Drew Turner

In this episode, I sit down with Drew Turner, one of Atlanta's most prolific independent improv producers. Drew's journey to improv starts in an unexpected place — he wanted to be a video game designer, took a drama class as an easy elective, and got bitten by the theater bug surrounded by peers who are now working off-Broadway and on major TV shows.

Drew takes us through his six years with the Knitwits at Noonan Theater Company, where he was doing two-act Who's Line-style shows every month and eventually pushed for long form narrative. He shares how the Improv Experiment format became his first taste of improvised storytelling, and how a solo monologue about rehearsing a breakup in front of a mirror became one of his favorite things he's ever performed.

We get deep into the business and philosophy of producing indie improv shows in Atlanta. Drew breaks down how he became the city's go-to freelance producer, why he fronts rental costs for other people's shows, and how he produced 96 shows in a single year while tracking it all in a custom analytics dashboard. He drops his hottest take — that Atlanta institutions have largely abdicated their responsibility to cultivate and platform local talent — and we talk about why $5 tickets can actually hurt your show, why the show starts when the doors open, and why if you're asking someone for five hours of their Friday night, you owe them something exceptional.

Drew also shares the three notes that leveled him up as a performer. You don't want to miss this episode with so many production goodies and gems!

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Host: Joel Camargo - Insta - @joelc1225
Audio Editor: Matt Issacs - Insta - @mattisaacs20

Transcript

Introduction

Joel 0:04

Hey everybody, thank you so much for joining for another episode of the Joy of Improv Podcast. Today's guest is Drew Turner. And if you know Drew, you know he can geek out about improv. You give him a chance to talk about improv, he won't shut up. Which is perfect for this use case because we're just gonna talk about improv and nerd out and geek out, which is something that we love to do anyway. I'm excited to have Drew on the podcast because he is such a huge producer in the Atlanta scene, and we dive in deep in producing shows. This is an area that I love to bring up with my guests on the podcast because producing is so required and essential to perform in Atlanta. So I love to get different tips from different producers on how to produce improv shows. We hear a lot about Drew's extensive background in regular stage plays and musicals and his time at Noonan Theater when he was a part of Knitwitz. In this episode, at some point, Drew reveals his hottest take. Stay tuned, and I hope you enjoyed this episode with Drew Turner. Here it is. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Joy of Improv Podcast. Sitting on my couch this morning on this beautiful morn is Drew Turner. Yes, hello. Hello, Drew. Thanks for

Meet Drew Turner

Joel 1:32

joining.

Drew 1:32

You're welcome, welcome. Thanks for having me. Uh happy release day. Today's your Oh, yes.

Joel 1:38

Official release day. Yeah. Official podcast release day. So episodes are out. By the time you listen to this one, you probably would have already been listening to a bunch of improv episodes. Yes, yes, yes. Um, thank you so much for the congratulations. I am excited. We nerd out about improv. I mean all the time. Yeah. It is if we're in the same room, we're chatting improv and we're nerding out. Yeah. Uh deep. We're deep in the weeds.

Drew 2:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's I mean, I I need I need so little encouragement to yap about improv theory uh and the scene we're in. You you give me you give me an inch. Oh yeah.

Joel 2:16

Oh yeah. Um but something I don't know about and I'm excited to hear about is your journey and finding improv. Where did that start?

How Drew Found Theater Through Video Game Design

Drew 2:25

Yeah, so uh uh I I got into theater broadly uh my freshman year of high school, so that would have been 2007. How old am I? Uh 2006, 2007. Um, because I wanted to be a video game designer. And so uh around that time, that's like PS2 era, um, I had just noticed like games had cutscenes, and in high school in Georgia, that like there wasn't really like a uh coding class I could take or anything. Pardon me, and burping first thing in the morning. Matt, get on that, edit that out.

Joel 3:01

Wait, no, we want that in. Yeah, it's it's canonical. It's canonical.

Drew 3:04

It's canonical, it's part of the bit. Keep that burping. Uh I like to be a man of the people. I don't want them to think I'm too precious. Uh and so in my in my brain, I'm like, well, game video games have stories, and so I wanted to do just anything that I felt was moving me towards making video games. So it's like, I'll take a drama class, I'll learn how to make cut scenes and stories, and that'll be anything at all I can do kind of in furtherance of that. Um, and that's paired with like kids on the bus talk to me about like uh, you know, you go to high school, you're gonna choose electives, drama's one of the easiest ones because it's literally you show up to class, you do a monologue at the end of the year, hundred. I was like, perfect. Um, so I did that, fell off for about two years or for a year of my sophomore year, came back my junior year, and that's when I started like taking it and and like auditioning for the plays and such. Um my high school happened to be like happened to have a lot of wildly good performers in it. So in like the current Atlanta scene, uh Nico Carlio had a run of performing like as Rudolph and other characters, I believe, at uh Center for Puppetry Arts up until very recently because they just had other offers and opportunities to pull them away from that, which is pretty huge. Um Jamie McCune, close friend of mine, uh, was Maddie on Shameless, was the lead in the Blair Witch remake. Um has been, you know, uh was in I'm gonna butcher the name of the top, but done a lot of stuff with like Jenny T. Anderson Theater up here has been all over the place. Um uh Ileana Garcia is like up in New York, does some stuff off like off Broadway now. So like I was dipping my toe into it because it would be a fun way to round out a resume, and I was like, oh, I'm like deep in the weeds with some people who are just gonna beat me out on rolls uh forever. And so and so like I did that like my junior, my senior year, and I started to basically get the bite, and then I was like, oh, I think I want to do this, and dovetailing with that, I had finally been able to take a coding class. Um, my high school had a partnership with local college where you could take college courses for credit, and one of those was a game development course, and so I got to do some programming, and that sucks. Yeah, I I get it, I understand it. It can be rough, it is uh tedious. Yes, it is tedious, and the thing is like now with hindsight, I know that that like you can be a game designer and marginally code, but at the time I don't know if that was true, but it's yeah, maybe not at the time, yeah. And and but uh by that point it was already foregone because I'd already just been bitten by acting so bad. I was like, oh good. I fortunately I found something else I want to do. But that presented a whole new problem, which is I am not good enough, uh, compared to just like in the like again, just the people in Sharpsburg, Georgia, not like uh you know a destination for theater or anything like that. So we had a community theater, uh Noonan Noonan Theater Company, uh still in operation. I think they just celebrated their 45th, maybe their 50th year of operation. And so I was like, okay, well, I'm out of high school, so I just gotta start getting roles. I was like enrolled at Georgia State, majoring in theater, trying to do everything I could to basically try to like catch up and kind of make up for lost time. Because it was not only did like my peers have at least uh uh high school theater under their belts, but a lot of them had been acting from before that. Um, and so I had auditioned for plays at my community theater, and they also had an improv troupe. So I was like, okay, so all of my peers are gonna be able to match me on rate for the number of plays done at one time because that's the it's the same schedule for everyone. So I'm only ever going to keep the gap the same. I'm never gonna be able to make any ground this way. So if I audition for this improv troupe, in addition to doing a play as often as I can, I'll be able to also do improv, which is just more theater. That's how I looked at

Joining the Knitwits

Drew 7:04

it.

Joel 7:04

Okay, yeah.

Drew 7:05

And so I joined the Knitwits. I auditioned for that the summer I got uh after I graduated high school, got in, and I did my Knitwits. Knitwits. What is it? And that's the improv troop? That's the improv troop. Uh the the the it's a it's an acronym. The formal, I believe, is uh Noonan Improv Troop with incredibly talented stooges. Whoa. Isn't it so cool when an acronym just works out? It just works, it's so good. The joke we would do is you would just make up a new thing every single time. My favorite is Noonan Improv Troop with improv troop suits. Uh I just like it. What is an improv troop suit? No one knows. Big fan. It's probably a flannel and Converse Chuck Taylor's. Uh, but yeah, so I joined that and we did every month. Uh I did my first one October of that year. My first improv show is October 2010. And we did a two-act, like hundred, 120-minute Who's Line short form style improv show every single month. Uh, during my tenure there, we eventually would expand that to we experimented doing uh a Friday night long form night and a Saturday night short form night. So I would be doing like two shows a week, both of them two acts. We did a show at the time, uh it was referred to me as the improv experiment. I now know it's the form of 4321, but that's like a long form narratives thing there. And then I did that for about six years while doing other plays. I was also in like uh 12 Angry Men and Fuddy Mears. I did some directing, all kinds of stuff. Um then in 2016.

How Improv Education Worked at a Community Theater

Joel 8:39

But before before we leave the community theater days, I'm so curious about okay. So you're in Knitwitz, and who is how was the education there? Like you're learning improv for the first time in this group.

Drew 8:54

Uh trial by fire, basically. It was not like formalized. So I was uh when I auditioned, uh, so their process was you would come into audition, there's a lot, you know, I think maybe 20 or so people, and so they're kind of uh doing big group games to the degree that they can. They're putting you in like some like party quirks kind of like stuff where they can explain to you the rules of the game and then you explain to you the rules of the game and then you can play it pretty well after that. Um, and then there was a two-month, I guess like a trial period, because uh impressed upon me there, they're like you can't really know like you can for a scripted show if an improv performer is good off of one audition because you're not really auditing their acting skill, you're auditing their what are your creative defaults? Where do you go instinctively when you're kind of put on the spot? And we and are you a good chemistry fit? Yeah, I uh improv auditions are tough, they're tricky, they're tricky, and you know, with during my time with them, I was I was able to be on both sides of it, and that's one of those things because it's like someone can be exceptionally funny, but they can just be a bad charisma fit. It's just like it's you are independently a hilarious performer, and you're hilarious in a way that's very excellent for you, but you aren't contributing to the broader group here, and that can both be an A, we are holding you back, you need more spotlight than you're gonna get as part of this group, or like you are funny in a way that's not uh uh collaborative. Yeah, like you are kind of locked in doing your own thing, and there's nothing for us to do, so we just kind of wait

The Tricky Nature of Improv Auditions

Drew 10:29

around.

Joel 10:29

There's a lot of layers to it, there's a lot of layers, and sometimes you're a talented performer and you're having an off day. Yeah.

Drew 10:36

Sometimes you're a great performer, but we already have your type. Like it's it's you have it, you have an excellent vibrant skill set, and we just have we have someone who does that exact kind of comedy. And it it it was kind of tricky. So it's it was, you know, uh for what limited theater I had going into it, you know, it's uh I I was very confident going into the audition. I won't uh you know me, I'm very much uh uh non-humble. Um but like I mean I was sort of I was still nervous going into it, but like it was it was a surprise to me that I had made it in. Um and I think maybe it it might have literally just been I had any theater background at all. And I have uh I would never use the phrase naturally funny, but I it's I I do jokes a lot, so understanding how to be funny comes very naturally to me. Cool. Um and going into it, I actually got uh my friend Daniel Powell, who uh still it still performs with the Knitwits, uh, and another friend of mine, I just didn't want to go alone, so I brought them with me. And that got my friend Daniel to start doing improv and he now still does it. So he and I caught the bug. Caught the bug. Well, thing is like he and I I met him in our drama class uh together. He's one of my best friends, and it's just very funny. Like it's we started doing improv like proper, like with a team, with a show at the same time, and he was there just because I'm like, I don't want to go to an audition by myself, I feel like a loser.

Understanding How to Be Funny vs. Being "Naturally Funny"

Joel 12:06

Wow. Uh yeah. That's so fascinating. Um, I have here some things that jumped out at me. Yeah. Understanding how to be funny. You're not naturally funny, but it takes understanding how to be funny. What is that? Can you elaborate on that?

Drew 12:21

Yeah, so I uh I have a I have a uh uh a chip on my shoulder about like natural comedy. I don't I don't I don't believe anyone is naturally funny, uh, in the sense that like you can be naturally uh I don't know like tall. You can be naturally fast or naturally predisposed, like run well, things like that. But humor, I don't I don't believe it's a thing uh and I I I should say for me I have always been told that in contexts where I don't think intentionally necessarily, but I think people are minimizing like the skill that I have like worked on in my life and the skills that they could themselves gain.

