotype”. Last year he shared a collection of BIPOC improvisers, sketch comedians and stand-up comedians that he has worked with in an effort to celebrate this increased diversity; you might even spot a shoutout to an amateur blog writer amongst the ranks of some very funny people.

Like most other performers, there were many nights of grinding to get to where Ronald is now. Audiences of two people, audiences of only other performers, and audiences who simply didn’t like his work are all experiences that he went through, but Ronald looks back fondly on the shows “when I was wondering if anything would actually happen”. A major milestone for him early in his career was earning a spot in the Vancouver Improv Festival. This was a goal “that I’d written down nerdily in my notebook,” and was the first big audience he had the opportunity to perform for. This set served as affirmation that he was progressing in his own growth and Ronald still cites this as “the moment where I knew that if I kept doing it, I would be able to achieve all the things that I wanted to do”.

Follow Ronald on Instagram and Twitter for his thoughts and musings, and check out his website as well to keep up with his work.

Follow A Musing on Instagram for more content on Ronald and the other creatives in this series.

And don’t forget to check our last interview with Commercial Illustrator, Jasper Yiu.

-BF

This week I spoke with comedian, Katie-Ellen Humphries about her career in stand-up, her new podcast Horny Off Main, and her debut comedy album, Ladyfinger.

Finding Community in Comedy

Katie-Ellen grew up in Victoria and while she was interested in stand-up comedy from a young age, there were not many opportunities nearby for aspiring comics. However, she found a home at a variety show titled Atomic Vaudeville, a show where she got her first consistent stage time and “where I cut my teeth comedy-wise”. Katie-Ellen spoke very highly of the performers at Atomic Vaudeville and felt that “I kind of got a theatre education from them,” learning to play with tension, challenge the audience and take greater risks in her own work. While she enjoyed this camaraderie, she eventually felt that she needed to move to Vancouver to pursue stand-up, despite having only a limited amount of experience. She packed her things, hopped on a ferry and then, “proceeded to not even go to a single open mic for a year,” with her only performances coming once a month at Atomic Vaudeville. A bold strategy for sure. Katie-Ellen isn’t sure what exactly caused her cold feet, but attributes it to feeling intimidated to break into a new scene and the classic “Vancouver in your early 20s depression,” where you “lie on the floor with no furniture and stare at the ceiling”. That is one hell of a shared experience. If you haven’t counted the stucco ridges on your ceiling, have you really grown up in Vancouver?

Cut to today, Katie-Ellen has over a decade of experience as a stand-up comedian under her belt and a personal theory on what truly attracts comedians to comedy. On one hand, she has the “morning radio answer” that comedians do comedy because they love to make people laugh. While this is admittedly true, Katie-Ellen’s other observation is that a catalyst behind many comedians’ entry into comedy is rooted in some form of trauma. After all, “comedy requires self-reflection and connection,” and unique material can come from how each individual processes the difficulties in their lives. With trauma such a universal struggle, Katie-Ellen expands on this notion of connection by considering the broad range of individuals that comedy attracts. Comedy traverses many traditional social divisions including world-view, socio-economic levels, geography and many other factors. In addition to this, Katie-Ellen remarks that you have “your chronological age and then your comedy age,” noting that there are few settings in which a thirty-year-old could be a mentor for someone in their sixties. This all creates a wonderfully strange environment for comics to connect with individuals they would have never encountered if not for comedy. To put this into perspective, Katie-Ellen simply states that “I shouldn’t know anyone from Iowa,” but does as a result of the unique ecosystem that comedy creates.