Joel 13:05

When someone says someone's naturally funny, yeah, it's like well, I worked at I had to learn and yeah, it's it's a skill that you learn.

Drew 13:12

Like, and like sometimes they are things that you pick up, right? Like, I know I may not be a natural chef, but if you work as a shorter to cook.

Joel 13:18

You're you're right. I don't think yeah, there's uh the cogs are turning here because I think you're right. Because if someone comes off naturally funny, they pick that up somewhere, yeah. Growing up, they pick up their humor, whether it was the household they lived in, they still learned it in their environment and became now they're just this yeah, well, it looks to be a naturally funny person.

Drew 13:41

Yeah, you don't sweat at it, but it's because it's you know, I'm I'm telling jokes in a low stress environment. Yeah, but it because that's the thing I always point to, because like it's I do not come from like a performer family, I am the only uh performing artist at the very least in my family period, and that's like inclusive of you know, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. I'm the only one of us who does you're the black sheep. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm the black sheep under the spotlight. Oh no. Uh and and so like as I don't have this like performer background. I don't have parents who like my parent, like when I told my mom I wanted to join the drama program, she was excited I wanted to be out of the house. She would have been equally excited if I decided thank god, get the hell out of it. It was more so she's like, Oh, you have an interest. Good.

Joel 14:28

Yeah, hooray. A packed lunch immediately appeared. She had one ready to go.

Drew 14:32

She's like, Okay, yeah, yeah. Anything you want to do, please go do it. Um, and so my my family were not comedians, they were not actors, but they were big fans of comedy. So like I would grow up uh around them. They would watch like Seinfeld and that 70 show and friends a lot. And so it was from an early age, I just learned, like, oh, my parents like to laugh, they smile. That that triggers the brain chemicals. Like we're we're wired to like when people smile at us. And so I learned early on that I could feel good if I could make people laugh. And it's just, oh yeah, you just kind of keep doing that as much as you can. That dopamine hit. That dopamine hit, you never, you never quite lose it. And so it's one of those things, and like it's I'm very uh, I think I I would describe myself as functionally comedy illiterate. Like I've read very little. Function say that again? Functionally comedy illiterate. Literally, I uh meaning like I don't I have not read very many like books on the thing that I do. Got it, got it, got it. Um, I've read very little like theory on comedy. Uh I've obviously I talk about it quite often. Um but like I don't have like a uh an academic understanding of it. It's literally just I know what I have done over you know, since I could talk, essentially. Um but yeah, yeah, that that's kind of where I am like the the the natural of it. And so for me, it's part of why when I started going like I want to act, I was like, okay, I just I need to do it as much as I can because I'm gonna learn a bunch that way. I'm just gonna, you know, trial by error, try stuff out, have people tell me what I'm doing that's not working, what I'm doing that is working, and kind of keep trying it

You Don't Need Books to Learn Improv, But They Help

Drew 16:09

that way.

Joel 16:09

I I love that. And I I love that you bring up that you didn't educate yourself like academically with books on anything. Um I love I love reading an improv book. Um this whole shelf here, this bottom one is is improv and acting stuff that I've only dug into, you know, a quarter of at this point. And working my way through, but like I love I don't think it's mandatory. No, it's uh obviously not. Um there's many paths to learn any skill.

Drew 16:41

I think the thing is like it is, I mean, it is like a uh a speed boost, you can think of it that way, right? Because like it's I was I'm currently working through I got three improv books for Christmas, uh I think a year or two ago that I'm working through. And um the the Halpern Del Close comedy one that basically just tells you how to do the hero. Truth and comedy. Truth and comedy. Uh like going through it, uh, you know, I I I did find myself kind of going really quickly over a lot of it because there are things that I have through doing improv already picked up. Yeah, sure. But it it and so a lot of it is kind of like oh like going over stuff, but there are, you know, there are presentations of ideas that are new. Yes. Yeah, there are uh reflections on stuff. There's also just how other people see the same ideas that we're both having worked through that still has a merit.

Joel 17:32

Something I I've said to people before is even out of the whatever amount of improv books I read already, yeah, there's a lot of repeated ideas and concepts, but sometimes one author or writer words something in a way that makes that thing click, yeah, or words it in a way that's like, oh, that's a beautiful way to describe that. I can I can use that in my classrooms to help explain this thing.

Drew 17:59

It's a it's a less like, or a lot of times it's like, oh, that's so much of a cleaner approach to this. I don't have to work as hard to articulate that idea anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Uh and and we'll uh when we get to when we get to the the part of my biography where I get to Atlanta circle, we'll put a pin on that because that's a thing that got that that's a big deal about why I came up here. Okay, okay. Um, but yeah, so and and that was all a lot of like with Nitwits, because it was like, you know, I I got through the trial program, they assigned me uh one of the established ensemble members, they're like, hey, this is like your go-to person. You can ask any of us anything during rehearsals or what have you, but if you have like intensive long-form questions and maybe it's socially it's hard for you to take up this much space in a rehearsal, here's your delegated like ensemble member, and they're here to answer any given thing that you have. Any questions?

Joel 18:45

Interesting.

Drew 18:46

Uh Sarah Petrowski, uh still a good friend of mine, excellent improviser. Uh, does like work with like uh uh with medical nonprofits to try to get uh healthcare. Yeah, it like oh yeah. Uh you know, I I care very deeply about the improv that we do. Far more important work, broadly speaking. Yeah, uh crucial. But it again, it's one of those things, and this is about like, you know, we'll touch on this deeper in the Atlanta scene. The other scene is full of people who are doing like mind-blowing work and then also are incredibly spontaneously funny. Um, but yeah, that process was uh it would be the first hour. So it was like on Saturdays, we'd meet up from two to five, and from two to three, our new members were there, we were part of the rehearsal, and then from three to five was the ensemble's rehearsal. So I could stay and watch to kind of pick up more info. Um, but I I wouldn't be like on stage with them because they were preparing for the shows and such. And so there were a couple shows, and then I did my first one there in October. But that, I mean, education was as much as hey, here are the rules of this game, go up and do it, and then we'll note like uh I mean very technical as to how to play the short form games, things like hey, with party quirks, uh, you know, try to have a character be easy to pick up on, uh, try to, you know, uh, you know, not speak over stuff, like very kind of technical, get your feet under you type of notes. Yeah but also kind of trial by fire. There was no like lecture

The Improv Experiment: Drew's First Taste of Long Form Narrative

Drew 20:16

portion.

Joel 20:16

The short form games since they have rules and structure, they're easy to teach. I'm I'm curious. Okay, so when you were doing long form there, how did what philosophy did they lean on, or what were the tools there? This is a whole deal. Okay.

Drew 20:28

So this is this is maybe it might be literally the first summer after. So this might be 2011, is how soon this happens.

Joel 20:37

So I love I love your memory of the years.

Drew 20:40

I can't, I don't think I can recall anything by years. It's uh well and mind my mind is on occasion like a steel trap. It it is like a it is like a refurbished steel trap.

Joel 20:51

I love how we're listening I'm I'm excited to listen back to this to be like it was 20, it was 20 this, it was 20, it was 2017, in 2019, yeah.

Drew 21:04

I think about my own self a lot. Uh so I've had a lot of time to get the years right. Gotcha. Um, but in 2011, so nitwits would always take the summers off. Uh, and that was one to give themselves a break, and then within the uh within the community theater schedule, it was a necessity. So at least in like the 2010s, Noonan Theater Company was doing something in the neighborhood of like 16 productions a year. 16? Yeah, like scripted productions. We were we uh the what was told to me, I never fact-checked this, but what was told to me is that we were matching the production output of full professional theaters in terms of just number of shows per year.

Joel 21:45

That's insane.

Drew 21:46

Yeah, it was it was a again, kind of very fortunate and very random because like Noon in Georgia, Cowita County is not known broadly as like a theater haven. But if you if if you were like me and your goal was to do it. As much theater per day as you could. Yeah, that's the place. This is the place to do it. And so their summer programming was they would have a regular show, and there was a there were youth camps and uh there was a program started there when the artistic director was Paul Conroy, who now is the artistic director of Outfront Theater up here in Atlanta and founded it. But it was a uh I believe that's ages 16 to 21. And it was a program targeted at shows that are really good shows for like teenagers and young adults to do, but that public schools are very loath to put on. I see. So notably, like, I mean, we did Avenue Q one year. So it's a show that a lot of kids that age are big fans of, but you're never gonna find a school that's gonna let you do that. And so like Nitwoods would take those off to do those, which was convenient because I would often audition for and be in those. So like I did like Love's Labor's Lost that way, I did You're in Town that way. Wow.

Joel 23:00

Um Wow, I didn't know that you were in so many plays and musicals.

Drew 23:04

I gotta, I gotta, I I am uh it's one of those things that I uh, you know, I I think helps me a lot in the theater in the improv scene now is just I have like years and years and years and years of trad theater.

Joel 23:17

Well well, now that you mention it, I can sense in just like visualizing your improv play style, I can see the theater aspects like in your body, like the way you move on stage. Yep, the way you don't hover at the back line like most improvisers do use step and just like I can definitely see that.

Drew 23:34

I will I will step downstage and deliver a line straight to the audience. No improviser, ain't no one in the scene doing it like me. Uh but it's it's one of those things, it's just it's you know, you do a couple plays and it's just like, oh hey, the staging of this scene is important. That's a way you can communicate other narrative ideas. Um, and that's a thing I picked up and just tried theater. And it's the thing I was doing when I was, you know, playing short form games because it's you know, in in party quirks as a common example, is one a lot of people are gonna be familiar with. When I'm not the weird character the host is interacting with, I still need to be doing stuff, I still need to be embodying the character. And that's a lot of skills I picked up from doing regular theater. Uh, but in summer 2011, I think it might have been 2012, it was in my first couple years, so it was early. I had already gotten the bug of like uh the the kind of seed of the idea of I'm like, I'm doing these plays and I'm doing this improv stuff. Why are these why are these this far apart? Why can't I just do this scripted play that I'm doing off the dome? Like, why can't I just do both at once? Um, because I'm currently just doing both, and so that's kind of the seat of it. And they had pitched us uh improv experiment. They had done it the year before, but I was so new, I wasn't eligible for it. Uh and they were like, all right, so Knitwitz is taking a sabbatical, but for those of us who are still around for the summer and want to do this, this is what we're doing. And so for people who are uh more improv literate, uh Dad's runs this as super scene. Uh it's on like the improv encyclopedia as a 4321. But it was a series of uh four two-prof scenes, all based around a theme. The audience would vote uh by applause on two of those, those would continue, and then at intermission, you would vote on one of them, and then that scene and that narrative, those characters would get all of act two. Uh at the time, I'm like, oh, this is mind-blowing. It's so experimental, because all I've done is who's line this whole time. So I'm like, oh, this is crazy. And so I get to the first rehearsal, and maybe not to blow up my my my home team's spot or anything, I guess, but I voiced this complaint at the time also. And so I mean I'm like 19. Uh, so we had eight themes and we were rehearsing them, and it was and it was said in rehearsal, it's like, all right, uh, whenever we do in here, that's probably what this pair of actors is gonna do at the show. And I'm like, that's antithetical to the improv that we do. Uh, and I mean, on one hand, I was correct because you're pre-planning to some degree. On the other hand, you know, you're not memorizing lines. So I think I think I was a bit harsher than than I would be now, though now I would mostly be more jockey about it. I'm like, what, you're too scared, you can't do improv on the night. Um yeah, because you're known as a as a jock. As a jock.

Joel 26:25

You're known as like this brutish, yeah. I'm I'm gonna have a bully.

Drew 26:29

I always wear that varsity jacket. It's like way too hot right now to wear it, and I still do. Um, and so we'd rehearsed it. I had done one uh because I had dragged Daniel along to this. And a funny thing about Daniel and I, as a as a pair, uh he extremely hilarious. I think uh most people in our friend group would say that he's funnier than me. I don't think so.