The Lady Show & The Debaters

Katie-Ellen’s resumé is far too extensive to sum up in a short article, but here are a few stops along her amazing career. Firstly, I asked her about The Lady Show, a variety show she runs alongside Diana Bang, Morgan Brayton, and Fatima Dhowre. As every group needs a good origin story, Katie-Ellen met Morgan and Fatima on the set of Morgan’s show, Morgan Brayton and Other People. In between takes, the three of them discussed their career aspirations and a communal desire to create content on a more consistent basis. As they all enjoyed their short time working with one another, they resolved that if they ran a monthly show, “we’d have a space that we could all create together,” as well as a hard deadline to serve as some added motivation. In one of the first installments of The Lady Show, Diana was invited to perform as a guest performer and joined full-time soon after to complete the roster. Speaking on the fortuitous and organic nature of how the group came together, Katie-Ellen says that “if I sat down in a lab, like a comedy supervillain and tried to put together the most powerful group that I would want to work with, that’s who it would end up with”. The Lady Show has been named Pick of the Fringe at the Vancouver Fringe Festival, and has been featured in the JFL Northwest comedy festival, give them a follow to stay up to date on the folks “putting the JOY in feminist killjoy”.

In addition to The Lady Show, Katie-Ellen can also be found on CBC’s The Debaters, where she serves as a writer, producer and performer. I’m not going to explain what The Debaters is, if it were up to me it would be mandatory curriculum in high school. Katie-Ellen is currently in her fourth year working with the show in one way or another, and tells me she feels very grateful that her comedic style happened to fit so well with this format. Naturally optimistic, she says her disposition to find the bright side has served her well to come up with a compelling argument “even if I’m arguing something that’s kind of shitty”. She also adds that “I am not afraid to be really earnest and sincere,” and while this is something many comedians and lowly blog writers struggle with, it is another factor that makes her material unique and personal.

Horny OFF MAIN

One of the newest projects in Katie-Ellen’s career is the launch of her podcast, Horny OFF MAIN. In this podcast, Katie-Ellen and her cohost Amitai Marmorstein welcome guests to discuss the “feelings, behaviours and habits we’re not always encouraged to express,” using horny as a measure of desire that is not exclusively sexual. Katie-Ellen and Amitai had toyed with the idea of running a podcast in the past as a shared passion project, but it was not until COVID-19 forced us into isolation that they began getting it off the ground. Like many others, they found themselves missing the personal growth that comes with “putting yourself out there,” in regards to both their work and day-to-day social interactions. As life became much more insular, a podcast became a vehicle to facilitate this growth in a safe way, and also give them a chance to catch up with some of their favourite people. New episodes of Horny OFF MAIN come out every week, I just listened to an episode with Matty Vu, another really funny individual who was kind enough to have a chat with me here not too long ago.

Ladyfinger

Ladyfinger is Katie-Ellen’s debut comedy album and a culmination of over ten years of working as a stand-up comic. Beginning with the name, Katie-Ellen describes the title of her album as “glamourous, but it’s sweet. And it’s like a little bit queer,” deeming it a fitting representation of her current act. Mixing newer and older material, she spans topics including the enigma that is Say Yes to the Dress, the merits of three-foot-long hot dogs and the poetry of minor league baseball. On the latter point, Katie-Ellen says she “feels a real kinship with minor league baseball players,” due to the difficulties athletes and performers are faced with when trying to pursue their craft. Reflecting on her career, she sees similar ups and downs, struggles brought on by the global pandemic, and the long hours of unseen work they put in just to be ready for any opportunity. Katie-Ellen describes a point a few years ago as the lowest she had ever felt, and a time in which she found herself in a “downward spiral of doubt” questioning her career path. But much like the passion that fuels minor league players, she came to the realization that “I’d be doing this, even if nothing comes from it,” because she simply loves comedy. This clarity helped her see that all of the goals she made for herself in an attempt to define “success”, were just a means to facilitate the act of doing more comedy. Ladyfinger is the tangible product of all of the work Katie-Ellen has put into comedy, from starting out at Atomic Vaudeville, co-founding The Lady Show, making a name for herself at The Debaters, creating Horny OFF MAIN, and all of the highs and lows of the grind along the way. When I asked Katie-Ellen what having an album meant to her, she instead posed the question to herself from ten years ago. Katie-Ellen says that if you told this open-micer that one day she would have her very own comedy album, she “would not have been surprised because she was wildly arrogant. But she would be fucking thrilled” as well.

In closing, Katie-Ellen shared a story from before she ever stepped foot on a stage. She was nineteen, and at a bar with her brother and one of his friends. Over the course of this night, this friend confessed to her that he really wanted to try stand-up comedy, prompting Katie-Ellen to vocalize for the first time that she wanted to as well. Following this exchange of two people who (to be clear) had never done stand up, he replied, “Oh my gosh, you totally should. You can open for me”. Gross. Katie-Ellen says that when she heard this, “in my brain, I say bitch you can open for me,” again acknowledging that at this point neither of them has any experience. This moment has stuck with her and served as fuel for the extraordinary career I have tried to do justice to in a five-minute article. Katie-Ellen says that “the point of that story is that I am completely driven by spite,” but hey. Not to keep score, but I’ve never heard of this other guy’s album.

Ladyfinger is available worldwide on October 20th, make sure to listen in here. Katie-Ellen is hosting an in-person release event at the Kino Cafe at 8pm also on the 20th, as well as an online release event on Saturday, October 24th at 7pm. Both of these events will feature some of Katie-Ellen’s favourite artists and you can find details for them here. Listen to Horny Off Main, with new episodes released every week, follow The Lady Show and check out Katie-Ellen’s website for all of the information that I couldn’t fit into our chat.

Follow A Musing on Facebook and Instagram for more content on Katie-Ellen and the other creatives in this series.

And don’t forget to check out last week’s interview with circus artist, Santé Fortunato.

-BF

This week I spoke to comedian, Matty Vu about his experience as a producer and co-host, diversity in comedy, and his recent feature on CBC’s “Next Wave of Comedy”.

Matty’s journey in stand-up began six years ago when he enrolled in a stand-up class with Instant Theatre, a school that you also may remember from our article with Nathan Hare. Prior to this, Matty was a frequent attendee at The Laugh Gallery, a longstanding show run by Graham Clark. As a result of the friendship with Graham that he had established as an audience member, Matty’s first sets upon graduating from Instant Theatre were on The Laugh Gallery; an unusually quick trajectory for a new comedian. But after a run of well-received performances, he parlayed these sets into appearances on more shows, quickly gaining experience as a performer and confidence in his material.

Bloodfeud and Yellow Fever

While taking stand-up classes at Instant Theatre, Matty was also offered the opportunity to supplement his performing chops and take some improv classes. There he met improviser Malcolm McLeod, and over the next few months, they began tinkering with the idea for a collaborative show featuring both stand-up comedy and improv. Having made friends in both genres of performance, Matty wanted to create a show in which they could come together and create a unique experience for the audience. Eventually, this materialized into Bloodfeud; a show that has now run for three years with the format of four stand-up comedians performing material that inspires long-form improv by a team of improvisers. The inspiration for the name came from the online banter between Matty and Malcolm in which they would sign each of their posts with #bloodfeud. As for the format of the show, Matty says that “we’ve basically stolen from every show” they enjoy to form Bloodfeud. Examples of this include implementing dual hosting duties that were present at Jokes Please, as well as ensuring a talent pool of mixed genders, races and backgrounds that Matty enjoyed at The Laugh Gallery.

In addition to Bloodfeud, Matty also serves as a co-host and co-producer of Yellow Fever, a show that was recently featured alongside Bloodfeud in the JFL Northwest comedy festival. He says that the goal of Yellow Fever was to provide a platform for newer, less-experienced Asian comics to showcase their material to a wider audience. When he was approached by JFL Northwest to be included in the festival, Matty says that alongside co-producers Tin Lorica and Ronald Dario, they recognized the opportunity to push the organizers of JFL to promote Yellow Fever as more than simply a diversity act, or a symbolic checkbox on the festival. After several discussions on what this would look like, they were able to negotiate a larger venue in the Biltmore Cabaret as well as a great headliner in Sheng Wang. Matty describes this year’s festival as an amazing experience for him as Yellow Fever opened on the first night of the festival and Bloodfeud was featured on the closing night. I had the pleasure of being on the first-ever installation of Yellow Fever, and would like to credit myself for being the absolute sole reason behind its success.