Joel 26:49

But wow, we I've taken advantage of this podcast to just debunk, debunk the rumor for all the listeners.

Drew 27:01

I think I'm funny in a different way than Daniel is. I think Daniel's more of a crowd pleaser than me. We we have very sympatico styles because we are not the same type of performer, even though I think a lot of people would say that we are extremely similar. Uh, but in our acting history, uh, funnily enough, it's I got I got a reputation very early as just being a strong comedic actor. And so getting comedic roles came very easily to me, which meant that the only thing I wanted was dramatic roles. Because I'm like, I get to do comedy and I know I can do it. And my whole deal my whole deal was I want to get good at this, and so I don't want to keep doing things I already know I can do. Daniel would get dramatic roles like it was nothing against his will. He hates doing dramatic roles, does not like doing dramatic theater, and they would throw them at his feet and he'd be like, Yeah, I guess I'd rather be just throwing pies and stuff. And so it's it's a luxury that whenever I do get to perform with Daniel, we have completely opposite comedy approaches because I love a really long, drawn-out, slow burn. And Daniel loves pies to the face. Like we we uh we historically hilarious, historically hilarious, honking cat horns, can't go wrong, loves it, and it's one of those things that balances because it's I can be way too self-serious, and that gets in the way of some of my comedy. And Daniel can be exhausting, like I love him, and I have an infinite well for him, but not everybody does. And you can get a little bit you're like, I need to breathe for a second. Can you quit throwing a pie? And he'll go, no, and here's another one. Uh, and so it's a good balancing act, but I dragged him to it, and he did not like IE at all. He was like, This is because we were also instructed like this can be a bit more serious, a bit more dramatic. And he's like, Why? Who cares? None of this matters. Uh, and so one of the rehearsals he had just he like he was just like, Hey, I can't make it to this one. I learned after the fact because he was hoping that by missing a rehearsal, he would be DQ'd from the show and not just have to tell me his friend he didn't want to do it. Uh, and so in that one, I ended up doing a monologue in place of doing a two-pro for that one, which is still one of my favorite things I've ever done. Wow. Uh, I had just gone through the monologue. Yes. Uh it's really just kind of a solo prov scene. Um, but it's I had just gone through this in real life, but I was uh I did my opening scene as somebody who was rehearsing in front of the mirror to go break up with somebody. And so they were going through all of the stages of meeting at the coffee shop, pulling the chairs out, and doing that. And it was just kind of one taking a real life experience and putting that directly onto the stage was like a big like, oh, that's a thing you get to do in improv like this frictionlessly. Uh, and getting to play dramatically and with improv at the same time, it kind of ticked a lot of things and started a lot of stuff for me. Um, we did I.e. twice, and uh I I'll go into this off the record what the actual show was, but basically, on the second night of it, uh Daniel had a character that had huge it had a huge audience response. It was pretty tactless, it was a pretty uh raunchy or uh raunchy and poor taste. I think a lot of people misidentified what the joke was, but I can see how it's a bit out there. And just to clarify, when you say off the record, you want this part not in the podcast? Me talking about it, I'm just not gonna say what the specific scene

The Night the Show Got Cancelled and What Drew Learned

Drew 30:36

was.

Joel 30:36

Oh, okay. Okay, I see what you're saying.

Drew 30:41

But it it's a thing I will talk about like in regular conversation.

Joel 30:43

I've never had anyone say off the record. So in a in a podcast, I always like, wait, is this a should I know? Should I know about what's the what's the process here? How do I go off the record? Okay, go ahead. I'm throwing I'm thrown into the record. Everything's on the record, everything is very on the record. I'm gonna have a waiver for podcasting.

Drew 31:00

Everything's like on the everything I say into the microphone is fair use. I will self-edit things that can't be on it. Um, but it the by the rules of the show, the audience votes what they want to see, which means you are you have any. This is another thing that's kind of this is the first time when I had to lock this in. Part of the improv contract with the audience is hey, I'm not going to let you self-select for the entertainment you want to see by preparing it in advance and marketing that. I'm gonna just ask you what you want to see, and I'm gonna get your input on what I'm doing to kind of align what we both want, like what I want to do and what you want to see. The obligation then is that I'm giving you in the audience some control over what I do. Not absolute. I think you still, as an artist, want to kind of create uh what you want to create, but ultimately the audience rules in that scenario. You were performing for them, and so in that show, the audience voted for that narrative. We did it, and then people at Intermission got all in a huff about what was happening, and then they ended up doing a mediocre and annoying and very like bad second half of the show that was in opposition to what the audience had been getting up to that point, and after this, they no longer do that show, they they don't do the show anymore after that. And I think that's probably the right call because I don't think that the ethos is there, but it's one of those things that kind of locked a couple things in for me because like I uh not being in that duo, not in being in that kind of starting seed, I went on like, look, the thing people are mad at is not what the actual joke of this is. It's like the, you know, I mean, uh, we we could describe it by metaphor as like this is actually a very smart fart joke that's happening, and you're getting mad that farts are involved. And it's like, I get that. I get that farts are a little uh scatological and whatnot, but you're not actually engaging with what's happening here, and maybe that's asking too much for this kind of show, but you then can't do I think if the audience is like we want that show. You can't then in act two functionally scold them for it at that point, just don't give them the option. That was i that was like my first that was my first taste of like long form narrative. Okay. Uh the one before that, interesting, because we did two nights of it. The one before that, my big thing was I really resented uh uh preparing one so conveniently the night before, Daniel and I got paired, and this was the theme from the time he wasn't there. So not only would he and I just not have regurgitated an idea, we couldn't because we didn't rehearse that one together. And so we did this, uh we did this narrative where my character, this was like an idea I'd written in a book uh that I was like writing in high school, but my character had been been given or been part of a government experiment to uh test out immortality. Basically, government had figured out immortality, but they were like, people might not do good stuff if they can live forever. So we're gonna test batch it and see what they do. And so the inciting scene is me going to my friend Daniel and going, like, hey, so to live forever, I have to do a brand new good deed every year, and I've run out of ideas for new good deeds. I've already walked old ladies across the street, I've already done charitable stuff, I don't know what new thing to do, and if I don't come up with something, I'm gonna die. And so I'm like, I need you to help me find something new, good to do. And we kind of explored that. And my character was on this arc of well, if I'm just kind of living to do a new thing to live another year, am I even living? My whole life is now revolving around getting one more year. I don't even feel alive anymore, I don't think it's worth it. And then Daniel's arc was like, Well, you shouldn't be doing charity for cynical reasons. And so we had this really deep kind of philosophical heart of it that we got to explore, and so that's one of the ones that I like more so than the reason the show got functionally cancelled. Uh, I think about that a lot because that was an emergent storyline we were able to create just off the top of our heads, and that was like less than a year in to doing

Leaving Knitwits and the Three-Year Improv Gap

Drew 35:26

improv.

Joel 35:26

That was less than a year in.

Drew 35:28

Yeah, so that would have been if I started October of 2010, that would have been like eight, nine months into doing improv.

Joel 35:34

So then once you're out of knitwitz and you're looking for some more improv, what where do you go? Like how how do you continue your education and classes and performing?

Drew 35:46

So I uh in the 2010s, I think 2014, 2015, uh Whole World Theater had this program where they would invite local community like troops to open their like uh Tuesday, Wednesday night show. Uh I think it might have been their Thursday show. And so we would we would do one of the hours, their ensemble would do the other one. And so I got my taste of like oh Atlanta improv. Um I was not very impressed. Uh but uh at that time, at that time, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it but it's like we came up and like I was it, I guess mostly I was I was it should it's more accurate to say I was uh it helped me have a barometer for where I felt like we were at as like a Noonan community improv troupe because we were going up to an audience like this is not our regular fan base, this is not our regular crowd, and we are crushing up here. And I thought it was going to be a lot harder

Why Atlanta Theaters Don't Give You a Path to Audition

Drew 36:45

than that.

Joel 36:45

And when you were saying you're seeing stuff that you're not impressed by, what kind of what kind of things were you seeing? Uh why weren't you impressed by it at that time?

Drew 36:53

Uh I mean it I I functionally thought of Atlanta's theater scene as equivalent to like, oh, it's like I'm going from doing my community theater production of Death of a Salesman, and now we're going up and we're opening for a Broadway group. That's functionally how I thought of it. And so I expected to be like, man, I thought I was funny, but these people are just like absolutely demolishing. And they just weren't. Uh, I mean, uh to two like performer by performer. I uh I mean I'm uh very cocky and kind of uh uh uh uh self-confident is maybe a more charitable read, but I'm I'm a self-confident performer, and so I definitely was like, oh, I could be up here, I could be on these stages. I could I could be a performer in Atlanta based on who I am seeing who is up here. Yeah. And so it's I guess it's maybe the the the kind of uh uh bullyish way to say it is that I wasn't impressed. I think maybe the the more charitable read is that I was I can I can do this. I wasn't intimidated in a way I thought I would be. Um and so we did that, I think we did that twice. We did that twice over two years, and then in 2016, internally, I had been pushing for the knit wits to expand into some longer form programming because I wanted to do more stuff with narrative, and there was some resistance there that I didn't fully understand because I'm like, none of us are there's I didn't see there as being any risk because I'm like, none of us are paying anything with this, we're doing this for free. Uh we have nothing to lose. Why don't people just want to try stuff? Uh and then I had pitched us in a meeting, I was like, uh, why don't we try to book our group at other venues and then take any money that would make and just funnel that back to the theater? And like maybe we pay for our travel expenses, but then we just go out and do that, and people are just kind of like, nah. And so now I now I have more of the stance of like improv doesn't have to be everybody's singular driving like goal. Not everyone does this because they want it to be their career. Some people like to kill time on a Saturday in a way that's pro-social and fun. At the time, I was like, no one here understands that like no one here wants to move in the ways that I want to move, and so I'm now uh hitting a wall and hitting a ceiling as what I can do in this theater. And then financially, my job was offering me full time, and they were gonna take my Saturdays, and so I was like, I need the money, this group isn't moving in a direction I want to move anymore. I have to stop doing improv. And so I did. I didn't do I did not I did not do a regular improv performance for three years from 2016 to 2019. Um, I had uh I had looked up uh because I'd heard of Dad's Garage Theater, because some of our troop members would go up and see that. And so I was I went to their website and I was looking up auditions because I was like, I now think I'm good enough to be on Atlanta Stages, I just need to know how do I do that? How do I get on stage? And wouldn't you know, don't not none of these theaters, still today, but also then, and also when I came to Atlanta, give you a way to just a path to a path to audition. And you know, maybe I was wrong, and like this is also a thing I thought at the time. I'm like, maybe I audition and I'm not good enough, but at least then I'll get feedback and I'll know what to do. But I'm like, just let me audition. And then I saw like in on dad uh uh on dads in particular on their website, they're like, uh, how do I get on stage? Like, well, you know, if you take classes and you're around, we kind of pull from our community. And I read that, I'm like, I don't have a thousand dollars to spend on you know five levels of classes, all this time to drive up to Atlanta to just hang out for the opportunity to maybe, and I'm like, then I'm like, what am I doing? Am I just seeing a show? How are you gonna know if I'm a good improviser if I'm just hanging out? Like, how are you getting to know me? Yeah, it's all it's it's the smoke in mirrors, the whole deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, and so and I got real resentful, real, real big mad about it. Sure.

Joel 41:05

And so a lot of people do.