The Mechanics of Producing Comedy

Between Bloodfeud, Yellow Fever, and another show titled Craft and the Furious, Matty has had extensive experience as a producer and host. (In case you thought you were the only one with this idea, Craft and the Furious is a show in which Matty and other comedians join the audience in making crafts while watching movies from The Fast and The Furious franchise). He says that one of his key learnings as a producer is recognizing that “you have to do a lot of the work,” before you even get to perform. From marketing the event, booking performers and even stocking the bar for the audience, there is a lot of offstage work that goes into producing a successful show. To expand on booking talent, Matty explains that “you can’t just say yes to everybody or reject everybody” either, but he has placed an emphasis on representing voices from people of colour and female comics. When he began performing, he didn’t feel like he belonged or even enjoyed many of the rooms he was in, so improving this experience for other comedians and audiences has been a huge source of inspiration for how he curates talent on his own shows.

Moving to his hosting duties, Matty says that cultivating a good flow with his fellow hosts is often “the thing we worked the hardest on for the show”. For example, through the first editions of Bloodfeud, Matty and Malcolm tried an adversarial approach with one another, but they found that this did not always resonate well with audiences. Eventually, they realized that in the context of a show, “your audience is the guest in the host’s house,” and that it is the host’s responsibility to both earn the audience’s trust and set the following performers up for success. At times, this can mean dealing with unruly guests or as in one instance welcoming an entire bachelorette party who came to a very special edition of Bloodfeud. Aside from all twenty of them leaving five minutes before the show ended to catch their limos, Matty claims that they were a relatively good crowd due to a smattering of light warnings and jabs towards them to open the show. He explains that addressing a potentially rambunctious crowd from the very beginning can help diffuse any negative ideas, and even a simple “don’t be annoying” can help ensure a positive experience for everyone in the room.

The New Wave of Standup

Matty’s most recent accomplishment in comedy was being featured on CBC’s “New Wave of Standup” series that was filmed during the JFL Northwest festival and was recently released online. He was the opening performer when it came time to film, and though he admits he was nervous to go first, it was a relief to be finished as he saw the nerves from the other comics yet to go on. As a bonus for those of you who like Easter eggs, he also says that in some of the subsequent performances you can see him in the background “dancing, or doing something silly” with the other comedians. You have to love content with solid rewatch value. Matty says that this experience was extremely validating to not only be selected for this series but also to be given freedom by the producers to curate his set the way he wanted it to be. More holistically, he considers this one of the highlights of his stand-up career thus far, reflecting on some of the negative experiences he has had in comedy in contrast to “this fun night where you get to feel special doing stand up”.

Six years into comedy, Matty says that his comedic style has remained relatively unchanged since he began. He attributes this to the fact that since he was twenty-nine years old when he started, “I was a mostly formed human person” and therefore still has similar outlooks on life and comedy. In terms of his material itself, Matty noticed that “a lot of comics talk about things that make them mad, where I’m just like no, these are the things I love”. For myself, this positive world-view separates Matty’s sets from most others, and I think audiences who have seen him would share the same notion. Earning opportunities to perform on new shows and with new comedians continues to fuel Matty’s passion for comedy, but he recognizes that the current state of comedy still has room for improvement. He says that while it is great to see more Asian comics onstage, it’s important to continue supporting venues and shows that provide these opportunities, stating that simply “having that space will keep people to stick around and do more”.

In case you are wondering, Matty cites the “silly and terrible” Tokyo Drift as his favourite in the Fast and Furious canon. To keep up with him, look for @themattyvu on social media, and check out his set on CBC’s “The New Wave of Standup”.

Follow A Musing on Facebook and Instagram for more content on Matty and the other creatives in this series.

And don’t forget to check out last week’s article with aerialist, Marianne Rico.

-BF.

This week I spoke with comedian, Maddy Kelly about the road to find her comedic voice, her monthly show, All You Can Eat Laundry, and the state of women in comedy.