Starting a Podcast to Stay Creative Without a Stage

Drew 41:07

Yeah, a lot yeah, a lot of people still do, and I and I hear it. Because I mean it's at the time, especially I was like, I just want to go and and like try, and if I'm not good enough, I want to know that. But it as I'm seeing it, I'm gonna have to go and kind of bump around for months, years, waste of my time. So I didn't. Uh I would still do like plays at my community theater on occasion, uh, but I didn't do really much of any improv until I started the podcast. So pretty rapidly I started to get the itch. I'm like, I need to be doing something creative. I want to make Andrew's, you're talking about your own podcast that you created at that time. Yes. Uh, this was Why This Not That, a show that is almost designed to not do well on the internet. Uh, Daniel and I, because I want to do something, and Daniel's kind of my go-to creative outlet, especially at this time, uh, because I'm like, he just gets what I want to do creatively. Um, and we uh we eventually we do we start doing a movie review show. It was called Dandrew Reviews the Classics. Daniel has very little patience for classic movies, and I love causing Daniel psychic damage. So we would we rolled a dice, went to the classic films thing on Rotten Tomatoes, we would review classic movies. Uh we were so we are still supposed to have reviewed, I believe it's uh uh what's the one that's got rosebud? Uh American Beauty. No, no, no, no, no. Uh Rosebud's the sled. Oh, Rosebud's Sledge the Orson Wells. Oh. Citizen Kane. Okay. I have made what I have made Daniel watch Citizen Kane to uh for an episode of a podcast we have never recorded. I have still never seen it. He hates it. He is so mad about it. Uh, but we did that, that kind of didn't pan out, and then we did a show called Why This Not That, and that's mostly an improv debate show where I would pitch Daniel on a decision between two things that he did and a context in which he made the decision, and he would then justify it. And then he would do that back and forth to me. We did about 10 questions-ish per episode, and we did that for like 80. We had audience submit questions along themes and stuff, and it was just yeah, really fun, uh, really good kind of logic puzzles to kind of set each other up for uh and just a way to continue to do something creative while I didn't have like an improv home.

Trying Stand-Up and Why the Math Didn't Work

Joel 43:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause it because it sounds like okay, this is during the gap. So you're dipping your toes back into improv adjacent things. Yeah, maybe not on stage. Maybe not on stage.

Drew 43:37

Yeah, exactly. And I'm around this time I'm also like I'm trying stand-up. So I started doing stand-up, uh like laughing skull and such. Um what year? What year are we in? Uh uh here we are we are 20. So we've got to build out the timeline. Yeah, yeah, we're we're we're like early 2015 through late 2016. Um I can't we're still 10 years away from right now. From right now. Uh I uh during the I get put I get booked for uh a paid stand up gig up in Buford. On the way back home, I blow my tire uh from that. I'm booked on uh what what ultimately killed me doing stand up because I was doing fairly well um was just the time investment to stage time. I was commuting to Atlanta to do open mics, and so that's like an hour and a half round trip to do five minutes of stage time. Just the math does not math there, unless like maybe I'm if I'm a generational talent and I get discovered very quickly, but uh I was good, I was not that good. Um, and then I get uh I did get booked for a best of uh open mic, laughing skull like book show. Um, but it was I did that show, it was on like Father's Day weekend or something like that, and I didn't know anyone in the crowd, and I'm like, oh, I just don't think this is for me. I'm not getting enough stage time for how much work I'm having to do. I know how that equation works for improv. I don't think I'm gonna stick with this. I'm glad I did it because the stand-up scene, those people are hustlers, they are really grinding. Gotta grind, gotta grind. Uh but yeah, so this I did that, and then I was doing this uh this improv podcast to kind of buoy me creatively through those few years. Um and then in 2019, uh around that time I'd gotten an IT job, so I was making more money, which meant that affording improv classes was just literally on the table for me. Yeah. And I had swallowed my pride a little. Uh the big thing for me, I was like, well, I it's they don't have auditions, and I am mad about that, and that does bother me. But ultimately, I can either sit here and continue to be mad about it and make no headway, yeah, or I can try it their way and see what happens. Go do classes and just hang around. And just hang around. And so

Coming Back to Atlanta: Swallowing Pride and Taking Level One

Drew 45:46

it's I had taken and I and I was like, I'm gonna take level one. If I'm really gonna try to do this, right, like it's I know the basics. And so that was the other thing, is like I don't feel like I should need to take classes, I know how to do improv already. But I'm like, I'm going to try to do this in the best faith that I can. So it's I'm gonna relearn, and I think there's some value in relearning even the basics from some from an educator. And I mean, like my first class, my first class literally was uh subbed in by Tommy Futch, R I P to a legend. Uh taught me what is it, uh, alien tiger cow, learned that from Tommy Futch. And immediately I was like, these are things I already instinctively know. I know how to deliver an offer, I know to make sure it's read, but hearing it, it's the it's the wax on, wax off, Mr. Miyagi kind of stuff. It's the I'm teaching you these motions again because now you're seeing why I think it's important, which is different from why you think it's important, if you can even articulate a reason why you think it's important. You might not, you might just accept it. But I'm gonna instruct you in a way that teaches you why this kind of stuff matters. Uh, and that was how like I made it into Atlanta, because I didn't I took levels one through five, just one after the other after the other after the other. Back to back. Back to back. Cool, all the way until uh COVID uh cut my level five in half. Oh yeah, okay, cut it in half. Yeah, so I did half in person and then half we were doing uh a scandal, and we did that part over Zoom. Yeah, yeah.

Joel 47:12

Okay, so you went through the five levels and we're in 2020 pandemic. Now there's another break in improv.

Drew 47:18

Yes, there's another break in improv. I had like right before that happened, I had auditioned before and got into a scripted show over at Village Theater. We had our opening night, and then night two we closed due to the pandemic, and then we lost the run due to the pandemic. Um, I had met a lot of people through taking classes and going to gyms and stuff, and then yeah, we just had COVID. Um, I had done some people had sprouted up. People try Zoom Prov, and a lot of people dismiss webcam improv out of hand, and there's some validity in that. My big thing is I think that there weren't enough people who were trying to adapt to the form they were taking. They knew how to do improv on a stage, they did not know how to do it on screen, and they weren't trying anything. Yeah, and so a lot of people dismiss it categorically. I do think a lot of the shows weren't very good, but like uh uh Caleb Houston had a show that was uh ghost court, which its format worked very well uh for the screen. Uh there were a couple people starting new shows during that, so I was doing a little bit of that and then struggling emotionally. I was like, I can't get to the stage. Yeah. Like it, it really was damaging to me emotionally, and it did part of that, my kind of you know, in searching for something out of it, was like, oh, I actually do think that like more than just I like doing this as a hobby and as a passion, I literally do think I need to be involved in it because now I've seen what it's like when I like not only just don't do it, I can't. Like, I'll have a want to go see a show if nothing else, and I then there aren't any. Uh, and so then as soon as things were opening back up, I was kind of like really hungry to get back at it. Yeah, yeah.

Zoom Improv and Struggling Without a Stage

Joel 48:57

I'm probably missing that human connection too. That was my and my whole friend group, basically. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that time was hard for a lot of people. Um okay, so out of the pandemic. Yep. So we come out. Let's f fast forward. Fast forward when do you

Medieval ER, Village Theater, and Finding an Ensemble

Joel 49:12

find it again?

Drew 49:12

Yeah, uh, we're we're out of the pandemic, and I think the big thing is 2022. Uh I I catch a story for an audition from Medieval ER at Village Theater. I catch it early enough that I can call out of work that day to go to the audition. Uh, because like I'm going to jams and stuff, but the scene's kind of like still shaking dust off. Yeah, sure. Um and I I and the jam at that time what was just roll call? Uh there's roll call jam. There there was the dynamic afters jam, like the the mining for gold era. Uh the dad jam was still Tuesday, Wednesday, it was still hopping. Um some of that was pre-COVID stuff as well. So a lot of that stuff was like coming back. Yeah. But there wasn't the the community was kind of like in disarray. It was not very unified.

Joel 49:55

Yeah.

Drew 49:56

Um, and so I caught that they were having auditions. I was like, that's exactly what I'm looking for. It's auditions for an improv show. Great. I auditioned for that. Crush it. I'm so good at improv. Do it. Do well enough to get invited back. I get a call back to do that, and then I'm in for at least that show. And that eventually turns into me being invited to join the ensemble of village theater. Um, I'm also at that time, I got a Dad's Garage was gracious enough to offer us who had our level five uh vivisected by COVID. We got a voucher to take another level five again for free, which was excellent. So I did that. Oh, cool. So I signed up to basically retake that class. Um, mostly just because I'm like, yeah, I want to be around people who are in a level five. I want to do that again. Um, and I'm doing uh Medi R uh at Village Theater, which is an exceptional show. Um fun show, yeah. Love uh Ginny Holden to death. Really credit her a lot with like uh Ginny Holden and there's a couple people like that, like yourself, Ginny Holden, Fiona Campbell, uh Madeline Evans, who like when I talk to them about improv and like how seriously we all take it, I feel less insane. Because it's I I think we accept people who take theater seriously, but taking improv in particular seriously. Yeah, there's something there.

Joel 51:18

I don't know why that resonates so hard. Yeah. It's like, oh, okay.

Drew 51:23

I am I am less crazy for caring this much. Um, and because essentially, you know, post-COVID, I didn't know what the scene was gonna look like. I didn't know what this what the what the yeah, like what it was gonna be. And then Mediar is a show, like she did so much like dramaturgy of like, here's the time period we're gonna be in, here is the approach to medicine, so that we have this like firm bedrock for the comedy we're going to do. And here are like the character archetypes of the time. Like it's we want to do improvisation and silly off the cuff stuff, but we also want the show to feel like what it is because that's what's identifiable about this show. Um and into that run, I had booked uh the first elevator pit show. Um I had also I'm so bad at my own timeline. I talked about caring about myself a lot. Uh also in this interim, I had founded an improv troupe at Southside Theater Guild in Fairburn. Uh and uh uh and there's a whole like improv murder mystery thing that my community theater did. Glossed over those entirely because I'm an amateur. So much, so much stuff. But a lot of that is like uh the kind of shorthand with both of those is the improv murder mysteries were long form narrative stuff, uh multi-stage, so very kind of difficult productions, but they also had a focus on new performers, so it's about making it approachable. And it was a lot of like you can do this, we have your back on the netting of stuff, and even though you're new to this form, you know your character, you know where you're supposed to be, you know what your motivations are, you just don't know your lines, and you're gonna be able to practice to get to knowing your lines. This is Fairburn, the Fairburn thing you're talking about. This is the murder mysteries in particular, uh at Noon and Theater. Okay. Uh, and so in and so in that like I got to see that process of like, you're new, you're new to this, you're shaking off a lot, but this is so attainable for you to do. At Fairburn, I was their first artistic director, uh, the Southside sidekick. You were an artistic director. I was the artistic director for it. What the heck? It was a it was a strange scenario where I was in a room and I rapidly realized for the first time in my life.

Joel 53:30

I I love that you gloss over.

Drew 53:33

Forgot this entirely. You gloss over that you're an artistic director at uh somewhere. Yeah. Uh we were in the room talking about forming an improv troupe, and for the first time ever in like my life, I learned I it I it came to me that I had the most improv experience in the room. I had never been the most experienced in the room on any axis about anything ever. And so it was surreal for me to sit there and be like, oh, I I should take the reins a bit here because I know more about the thing we're talking about than other people here. Um, and so we were most of that team, most of those performers were absolutely brand new. Uh timeline-wise, this is 20 uh 2018-2019. Um and uh there was a push and pull where what they wanted to do was a who's line style show. I artistically was over it. I had been doing that for six years. I didn't want to do those anymore. I wanted to experiment with the form a bit. Um, but my performers were new. They wanted something comfortable, they wanted something that was, you know, not super demanding while they were still learning their skill sets. And so I developed some kind of medium forms that kind of met them during that. And then pretty shortly after that, you know, I was getting pulled up to do stuff more and more in Atlanta, and I was butting heads a lot with theater leadership who wanted things like uh I was very adamant about I want a limited cast, I want like a 10-person troupe to start. Uh 10 is limited? 10 is limited. There was there were bigger uh I was running I was running workshops for upwards of like 30 people uh whenever we were kind of getting the the process off the ground. So these were like But those weren't teams, those weren't troops, were they? No, it was it was it was an open invite, it's part of the community thing. We're like, hey, we're starting improv here. I'm gonna on a Sunday, I'm gonna run a workshop. It's from this time to this time. If you want to be part of it, show up. And there were like 30 plus people running workshops, we're

Butting Heads with Theater Leadership About Casting Improv

Drew 55:33

teaching them short form games, stuff like that. And my argument was I'm like, look, if we're building a team, something that's gonna be a recognizable like troupe that performs regularly, you need that to be a more limited amount of people who can grow and collaborate together and find some artistic unified voice in that. The theater was like, we're a community theater, we don't want there to be all these barriers. We don't want to tell people no, they can't get on stage. And I was like, I don't think that you respect improv as a part of theater because you don't tell this to anyone who casts a play. Wow. When you cast a play, you accept that you're you were button heads. I was button heads, and I was right. Uh uh like it was one of those things where like I can see it's it's again, it's a it's a cycle of this. I take this thing very seriously, and even in the broader theater world, not a lot of people do. But I'm like, it's at the baseline. Ultimately, I'm like, hey, if you want this to be completely open to anybody at any time, then you simply have a lower ceiling for the quality you're expecting this to be than I'm expecting this to have a floor that is north of that ceiling and then go up from there. Um, and I had the luxury of like, well, I'm already I'm you know, auditioning for him now on the ensemble of this other theater. We can all see where this is going to go. I'll take a step back, let people run this. And they still run to this day, they do excellent shows. They are an incredible, incredible group of people. The Southside Sidekicks is the troop at Southside Theater Guild is the theater. Okay. Also celebrating the 45th or in Fairburn, Georgia, near like the Rinfair is and stuff. Okay. Um so I did all that. And then we're bridging back to To Village. Yeah. Um, and so I get on the ensemble at Village, and that's kind of a run. That's the first time I'm like, oh, there's a show every single week that I basically opt into or opt out of doing. Cool. Um, I get to do that very regularly, get to collaborate with people. Uh Village Theater tragically closes. Um uh as unfortunately as a lot of theater institutions do, um, especially in Atlanta. And I like we are kind of we have a big blowout show that's very nice. Uh, you know, a lot of lot of stuff happens as we're like vacating the space. We exist as a theater company, basically as a troop for some time after that. Um I uh and I guess for the record, Village Theater has a long history before I join it. I think it had expensive around for like 15 years or so before I had it around that long. Yeah, I think it's like around 2010, maybe a little bit before.

Village Theater Closes and the Freelance Producer Era Begins

Joel 58:06

Wow.

Drew 58:06

Um, but yeah, it definitely has a long history before I'm a part of it. Um but it it closes, we're kind of a trooper bouncing around different venues, but essentially it's just the workload of building a troop from the ground up is more than what a lot of the ensemble at that point was like willing to had the bandwidth for do, and it eventually closes after that. Um, and then I'm kind of where I'm at now. So uh in the wake of that, I think there's like one September post I still like to look at pretty often where from my independent production and producing for Village, I produce 14 shows in a single month. Is that your record? Uh in a month, yes. Wow.

Joel 58:46

14 shows in a month. 14 shows in a month. Wait, what? Yes. Mm-hmm. Because that's one every other every like Thursday that Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and there's still multiple.

Drew 58:59

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Uh and so that's the most I have uh ever done in a single month. Only probably beaten by my 2025, where my final count was I produced 96 shows that year.

Joel 59:13

Yeah, and what the uh listeners don't know is that you you have in analytics, you can track your analytics in a dashboard. Yeah, I track like coded your own improv analytics system. Yeah, and you keep track of your numbers, your sales, your historical data. Yeah, all you can reference. That's why that's why Drew's so good at knowing the years, because he's been analyzing his performance, his improv performance since nitwits, he's been keeping track of.

Drew 59:39

I have KPIs I have to answer for, and they're very important. Yeah, yet to yourself. Yes. I I go to board meetings where I play all the parts. I'm very good at solo brev.

Joel 59:47

Yeah.

Drew 59:48

Yeah. Uh and like in that interim, I start, you know, uh Elevator Pitch, as I mentioned, um, Golden Egg Incubator is probably my most popular show now.

Joel 59:56

Yeah, that's uh that's on my list. I want to get to Golden Egg and talk

Atlanta's Go-To Freelance Improv Producer

Joel 1:00:00

about that show.

Drew 1:00:00

Yeah, now I'm uh I I mean the shorthand, I guess, is I'm I am kind of Atlanta's go-to freelance producer, I would probably say, with a little bit of pride in the message.

Joel 1:00:09

What does that mean for for folks who don't know what that means?

Drew 1:00:12

Uh so I am not uh I I am affiliated with theaters in Atlanta in the literal sense, but I am not like employed by or work for any institution here in the city. I am a free agent as far as that's concerned. Uh so I end I produce independently, which literally means I go to venues and I either ask for a favor or a rate to rent them to do the shows that I do. Um, that is the way to do it in Atlanta, at least as it currently exists, right? By and large. Um, and I do that so much and have done that so much, and if I may say so prolifically, uh, that very it's it's not uncommon for performers to like cold reach out to me with like, hey, I'd like to do a show. Do you know of how I would go about doing that? Do you have a show coming up my team could open for? And uh either like it's I'll tell them exactly like, hey, here are all the venues that I contact, here's how I do, here's the rates that I get, so you can compare that to what they offer you. Or I have a show coming up, it has a time slot available. Are you free on this day? Or uh, for example, in 2020, in 2025, late 2024, uh Until the Heat Death of the Universe, performed by Allison Salinger and Davey Pierce, reached out to see if I had a show opening and I didn't, and I was like, well, I could. And so then I found a date, found that worked for him, booked it, and then was like, what do you guys think about show structure? And then we did like a run of shows where I just did all the production for them, helped them book guests, and then hosted for that. And so that's kind of what that like literally means. A lot of people will come to me and be like, hey, we have a team, we don't want to do the production side of it. Do you can you help or do that for us? I'm like, absolutely. Because my big thing is I just think like improv's main struggle is getting people out of their houses and into theaters. And so the more, the more nights of the week where it's available as an option, the more times people will choose it, and that will grow the overall audience for the art that we're all participating in. So I am you know more than happy to do anything I can to grease those wheels and get more shows to occur.

Joel 1:02:19

Yeah.

Do You Produce Other People's Shows?

Joel 1:02:20

What do you um yeah, producing shows when when people are reaching out to you, yeah, is this something you're doing for free? Or you're charging people you're do where you're producing other people's shows for free?

Drew 1:02:31

Yeah. So uh, for example, I mean, like uh for the Heat Death show, for example, essentially I just took care of the money. So I funn I fronted 100% of the rental cost, and then I uh I think it's to the degree that I recouped it, I was like, You guys want to do another show? And they're like, Yeah, I'm gonna go cool. I took any profit from that and just put it into the next show. Wow. So I essentially just handled the money side of things. Uh, there have been times where I stepped in to produce, uh, where I didn't have to front any costs, and then I've texted the performers, I go, hey, here's how the cuts work out. Uh, what Vemo should I send this to? And then they just don't respond to me. Um, and so usually it's if I uh like it's I don't charge people to produce uh for them or anything like that. I essentially operate on a whoever puts uh in terms of money of it all, whoever puts money in gets paid back out first, and then anything north of that you negotiate, however the groups want to handle it. Most people that I interact with at the very least simply don't want to be at don't want to be out money, and then beyond that are not interested in it. Uh, I think people are still worth money, so I do like to offer when there's

Artists Should Get Paid, But There's So Little Money in Indie Improv

Drew 1:03:38

profit.

Joel 1:03:38

Yes, it's definitely a bonus because everyone I think agrees artists should get paid. Yeah, 100%. Absolutely. Improv has just been so tough because there's so little money in it in the indie scene.

Drew 1:03:49

And there's this push and pull. There's this push and pull of uh how cheap can I make a ticket to make my show maximally accessible. But also, I I as someone who isn't a producer role very often, I have a consideration where I need my venues to stay open, I need them to stay solvent so that there is a place for this. Yes. And so there's this race to the bottom for accessibility on ticket prices, but there's also enough to cover costs for the places you want to do it. And so, like, there have been times where I've negotiated with a venue where it's like, hey, uh, I'm gonna get this time slot, I'm not gonna pay you anything for the rental, but you're I'm gonna let you keep all of my ticket price, like all my you know, ticket income. And that's gonna cover whatever you would have made and then some. And so part of that's kind of knowing how to negotiate that. And I think that's another thing where it's like I just will make the time in my day to do that part of the show production pipeline where a lot of people do just wanna they want to go up, they want to focus on doing their show, they want to perform as much as are you finding that venues are open to that negotiation? Sometimes and sometimes not. I do think in Atlanta, this is a thing that's not uh uh uh unique to the improv space. It's it's unfortunately endemic to our entire theater scene. Um but Atlanta institutions, this is kind of my biggest hottest take, uh uh, or maybe my strongest everyone buckle

Drew's Hottest Take

Drew 1:05:12

up.

Joel 1:05:12

Hold on, give the audience a minute to make sure they're seated, maybe pull off to the side of the road.

Drew 1:05:17

Yeah, uh make sure other. This is the Drew's hottest edit. Give me like some swelling music when they get into it. I you look at you look at the target cities that exist for theater. You look at New York, you look at LA, you look at Chicago, and these are places with institutional history of cultivating and developing and then platforming local talent as well as you know international talent who comes to them. Atlanta institutions, by my opinion and from where I sit, I think have largely abdicated their responsibility of cultivating and platforming their own local talent. I think that a lot of places in Atlanta are. Needlessly difficult to get on to. They are not hungrily enough uh like sourcing local artists and performers. Um, I I heard this at a uh at a writer jam uh a year or so ago uh from a you know a playwright in the city who has had published works and is just trying to get theaters, you know, to at least like have them on staff to write scripts for new works for them to do, who phrased it as Atlanta theaters don't want new work, they want gently used work. Uh actors in the city routinely go to New York auditions for shows back in their hometown of Atlanta. So it is very difficult here in the city. Uh, and I think that is both from top down from the institutions and what they crowdsource, and unfortunately from bottom up from audiences. The amount of people, uh, I had a uh I had a partner who, while I'm like up in Atlanta, moving and shaking as I do, uh, you know, we had a conversation and they were like, hey, we should go see like a comedy show together. I think it was like we were talking about like uh an international touring comedian, like a like a Daniel Slaus, a John Mulaney, someone like that. And like I'm like, oh, excellent, yeah, let's find the next time we're in town, let's get tickets. By the way, if you'd like to go see a comedy show, I have like eight different ones this weekend my friends are doing. And they were like, Oh, yeah, maybe. And I think that's this kind of push and pull of the people in town are not like fellow improvisers are, but ultimately we are a set and shrinking audience space to try to cater to. You have to go larger than that. Yeah, but audiences in general also are clearly not gravitating towards, like, you know, oh, it's exciting because these are new local talent, at least in the improv and theater space. They want big names, they want uh stuff. They I mean, like in improv, the big thing is oh, it's we're doing Chicago style improv. What does that mean? There's vegetables on it. Like, what are we talking

Why Touring Shows Aren't Always Better Than Indie Shows

Drew 1:08:01

about?

Joel 1:08:01

Yeah, there people they'll uh improv shows will sell out when a celebrity comes to town, dropout comes to town. Yeah, um, but the indie scene is still.

Drew 1:08:12

And the thing is, like, a touring show like that will happen, and people who are familiar with indie performers will go, was that meaningfully better than an indie show you can catch for five bucks? And not always. Not always, not always, not always, not I would say not even often, but I have a I have a more uh uh uh cocky bully opinion than you're gonna be.

Joel 1:08:34

You know what? I'm thinking about my ratio of catching celebrity shows, torrent shows that have come into Atlanta, and I would agree. I feel like the ratio that those shows are just like meh-compared to like the indie scene.

How Do We Get New People to Come to Improv Shows?

Drew 1:08:49

Compared to what you can see and for like the price you pay?

Joel 1:08:53

Yeah, yeah. Amazon the time. Man, how do we spread the how do we what do you think needs to change in order to get people to come? New people, not just the scene, because uh because I feel like we're very overly reliant on our own friends to support each other's shows. Yeah, and once and even if we achieve more venues when relapse opens up and there's four stages there eventually, yeah, who's gonna who's gonna fill up all those yeah?