Experimentation & Reinvention in Comedy

Maddy began her performing career as an actor when she was seventeen years old and started stand-up comedy two years later. For some of her earliest sets, Maddy took poems she had written in university, rewrote them into songs, and sang them while she played the ukelele. Maddy said that while these sets were well-received, she soon found herself pigeonholed into the archetype of the “cute girl with the ukelele”. That’s far more notoriety than this blog has ever received, but I digress. After six months of performing these songs, she abandoned her foray into musical comedy in search of other styles. She notes that this wasn’t due to a lack of appreciation for the genre, but rather due to the fact that “I was never going to be that good of a musician. And I got sick of carrying the ukelele on the bus”.

Faced with the task of reinventing herself as a comedian, Maddy experimented with self-deprecating humour for a year. While again initially successful, performing this material resulted in an ironic division within herself. She explains that due to being the punchline of her own jokes, audiences would respond in a manner that she felt belittled the time and effort she had put into writing them. This high personal cost for a laugh resulted in Maddy growing to hate audiences laughing at her jokes, which she paints as “a terrible cognitive dissonance” for a comedian to experience.

Maddy shifted once again and challenged herself to only perform clean material for the following year. While she admits that “I definitely talked about drugs and drinking,” she eliminated much of her old material from her sets. One of the reasons she challenged herself to do this was when she realized that there were no contemporary female comics that had sustained success with only clean material. Also, while watching touring comedians come to Vancouver to perform in the JFL Northwest comedy festival, she was inspired that while most comedians had some dirty material, very few relied exclusively on dirty material to fill their hour-long sets. Finally, on a more personal note, she wanted to stand against the hypocrisy often presented towards female comedians, and thought “why is the only time that I get agency to talk [is] if I’m talking about my body?”. She said that while this was a great exercise to test her writing, the resulting sets didn’t necessarily feel natural, and therefore weren’t a perfect fit either. This year, Maddy decided to put no restrictions on herself, which resulted in writing what she considers “probably the dirtiest joke ever”. I selfishly didn’t ask her what this joke was; I thought I’d save it for you to watch live.

All You Can Eat Laundry

In 2017 Maddy began running her own monthly show, All You Can Eat Laundry alongside Sophia Lapres and Jake Pascoe. Let it be known that this show is not called Dirty Laundry, Eating Laundry, or even Eating My Pants, all of which are incorrect iterations Maddy has been asked about. In its inception, they wanted to create a space to host comedians with non-conventional material who didn’t have a platform to perform in Vancouver. The name of the show simply came from when Maddy passed an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant that was next to a laundromat, which when you think about it, seems like a natural pairing. To keep the show fresh over the last three years they have introduced several new features including readings of sitcom scripts with Maddy’s mom as a featured performer, drinking games to kickstart the second half, and dress codes defining each edition of the show. All You Can Eat Laundry has been featured by JFL Northwest, hosted drop-ins from comics including Guy Branum and Fortune Feimster, and showcased an immense roster of local talent. Maddy said that she has also seen herself evolve greatly since their first installation, citing that she considered herself the least alternative of the three founders when they started. But with each month, she grew more comfortable experimenting with her comedic stylings, eventually performing a bit that at its core was, “putting the mic up to my Spanx and slapping a lot”. If that’s not the sound of self-growth then I don’t know what it is.

Women in Comedy

Starting out in comedy as a nineteen-year-old girl, Maddy says that she faced significant obstacles breaking into this industry. She says that while making fun of one another is a huge part of the comic culture, she regularly suffered from imposter syndrome due to both her age as well as the male-dominated lineups she has been on. Expanding on this notion, when she is offered a spot on a new show, “there’s part of you that thinks that you got it because they needed a woman,” and not due to her talent. This can consequently diminish her confidence in her material and undermine the work she has put in to get where she is today.

When Maddy spent a summer in New York to work on her comedy, she faced an unusually binary experience. Performing at open mics from four in the afternoon to two in the morning, it was the first time in three years that she was the only female performer at most shows. But conversely, she also had the opportunity to perform at all-female open mics which are not currently present in Vancouver. To speak more about the community in Vancouver, Maddy said that “things have changed massively from when I started,” with more women on the lineups, more women in the audience, and even changes in the language used by other comedians to introduce her to the crowd. However, she is also frustrated that the general landscape of comedy continues to be plagued with cases of sexism, discrimination and sexual assault, forcing everyone regardless of gender “to do this whole thing again”.

Comedy After COVID-19

Prior to obvious changes brought on by COVID-19, this year has been busy for Maddy. In the span of two weeks, she performed at The Vogue opening for Ronny Chieng, then made an appearance on CBC’s The Debaters, a show that she credits as a major influence on her comedy. Her debate topic was “Should everyone start a band?” which I think is somewhat appropriate in retrospect due to Maddy’s roots in musical comedy. Arriving two-and-a-half hours early to the set, she said that this experience was “definitely the most nervous I’ve ever been in my life”. In addition to these pre-show nerves, the set-up of a stationary podium and mic eliminated the ability to walk out the jitters like she could at a stand-up set. But once she got her first laugh, she was able to relax into her material and enjoy herself; she cites this experience as a highlight of her career in comedy.

When I asked her about an unexpected aspect of being a comedian, Maddy talked about how life touring on the road is devoid of much of the glamour presented by celebrity performers. Between driving through late-night snowstorms, having no financial security, and going “two weeks without eating a vegetable,” she said it can be tough to keep your spirits up and ready to perform. Expanding on the hidden eating habits of a comedian, she spoke about how audiences may not realize that comics have to eat dinner twice; once around 4 before a show, and again approaching midnight once the show is over. Something as simple as scheduling meals around shows let alone other commitments is “what makes [comedy] a lifestyle” for her.

While she has some natural apprehension to get back on stage, Maddy is excited to embark on the next evolution in her career. She says that “I’ve changed as a person in the last three months. I really wonder [what] my jokes and delivery will be like when I get back out there”. I’m definitely excited to see her back on stage and you damn well should be too. To keep up to date with her shows and other comedic moments, make sure to follow Maddy and All You Can Eat Laundry.

Follow A Musing on Facebook and Instagram for more content on Maddy and the other creatives in this series.

And check out last week’s article where I chat with Producer, Brent Mosher about the release of his debut EP.

-BF

This week, I had a chat with a very funny improviser, sketch performer, stand-up comedian and co-creator of Soda Fountain, Nathan Hare. We talked about his journey through comedy, taking his work on the road, and which bombs are best.

A Student of Comedy

Growing up in Kelowna, Nathan discovered his love for comedy by watching SNL and listening to comedy podcasts throughout high-school. As the end of these studies grew near, his passion grew until he left home and began his post-secondary journey at The University of British Columbia. He chose to major in English Literature and minor in Creative Writing, but more holistically Nathan said, “I just remember coming into university being like, I want to do comedy”. In addition to honing his writing through his formal studies, Nathan also joined the UBC Improv team in his first year to begin exploring his own comedic style. He admits that while he was excited to make the team, it “hadn’t really clicked” for him over his first few shows. This changed when Nathan turned 19 and was able to see improv by The Sunday Service.

I don’t think I could properly sum up all they have accomplished, but if you’re not familiar with The Sunday Service I highly recommend you check them out. I’ll also mention that while they haven’t been able to host their weekly shows at the Fox Cabaret, they have been putting on some great digital shows throughout social isolation. Watching them for the first time was a formative moment for Nathan; he shares that after this performance he realized that “this is the sort of improv I want to do”. With this fresh in his mind, he began evolving his own improv at UBC and enrolled in both improv and sketch classes at Blind Tiger Comedy. All things considered, Nathan is one of the most comedically educated people I know. When I asked what drew him to try sketch comedy, he said that much like The Sunday Service was a huge influence on his improv, watching The Hero Show was an equally inspirational push to explore sketch. Things have come full circle as he has now performed at both of these shows, as well as creating, producing and hosting his own monthly show, Soda Fountain.