Drew 1:09:19

Who's gonna pack those who's gonna pack those things if we're splitting, yeah, if we're splitting our audience. Yeah, it's one of those things where, like, man, if I had the solution, I'd be doing way better than I am. Like, it's it's tricky because I the thing I I will, you know, me a culpa on is I think I am not that great at marketing shows. Like it's I'm good at making the shows good, and people do people in the wake of seeing something I do, like elevator pitch is kind of I think the best case study for my struggles with this, where the show itself I think is exceptionally good. I think it is a I think it is when whenever I put on an elevator pitch, I legitimately think it is the best way you could spend your time that night. I think that going into it, I think of that when I do it, I think that immediately after it. But I cannot articulate that show in a way that sells, provably, because I've done the show and it doesn't sell. Yeah. Because it's one of those things like in that in that show in particular's case, it is like, oh, this is a long-form improvised two-act play. And I say that, and improvisers might perk up and go, oh, that's very interesting. That's certainly how I get cast for it. But an audience member, like a uh someone who's not involved in improv will hear that and go, Well, how was that any different than a regular improv show? Like it it requires a level of knowledge, which means it's almost made for the smallest audience possible. Even if I think once you've seen the show, everyone who leaves the show go, like leaves it goes, that was an amazing show. I can't wait to see that again.

The Elevator Pitch Problem: Great Show, Can't Sell It

Joel 1:10:41

Yeah.

Drew 1:10:41

And that's the kind of struggle where it's I think like improvisers are really good at evangelizing for the scene. I don't think our audiences are. And I think it's a level beyond a thing that I kind of a drum that I hit pretty often is like I really appreciate, you know, my friends, my family, my loved ones who come out to see shows to support me. Ultimately, I really would rather them come to see a show because it's funny. Like it's, you know, hey, we'll still be friends even if you don't see my show. And Lord knows after I do 96 in a year, most of my friends have not seen most of my shows. I

Stop Thinking of Your Show as "Just Goofing Around"

Drew 1:11:16

agree.

Joel 1:11:16

There's something that stands out that stuck with me from one of John Stone's books. Um I forgot if it was in pro and pro for storytellers. But about that when the show the show starts when the doors open. Yes. And the environment you build for a show, um, welcoming patrons in, the environment, the music, all that, it begin the show begins. Yes, the show is on. It starts with ho and hosting too is crucial. The the energy, yeah, the um to move through that whole experience from when the patron's in the door and out the door. Exactly. And I don't think enough improv shows um handle that right. Correct. Handle that properly. Be in in in the the quote in Johnson's book is like the difference between taking the audience, and I'm gonna paraphrase it because I don't remember it verbatim, something along the lines of it's it's the difference between the somebody saying to their partner, that was a fun show, what do you want to see next week? And the bet the versus that was a good show, let's come back next week.

Drew 1:12:22

Exactly. Exactly that. And that and I think it's uh I will, you know, I was I'm on an improv forum and stuff, as most people are, and uh and they they have like a weekly prompt question, and they were talking about like what do we think are struggles with uh show attendance and kind of like show reputation, uh, and like I I think they were looking at through the lens of like ticket prices, like how do I charge enough a ticket price to keep my venue open or to keep this show slot and kind of not lose my shirt doing this? And my big thing is I think a lot of improvisers, a lot of people in the scene, and maybe this is a helpful mentality when you're still learning it to take some of the pressure off, but there there is this we're just goofing around thought process and mentality to a lot of improv that I think discredits both the the heights the art form can achieve, the hard work that goes into it, and your own self-assessment of it. My big thing is, and this was the thing like back when I was artistic directing at Southside and all these places, I'm like, look, if you think that the work that you're leaving on stage is only worth five dollars, then you are correct. I think that if like in if in service of trying to not only keep my venue open, but with the goal of getting my performers paid, you know, making this a viable thing for me to do, I look at and go, what do I need to be doing to make sure that I'm earning that cost of admission for my audience member? And that's kind of a business-minded way to do it, but then it's also I think an artistically reinforcing thing of, oh, if I'm asking you, uh, the way that I put it to that cast where I was like, I think we need to be trying to do more with our show than this, is like, even if our tickets were zero dollars, we're doing a free show, at the bare minimum, think of your audience's experience to coming to see this. It's a Friday night, they've worked 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. They've gotten home in traffic, they get home at 6 p.m. Them and their partner probably have coordinated to get a sitter for their kids so they can be safely home for the night. They're dressing up, they're probably going out to dinner. They had to find a place to get dinner, go there, sit down, order, enjoy their food, then come to see the show. Our show is two hours long. Even if you have asked them for none of their money, you've asked them for really five to six hours of their day. And I think if you're gonna have, frankly, the audacity to ask somebody for that much of their time, you owe them a show that is nothing short of exceptional. Yes, even more so if you're gonna ask them for 20 bucks. Yeah, and that's always been kind of my push and pull where, like, look, I think there's ways to make shows accessible. Ultimately, I'll just hand out comps. Like, I have the luxury of I can do enough show whenever I'm able to do shows, I can do them enough where I'm like, I'm going to safely at least make back my investment on it. So I'm not, you know, I don't make enough money in my private life to just start blowing it on shows. Sure. Um, and so I'm like, I make enough to cover the cost of this show. And ultimately, if you're interested and you cannot pay the ticket price, I'd I would rather you just be here. And so I can make those things work. But you have to, I I think like it's uh you're better served by targeting uh charging a price that's relevant for the quality of work you're doing. Because also what I've seen like in Atlanta's own scene, roll call theater, uh as a as a live event space has functionally ceased operation. At least it does not regularly schedule shows. And it was in Atlantic Station, a place where audiences do have money. And they could go around and say, Hey, we have the show, it's only $5. And people would go, Oh, it's only five dollars. Atlantic Station? Atlantic Station. That's where uh yeah, it's where it's where the whole roll call space was. Oh, I didn't know that. And and so they would go to audiences and like these are people who certainly can afford to see a show, and they're like, Hey, it's only five bucks, and people would literally go, Oh, it's only five dollars. I'm good. I'll stay here at my ramen bar, I'll stay here at whatever else I'm doing. If it's only a five dollar show, how much could I really be missing out on? And the and the thing is they aren't incorrect. I've seen a lot of shows that are fairly cheap, and I'm like, I think that the performers are having a great time. Do I think this is a show that's exceptional? No, I do not. And I think there's this thing of like, oh, well, we can, you know, we can still have improv be a fun thing that we do, and it's an exceptional like experience to get to do. But if you're if you want that to go to a stage where people are going to come and see you perform, it can no longer just be about you and your friends having a fun time. You're asking other people for their buy-in. You have to be doing more.

The $5 Ticket Trap

Joel 1:16:43

Yes, I think so too. I uh I listened to a podcast episode on uh Yes Also with Susie Barrett. I forgot the name of her guest, but I'll find it and I'll link it. Let me make a note real quick. Okay, so in this episode, the the guest was talking about the this style of producing shows that they're he's doing. I for I forgot which major city it was. Um and he's being uh in the episode, uh Susie acknowledging him as he's known for the the like the best producer in the city, the way he makes shows. But he's talking about this new way of making shows. The show is free. Okay, the show is free, and at the end of the show, they said uh if you enjoyed the show, um Venmo, Venmo or pay the QR code, pay what you think the right price the show was worth. And he he said, We get a variety, you get two dollars, five dollars, twenty dollars, fifty dollars, depending on the person's experience of the show. And not just that, they also live stream their show, so they record it, they do the angles thing, yeah, or whatever the three angles front and the sides. Um, and then they the the live stream is five dollars also. They record it, and then if people want to watch it online, yeah, that that's another revenue stream. Um and he makes enough to pay the performers through two.

Drew 1:18:07

And that's a uh low local legends, uh Marcus Gallishaw and Freddie Boyd, uh their show regular though. Um whenever Freddie Boyd now I believe lives in Los Angeles, but whenever he's back in town, they typically do a show um over at um uh I'm forgetting the name of the venue. Um but they uh they they do a show and their ticketing structure is just like, hey, the ticket is 10 bucks. There is also a 20, 30, and 40 ticket, and they're exclusively there if you feel like paying more for the show. And that's also a structure that I've really enjoyed because it's like, hey, the show is accessible, ultimately, like we just need to cover the cost of the rental, and that's quick math. The rental cost us X dollars. I don't know their arrangement or anything, but like costs us X dollars. I want to sell, I think I can sell at least this many tickets, price that accordingly. And then if you, you know, you particularly enjoy these performers, you're coming back to see it. Or just if you're a if you're an audience member who has some extra cash to throw around, you can play, you can pay more for your seat. It's kind of that same thing, but in reverse. It's like a it's and they have you know, people in the city do know their show, they know there's performers at the very least. And that's also a structure that I've really liked because also in their framing of the ticket, they're like, all of these are the exact same ticket, it's the exact same experience. How much do you want to put in to

Alternative Ticketing Models

Drew 1:19:23

this show?

Joel 1:19:23

Yeah, there's something there I think we're not tapping into yet in Atlanta, and I'd love to explore that more. Yeah, but something that I think I see some of the other major cities doing that I don't know if you have the resourcing for yet is the recording shows and clipping it and then posting, and then the the social media company. The stand-up model that's good, that's been working, right?

Drew 1:19:47

Because there's you you you kind of have clips from a show. Because that's the big thing is like the audiences reasonably want to know what they're getting into before they show up. But part of that's intention with part of improv is it being spontaneous on the night. So you want to give people, you know, a taster of what broadly they can expect, but you you literally with improv cannot give them a an actual example of it, for example. Um, and I think I think there's I mean, we've seen that with dropout, right?

Joel 1:20:16

Because like that's exactly what's coming to mind.

Drew 1:20:19

And like as an as an audience member, I will say that I get a lot less out of dropout than I do a random live in-person show, but that's because I I just genuinely do prefer live performance over things on screens. So that's gonna always be the case, but it's certainly not lost on me that they're able to monetize exceptionally well because clips of theirs go, you know, far and wide all the time. If you were trying to get a friend into a dropout show, it's exceptionally easy because you can send them a hey, here is the kind of thing that's there. Also, it means that they have like they have a back catalog for anyone who is new to really get deep and kind of really get caught up very quickly. And I think you know, where where you're seeing teams that are doing well, and I mean, this is also a material reality because if you want to submit to festivals, you need to have recorded material. Yeah, they ask for it. The double edge, the double side of that is that you get to have a set to go, like, hey, are you curious what I tend to do? Here it is. I can just send that to you, watch it at your leisure. If you like it enough, then come see me live. You get to be part of the show, yeah.

Recording Shows and the Dropout Clip Model

Joel 1:21:25

Oh, yeah. So there's something I think feel like we're on the cusp. I feel like Atlanta's um we're we're leveling up, we're growing, and we're getting close to the ceiling. There, I feel like there is a ceiling. Once I think once relapse opens, that'll open up again. Yeah, some more stage time. Um, yeah, but I feel like we're growing and learning.

Atlanta Is on the Cusp of Leveling Up

Drew 1:21:46

It it's it's a a thing that I think coming from true coming from regular theater really helps me with a lot of this. Is a lot of people like a lot of people that I talk to are producing, like, how much should we charge for tickets? And like, 10 feels like a lot. I'm like, dude, if you go see a regular scripted show, that ticket's $40. Yeah, $50. Understand that. Like, I think improvisers who, you know, maybe their improv journey started with, hey, my company needs me to do presentations, I'm nervous in front of crowds. I'm gonna take a level one improv class. I'm gonna get over that fear of public speaking. And maybe they get the bug, they go to jams, and so now they perform it at kind of like a hobbyist level. Um, but like that's where their starting point was. So they're not really in a broader theater conversation, and they're like, I don't know if I could, you know, consciously ask people for any money to do this. And I'm like, and like I go see stand-up shows, and a stand-up show is five bucks. I'm like, it's five bucks with a two-drink minimum, you're dropping $30 on that night, no matter what you do. So it's one of those things where I'm like, understand in the production of it all, you are part of your city's nightlife market. That's what you're doing. You're offering entertainment in the evening in the city where you live. And so that's what you're kind of in competition with. And just like all of those other events, your main struggle is getting people out of their homes. Yeah, people going like it's just like a restaurant who can't pack all their all their tables on a Friday night. You are in like you are in uh class solidarity with that struggle. And if you can't articulate why someone should get off of their couch to come see the show, then your show is going to be tough. Yeah. And if all if your goal isn't to do that, if your goal is to just do improv and have fun, you and your friends can go to a park and do improv for each other. That's a thing you still have access to. I think the struggle with when people do want to be on stage and want people to see them, it's a thing where you have to, I think, like to get people who aren't also gonna be on stage later that night there, you have to make that case. And in Atlanta, I think the struggle is like, you know, uh, we were talking about relapse, that kind of you know, really shows us like when this, uh when this is being recorded. And the thing is, like, that's so exciting in the scene because it's just more stage. Currently, if you were if you had a show and you had the money to put down for it, I could probably I could tell you that you have two and a half options, like as far as where you can go, that are venues that regularly produce that. You might have more than that because you know you know you know somebody at a bookshop that isn't open in the evenings and has available space, or a coffee shop that's trying to fill plate, like shout out Matt at Bibliotech and shout out uh Harbor Cafe. Harbor Coffee, shout out Job Awards. I think you know, and this is a thing like this is the like whether they know it or not, this is the improv scene learning from the stand-up scene. Uh, one of my favorite stand-up open mics back when I was doing that was Urban Grind, back uh over near the Georgia Tech campus. And that was uh it was a Tuesday night open mic. It was almost exclusively stand-ups, and so it was a workout room for people who were going to be hitting up another open mic later that night. And that was like, hey, you're a coffee shop, you have a space I could see putting a microphone at, and I notice that your Tuesday nights are slow. How about I just get a couple more people in here and you have a space that is conducive to what I want to do? That is the kind of like hustle and grind to just get somewhere, and like the the the French shows, which is the team over at Java Lords, I think most, if not all of those shows are just free because it's free. You're like, it's that then that's part of that negotiation on the production side. They're bringing people in for the bar and cafe, and they're like you would otherwise be making whatever you you know your own budget right now, you know your own spreadsheet. We're gonna bring in some amount of people, and you kind of are able to prove success. And then if you want to stay in that venue, uh like let's say there's something about it you really like, but you're like, we need this to make more sense financially. You you know, as as an actual like uh uh recommendation, I suppose, or anything, you can then go, hey, we've done this for six months, you've seen the growth we've had here, we'd like to continue doing that, but we want to grow with what we do. You have a negotiation from that point. You have some leverage at that point, exactly, because you've also proven what you're bringing. Yeah. Yeah. And if not, you have your crowd. That crowd now has seen your show, they've seen you perform, and you can then hopefully move them somewhere where you and your team can, you know, uh fund a trip to Chicago for a festival, fund for festival applications. Yeah, right. It's like even if you don't have goals of like, oh, I want to make a ton of money just in my city, it's like you can not be out of pocket going to other places.

Joel 1:26:27

There was um, I mean, Measure Island, we had uh we were under an LLC and had a business bank account. Yeah. So like team funds were in there, and that's what helped uh like fund getting the team to festival traveling to festival and Airbnb and all that stuff. Um yeah, so there's like there's there's ways to do it.

Drew 1:26:48

Yeah, there's ways to do it. Yeah, and I mean it's one of those things where like it it it's if if you want to just keep it at a hobby level, that's it, that's imminently attainable. You could do that today. That's not actually that difficult, thankfully. Yeah, part of that is jams being accessible, part of that is the producers who do exist in the scene, uh, do pull from the people who are just around. Like, if you should help at a jam, you do well. I mean, I can say from personal experience, both like uh whenever I do cast shows, I typically just look for people who are good improvisers and engaged in the community, and that's it. Those are the things I consider. For I mean, I run Golden Egg. Golden Egg is an open mic, it is literally a show that exists for people who are brand new to submit ideas to. Yes. There are spaces in the scene if you're kind of getting your feet under you. And I mean, like, not not to not to say, you know, uh those things just happen. Golden Egg happens because I worked at it, but most of the work is done by the people who perform in it. It was just I, you know, fronted up the first amount of rental, and then that show carries

Golden Egg Incubator: A Show for Brand New Teams

Drew 1:27:47

itself from there.

Joel 1:27:47

Yeah, yeah. And for those who don't know, Golden Egg Incubator Show is a show where it highlights new team, brand new teams, brand new formats of teams where it's the debut. Of a team or format each time. It's a fantastic show. I think it sells out almost every time.

Drew 1:28:07

Does that tonight? That's my evening tonight.

Joel 1:28:10

Yeah. Follow what's the what's the title?

Drew 1:28:14

Goldenegg.improv, I think.

Joel 1:28:16

Golden Egg Improv. Golden Egg. If you type in golden egg, you'll probably see.

Drew 1:28:19

Yeah, it'll get you there.

Joel 1:28:20

Follow that page. It's a fantastic show, especially to see new teams and improvisers trying new things. And that's why that's why it exists.

Drew 1:28:29

It's fantastic. I got to run an improv league once and just seeing what ideas people come up with. Ultimately, I'm like, that's what I want. And I'm like, people aren't produ it's it's a it's a bit too much of an ass task, everybody in the scene to produce their own show. So I'm like, I'll front load that work. I love it. And then I'll get to see a larger variety of shows.

Improv Advice and Notes That Changed Everything

Joel 1:28:48

Um I want to chat improv advice. Uh did you ever have someone's improv advice to teachers stick out to you? Something that really stuck with you that's helped you?

Drew 1:28:58

Uh a couple.

Joel 1:28:59

I I think uh uh when you when you think about yourself as much as I do, uh like and especially as an improviser and Drew, people are learning a lot about you in this podcast episode, how cocky you are. I'm I'm also learning about you. I don't think I've ever heard you speak about you to this extent. This is fascinating to me.

Drew 1:29:16

I don't, I normally don't. Uh uh while I do come across and actively pursue being cocky and a bit rash, uh uh I don't talk about myself often unless I am asked, because I'm like, eh, people don't care.

Joel 1:29:28

But hey, self-some save some of that self-confidence for the rest of us.

Drew 1:29:32

Yeah, exactly. I save it for the stage. Uh that actually is real. Uh that's part of mine. Like, I if I'm up here, I I earned it. Yeah. Uh I think when you uh if you reflect on I think your journey in anything, especially anything that's a pursuit. Um uh when I think back on like improv, I definitely do have level up moments. I mean, one of those was you know just getting on a team at all. Uh one of those was doing IE, doing the improv experiment where I'm like, oh, I can do more with this than just uh than just replicate Who's Line forever. I can do more with this art form than I thought. Um, I took a Meisner intensive with Mandy Butler, the incredible Mandy Butler, could not say enough about her as a teacher and as a performer. Um, where during that intensive, uh, she literally, I was doing uh anyone who isn't familiar with Meisner, I should say, really, really self-reflect and know who you are as an emotional person before you start it. It is pretty harrowing if you aren't like good with yourself. I think it's

The Meisner Note: Stop Producing on Stage, Be Vulnerable

Drew 1:30:36

it potentially up to emotionally dangerous to do. To her credit, Mandy Butler and the instructions on that started with like, uh, hey, I don't know you. I'm your teacher, you've paid me money to teach you a skill. We are not like friends necessarily. If I'm gonna and then and to do right by you, I'm gonna put you into positions that are emotionally uncomfortable, uh, psychically uncomfortable, and if it's past the line for you safety-wise, you have to self-advocate, which sets the stage very well for I'm going to push you, but know that my main goal is your safety. So do not feel like you have to be in danger here. But you, if you can handle the discomfort, that's good. And in that course, I was doing an exercise and Mandy uh uh uh paused it and gave me the note of Drew, you were caring too much about making sure that everyone around you, you're like managing the scene, you're not a part of it. And that was a huge level up moment for me because, like, especially with all the producing that I do, I do a lot of directing. I I'm used to the practical need of me to do that, but that meant that in my performance, I wasn't, you know, I mean, I wasn't code switching, I was just producing on stage, which would get me by. Yeah, but it it was capping where I could go. And it was also I it was one of the most pointed and loudest bits of critical feedback I'd received at that point, probably in years. Um I was pref I was in an intensive with Kevin Galeese and Joe Bill at Dad's Garage, and I was in a scene where my scene partner, we were back of house people, they were like washing their hands really intensely, and I kept dancing around uh what is obvious OCD. And Kevin pauses the scene and he goes, Hey, like Drew, do you know like what's going on here? He goes, Oh no, I'm like, Yeah, they have OCD. He goes, Cool. So the whole audience also already knows what's happening. You aren't voicing it. And it was another one of those examples of me like not wanting to push on another performer. I had gotten the note Daniel and I would both get this when we were in Knitwits, where we were we were accused of being sharky in scenes, and the reality is like sharky, sharky, bullyish in scenes, steamrolly is a more common term. Uh, but the big thing is like Daniel and I, and we felt this that way at the time, and we feel this way more so upon reflection, but like we would wait for our scene partners to, you know, lead with, make a big offer. But if you didn't, I was not going to sit and wait around for you to do so. And I had internalized that note to the point at when I get to this workshop where like I was hesitant to call out something that was obvious because then I felt like, oh, maybe I'm pigeonholing you. Now your offer is OCD, even if you didn't intend for it to be. But with that other level up moment in my history was like, oh, well, ultimately, if they wanted it to be something else, you have to call that out earlier. If you have to make your own offers clear, if that's something you want to be if you want to do. Yeah. Otherwise, I have to honor it by calling it like I see it.

Joel 1:33:36

Yes. I I feel similarly when a scene starts uh classically at a gym or wherever, and it's like two, you know, two improvisers are walking on with no idea, and it's like uh hey, hey, and you they're just like kind of wandering about the space and it builds so slowly and it gets going, yeah, right? But it happens so often. Someone's just gotta declare something, do it, yeah.

Drew 1:34:00

Just do anything. It's it's like when you have two cats and they're just squaring up for like two to five hours, and you're like, at this point, just fight. I just I need I need the two of you to either go into separate rooms or make something happen. And so there's a couple of those that I've definitely learned, and I've they've been building up a broader skill set where like now I I mean now I'll hit the stage with no idea in kind of a revelatory way. I'm like, excellent. I'm going to the first thing I've acted on is now I'm gonna let that push me narratively or push me with this character extremely hard so I can find it. Um I got a note uh fairly recently, uh, again from Kevin Gallis when I was in the Dad's Garage Conservatory. Um, I had done a scene and he had called it and goes like, hey, does anyone else feel like this scene is boring? And the scene was funny. He paused it and said that and he posed that to the class. Yeah, posed that to the class. And like the scene was funny, we were getting laughs, but my reflection on that note was like we were being funny, but in a way that we could be funny sitting here on a couch. It hadn't earned its place as on a stage.

Earn the Right to Speak

Joel 1:35:01

Kevin.

Drew 1:35:01

Yeah, and like in like this is like my reflection on that note. And so then a thing I did in my practice after that is like when I'd go to jams, when I'd do shows, uh, I made myself the way that I phrased it in my head was I earned the right to speak. Uh this is I attribute this to Fosse. I don't know if that's actually where the quote comes from, but it's like an in musical theater theory where it's like characters sing and dance because like if they feel too strongly for silence, they speak. They feel too strongly for words, they sing, they feel too strongly for song, they dance. And so I took that and I go, okay, if I'm cre if I'm just kind of resting on my comedy laurels and that's making my scene work boring, then I'm gonna go into scenes and I'm gonna not allow myself that out. I'm not gonna speak unless my character as I've played them can no longer hold something in. Yeah. And, you know, I did that for a couple months. I let that kind of rewire some of my defaults creatively. And I think I've learned and developed a lot of positive stuff from that. I'm a lot more physical. I'm always like physical on occasion, but I'm a lot more physical in the wake of that than I had been before. My scenes involve a lot more action, movement, props, space work. And it's one of those things we're just, you know, being kind of nudged on like, hey, your your scene work's lacking a bit. The the scenes here are fine, but they're a little boring. Yeah, and that had been a note I was able to internalize and kind of take and do something with.