Soda Fountain

During his time studying at Blind Tiger, Nathan met fellow student Graeme Achurch. After collaborating with one another throughout the program, they decided to continue working together after classes ended. Eventually, this led to their desire to create their own monthly show: Soda Fountain. When I asked Nathan the story behind this name, he told me that they were “brainstorming off of nostalgic words” to find something “fun and youthful”. However, he remarks that their struggles to capture this spirit felt like a bad marketing meeting because they were “so out of touch” with the values they were trying to embody. Graciously he also offered up some names that were left on the cutting room floor, including “Good Times” and “Heaven”; the latter rejected because they “thought it sounded too much like a rave from the early 2000s”. Cue boots and cats.

Soda Fountain would have celebrated its 2 year anniversary show a few weeks ago, but due to the obvious circumstances, it had to be postponed. However, running a show for 2 years is definitely something to be celebrated. They have also taken their show on the road to Toronto, and Nathan cites this as one of the highlights of his journey in comedy. Being able to travel and have success in a new place with fresh audiences showed him that “I’m not limited to the city I’m from,” and this is something he would like to do again in the future. I’ve seen their show several times and was fortunate enough to have a spot on their show last year. Nathan and Graeme have a comedic style and flow that is truly unique, and I highly recommend checking out Soda Fountain upon its return. They have put their blood, sweat, and tears into this show, and how dare you think this was a cliché?

If you were in doubt, Nathan shared a story that will put to bed any suspicion of hyperbole. He tells me that prior to one edition of Soda Fountain, he was unloading beer from Graeme’s car. As Graeme went to close the trunk and go back inside, Nathan’s head was still in the swing path of the door. Gravity and mass did their thing and Nathan was left with a gash on the top of his head, moments before the doors were slated to open. After a quick visit from an ambulance, Nathan was checked out and eventually cleared to perform. However, he admits that “we sounded insane” as they recanted this story to an audience who was not prepared for an anatomy-themed opening set. However, this turned into a one-of-a-kind show as they decided to forego the written material they had prepared, and instead “made the whole thing about how I had cut the top of my head with this car door”. You just never know what you’re going to see with live comedy.

Improv v Sketch v Stand-Up

With experience in several realms of performing, I asked Nathan about his favourite and least favourite aspects of improv, stand-up and sketch comedy. Perhaps non-surprisingly, bombing was a common con between all three, but he tells me that not all bombs are built equal. For example, Nathan says that in sketch, audiences can be less forgiving to a bomb due to the written nature. He says that some particularly critical audiences have reacted as if to say “why did you think this was funny, you had [an] infinite amount of time to prepare”. However, managing a bomb in improv comes with a completely different set of difficulties. Nathan says that while audiences may be more forgiving due to the format, it can be “especially humiliating because you’re pretending to be like an alien or something like that”. Lastly, we agreed that the individual aspect inherent to stand-up made this bomb uniquely difficult. He says that since “you don’t have someone to share the highs and the lows,” it can be tough to bounce back from.

However, we did not dwell on the lows and moved to Nathan’s favourite aspects of these styles. Out of the three, stand-up is his newest pursuit as he began performing in the fall of 2018. He tells me that the ownership he feels with his tested and proven material is what he likes best, along with the simplicity of the presentation. Moving to sketch, his favourite part is the collaborative nature of workshopping sketches with his fellow writers and performers. He enjoys fleshing out every nuance of a scene and working together to create a story as a team. This collaborative aspect is also Nathan’s favourite part of improv comedy; he simply says that “when you’re on a roll in improv, that’s the greatest feeling”.

When we discussed his personal style of comedy, Nathan admitted that “I don’t know if my stuff is really that traditional,” but that is my favourite part about watching him. Whether its improv, stand-up, or sketch, go check him out as soon as you can. He told me that he hopes to venture into film in the future and add yet another feather to his comedic cap. Hopefully, we will see the return of both himself and Soda Fountain soon, but in the meantime find him on Twitter and Instagram to stay updated and entertained. Thanks for reading this week, and we’ll see you at the next one!

-BF

If you missed last week’s article with Skye Portman, here is the link!

And a reminder to follow on Facebook and Instagram for bonus content!

Hello, my name is Bradley and I’m the creator of this blog. I hope everyone is staying safe and productive during these unusual times. The fight to stay productive is a major reason behind why I decided to start this project; I don’t think I’m the only one with some unexpected time on their hands. Naturally, this is something that I hope to continue beyond social isolation but for now, I’ll consider starting it a good first step. Before I feature anybody else I will begin with myself. When asked why I chose to do this Bradley replied, “because I’m a narcissist”.

Acting Out

Growing up, I never saw creative pursuits as extra-curricular activities, and I often found myself spending more time on these endeavors than traditional coursework. Maybe that’s why I currently find myself unemployed. I digress, but some of my earliest memories are with a pencil in my hand, drawing. To put my affinity for drawing into perspective, one year for Christmas I received a box of printer paper from my grandparents with the instruction to “Only do good work” with it. That was a damn good Christmas. As someone who was on the shy side, art was a great hobby for me, free from any reliance on partners or public adjudication.

That changed when I began high school and was accepted into a leadership program for grades 8 and 9. A requirement of this program was enrolling in four key subjects for the entire two years: English, Social Studies, Physical Education, and Drama. I greeted the first three subjects with warm familiarity, but Drama was uncharted territory. What happened next was a surprise to both myself and anyone who knew me, as I discovered a passion for acting. I was fascinated by the challenge of convincing someone that the person that stood before them was not me but in fact someone else. This was the only class where lying was not only allowed but encouraged. Over the next few years, my passion grew and I was fortunate to gain representation and begin performing in commercial work. But my relationship with commercial work grew complex; I loved pursuing a career in acting but also felt myself becoming unsatisfied with the peppy, ever-smiling nature of the industry. I wanted more dramatic material in the pursuit of what I thought was “real acting”. Don’t worry, I now also recognize the hypocrisy in feeling that acting was too artificial. Despite these efforts, I continued to find more success in comedic roles. When my university studies began, I decided that some success was ultimately better than none, and I committed to studying acting as my major.

Unfortunately, my passion for acting quickly waned both scholastically and professionally. It was difficult to accept that my complete devotion to something I loved wasn’t all I had dreamt it would be. However, this gave me great insight into the high failure rate of marriages. The inconsistent nature of professional acting combined with my theory-heavy courseload grew tiresome and I decided to pursue other professions. However, no matter what other hobbies I tried, I found myself missing the performing arts.

Starting in Stand-Up Comedy

Lacking any vocal ability to sing or calf-strength for ballet, I eventually decided to try stand-up comedy. I found comfort working in a genre that had treated me kindly, and I was instantly attracted to the individual commitment required by the performer. Whether I bombed or had a good set, there was no one else to credit but myself. I also appreciate the humility that I’ve found in comedy; the fanfare, ego, and artificiality I felt much too often as an actor could not be more different than the basic presentation of a person and a microphone. Comedy is also the most honest art form that I have encountered; the jokes that resonate the most with me are rooted in failure, insecurity, and embarrassment. To me, these are universal truths that far too often are dismissed despite being an inescapable part of the human condition. Comedy is a vehicle in which we can recognize our shared struggles without the promise of blind prescriptions or solutions. Falls, families, and farts affect all of us in one way or another.

Stand-up has provided me with the creative outlet I’ve always needed, and perhaps the most balanced one I’ve found. Looking back over the last few years, I feel very lucky for the opportunities I’ve had to watch, meet, and perform alongside the vibrant and hilarious stand-up community here in Vancouver. Hopefully, I will continue to be energized by stand-up; at the very least the futile pursuit of trying to “finish” a joke should keep me busy for a while. If you’ve stuck out this whole post, thank you. I promise this is the most I’ll ever write about myself, and I guarantee that the next post will expand into the community I claim to champion.

Find me on Instagram at @bjfung3 to follow my adventures in stand-up, as well as my beer photography. That’s right, I have a creative outlet that I didn’t even mention in this post. This blog is full of surprises. See you at the next one.

-BF

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