Make Your Work Worthy of the Stage

Joel 1:36:24

I love that. Like um care. Yeah. Care about something, make it important. Yeah, make it matter. Earn, earn that conversation, earn that the words of your character speaking.

Drew 1:36:34

On a real surface level, just stop standing and talking. Stop, yeah. Like it it's uh, and I mean, like this is a thing like uh Tim Stoltenberg would always kind of drill this in, but it's like if if we are just sitting and talking, do something with my body language. Like when you say something, if I'm just if I'm if I'm so committed to being in one spot and just chatting with another character, when you say something, maybe adjust how I sit, do something that the audience has a reason to continue to look at the stage. Yeah.

Joel 1:37:02

Yeah, the three great notes. So the one was like you're producing, you're pr producing in the scene, not a part of the scene kind of thing.

Drew 1:37:10

Yeah, kind of kind of be a part of it, be affected, be and I mean be vulnerable, right? I think part of you know having the boss cap on too much can make you feel like you can't, you know, uh uh show fear, trepidation, or anything like that. You have to only show confidence, but that means you can only play one kind of character. That's not that interesting. Uh name stuff, right? It it's yeah, name stuff, yes. It's a it's a it's maybe a jockey way to put it, but it's like make your scene partner both allow them to show up and kind of set their own flags and also make them do it, right? If you're always naming like if you're just giving infinite, infinite grace to every scene partner, a lot of players won't establish anything.

Joel 1:37:54

Yeah, they will do that kind of new new improviser, especially new you're going to Jams and we'll truly avoid naming something. Oh, how many times do we see, like, oh, we're holding something in our and it's like, oh, whoa, that thing's it's so cool. Whoa, I didn't know where'd you get that? Yeah, whoa, oh my gosh, this is so rare, and no one's saying what's in the words we're talking about.

Drew 1:38:13

You finally name it and it doesn't matter. It was all about because then by that point it was all about oh what could it be? And it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, name it, make it matter now. And if it doesn't matter to you, then throw it away. In real life, you drop stuff that's unimportant to you all the time. I hope. If not, seek professional advice on that. But yeah, like it's that's the thing characters do, and then the other one is just you know, make what you do worthy of the stage, worthy of people's attention. Yep. If you're going to demand the solo attention of everyone around you for an hour.

Joel 1:38:47

Oh, I my uh my Google Home heard something. Well, can we have Google Home on the mic? No, no, no.

Drew 1:38:55

Uh yeah, no, make it worthy of everybody's attention, right? At a show you're demanding everyone be quiet and look at you for like 60 minutes, an hour, or those are the same amount of time. Make it worth their give them a reason to not look at their phone. Look, man, my phone's got cool stuff on it. I would love to be looking at my phone. Give me a reason not to and to focus on the stage.

Hot Seat Questions

Joel 1:39:16

Uh, I want to, we're close to wrap-up time. I want to get you on the hot seat. Yeah. I want to get you on the the hot seat questions. Um, so to enter this portion of the interview, um, there's a musical jingle. Okay. And it changes every week. Good. And today's jingle is hot seed withdrew. That's really good. That's really good. Uh, first question on the hot seat is what are your some of your favorite characters to play?

Favorite Characters

Drew 1:39:47

Uh there's a character I love playing called that uh I'll call Bryler because that's the that's a version I've played of him where he's recorded. Uh the archetype, I think me and Tom Rittenhouse play this exact character the same way. But literally just uh I did him in a set one recently. Uh I was like, Sup, I'm Bryler, 17 years young, and I love to skateboard. And I just love like walking on stage with my arms up like a skateboard. Like a dude. Like a dude, bro, like high schooler. Yeah. I love like saying the word kickflip out loud whenever he does kickflips. Yeah, I feel like I've heard you say kickflip several times. I I love that hack a lot. It's funny every time I've done it because I know the right amount to do it. I really hold it in. I wait for it to be the right moment. Briler is a really fun one. Um, I uh I did this in a tipsy zone set fairly recently. But I love to, to the degree that I will just play myself on stage, uh, I love to kind of put people's feet to the fire. I do this most with Daniel whenever he and I get to perform, but I was with Andy in a set, and he would we he was an archaeologist intern and he talked about how he believed that ancient pottery was really a roadmap for how people thought. And I just looked at him for a beat and I just go, why? And I just looked at him and made him explain more of this crazy idea he had. That's a thing that I do for myself that I love a lot, but it it you know it gets a pretty big reaction because like an inquisitive character? Yeah, an inquisitive character that's just like it's you know, you say a lot of crazy ideas in an improv setting, and I just love to like make you make you commit even further to that. Would you say it's the voice of reason character? Kind of, yeah. In in sci-fi and in fantasy stories, uh, more so in sci-fi, you have you have a character archetype that is the everyman, which is someone who knows science to the way the audience does. Philip J. Fry in Futurama is that. Uh, and so I like playing that type of role as like an audience surrogate. Uh-huh where it's like they know as much about the world as the audience would. That's a fun role to play when done well. Yeah, like and you need performers around you who are doing something wild. If I'm in a setting where there's not enough that's that crazy, you kind of can't. You're right. Yeah. You can't call it out. You can't, yeah. Yeah, because everyone already gets it. Um maybe a third architect. I'm I'm actually pretty bad with characters, I think, um, as as a as a performer. I would say I do like to play a neurotic character whose heart is not even on their sleeve, but it's like so large it's encapsulated their whole body. I was at a uh I was at the jam on Tuesday, and the the character who was the waiter, who is just like, I'm not really sure what I'm doing at this job. I think they're kind of working through something and using me as a bouncing board for their ideas. Just a guy who's like words get ahead of him, but his heart is in every single thing. Like he can only speak to the height of his emotional intelligence and cannot go any shallower than that. Love doing that as well. Yeah, full fully committed emotional character. Yeah, who like has the vocabulary for it as well. Who's like, I'm like, I'm I'm struggling with a lot of anxiety, but I can tell you exactly that it's happening, and I can't stop it, but I can tell you that I am crashing out right now. Nice, love that as well.

Joel 1:42:55

Fun characters. Yeah. Uh next question on the seat. What's some of your go-to environment work scenes?

Go-To Environment Work

Drew 1:43:05

My favorite single bit of environment work is a guy who has just woken up and is like going to do the I'm grabbing my cup of coffee for the morning, which is, I will say, a complete fabrication. I've never done that. I only drink iced coffee and I only get it from vending machines and stores. But I love to do the guy, he sets the cup of coffee and the thing, he hits the couple buttons on it, and then he goes to get his favorite mug and he reaches into the opens the cabinet, reaches into it, and it's not there. And so then he has to go figure out where he's put the mug. I love that so much. Oh my god. Because it's it's such a waste of everyone's time on like a on the on a sheer like surface of the mug. You've done that, you've done that multiple times. I've done that multiple times. It's just you walk in because it's you have to you have to truly understand, you know, like a kitchenette, like and where you want to put the the coffee maker and like the oven and the fridge. Yes. Because you have to go touch on everything and just the the when you're doing object work, everything just gets to be correct all the time. It gets to be exactly where you want it. And so having a character then have to like struggle means one, I have to further engage with my environment, and I get to go on a little journey, and it's novel. Like a character just finding the coffee, like, cool, you're doing that really well. But I love a character who's really sleepy, and then going like, ah, damn it, I have to like focus right now. I haven't even had my coffee, and then have to go searching for it. That's a really fun like journey I can do until somebody enters the scene after me and they actually do something. Yeah, then you're like, Can you know where I put my mug? Where I put my mug, and they're like, our house is on fire, and like, oh, or whatever, wherever the scene goes.

Joel 1:44:40

Um last question on the seed is what's some advice that you want to give to new improvisers in the scene?

Advice for New Improvisers

Drew 1:44:51

Um to a new improviser in the scene. I uh see more improv. A lot of people, myself included, try to do a lot. 96 shows last year. A lot it it's very Yeah, according to the analytics. According to the analytics, uh, that also doesn't count uh jams I performed in because I don't think uh that's a social event for me. Um, but I I think a lot of people get really hung up on doing a lot of shows, and I think that I think you know there's validity in that. There's you know putting yourself out there, calling a shot of I'm gonna be doing this specific thing, I'm gonna be doing this specific thing, come see me do that. But also, uh where where are you in the conversation of your local community? Right? Uh are you doing shows that are any different from your peers? Are you are you being there supporting the other people who are also trying to do this in your scene? There is not enough uh improv pie to go around for people to, I think, really be sharky, I got mine about it. There's not enough of an improv crowd for that. Uh like I could probably name like the thing that I impress upon people is like people who do improv exclusively full time and make a good living at it are so few you could name them. Yes, you could know all of them very easily. So it doesn't make sense to be very self-interested in despite what I've said previous to this, uh self-interested in how you approach the form. And nobody knows the right way to do improv. People just gradually build up a variety of bad ways to avoid. So the more of it you can see and be exposed to, the more varied approaches you can take in, the more of a tool belt you will have whenever you are hitting the stage. A thing that I, especially when I came up to Atlanta, and I was seeing I was seeing such a large variety of different types of shows, is uh I approached them in a way that I would consider like very I was very sat forward as an audience member. I'm essentially like watching football tape. I'm watching to see them like where do I think their edits are, where can I see the bones of this format? And sometimes I wouldn't be able to, and those would be extremely exciting for me because that meant that there's still some of the magic. I won't immediately know how it is that y'all perform this show this way each time. And a lot of times, especially like in improv, these are your peers, these are people who will talk to you at length about improv, or at least they should.

Joel 1:47:34

Right.

Drew 1:47:34

Uh, I think that's part of being a community member is going to see shows, going to jams, even if you know, a thing that I'm very tired of hearing, but a thing that I've heard pretty often is like I've done enough improv, I don't need the jam. It's like the jam's not about at a certain point, the jam is no longer about you getting reps, it's about you being present and seeing who is also in entering your community, who is also around. Yep. Not everyone at jams is a new improviser. Some of them are just new to the city you're in. Some of them are just uh they're changing careers. And there is like when you aren't there, if you are someone who feels like I've like, if you're not a new improviser, you've got some you know years under you, and you're like, I'm no longer really getting a lot as a performer out of it. Be there so that people can come and get something from you as a performer. I get a lot out of going to jams and just being someone that people can ask questions of after the fact, contributing to notes. Atlanta has a really good cadence of uh jam notes and you know helping lead those conversations, asking a question that hasn't come up yet, but you know is gonna be a deep thing, setting up the people who are MCing those nights, those are a lot of things that all kind of come into just being present at more of your own communities, events, shows, jams, etc. So just be more present, be more present, be out there, be more present, literally, not even like just attentive, but just like physically be there.

Joel 1:48:55

Yeah, yeah. Uh love that. Um, Drew, thank you so much for your time. Uh it's been so nice to talk to you and get to know you, hear about your improv journey. Thank you for sharing.

Drew 1:49:06

So much, so much.

Joel 1:49:07

Um, everybody, this has been Drew Turner. It has been me. And this has been the Joy of Improv Podcast. Thank you so much, Drew, for joining. Thank you, thank you. See you next time.

Drew 1:49:18

Later.

Joel 1:49:21

I want to say thank you to Matt Isaacs. Thank you so much, Matt, for editing these episodes. Matt is a talented and kind member of the Atlanta Improv community. If anyone out there has any audio editing or song mixing needs, please reach out to me at Joel at the joyoffimprov.com. I'll connect you with Matt and get you on your way to getting some clean, fresh audio. If you are enjoying the podcast and you want to support and keep this podcast going, you can support in one of two ways. You can leave a five-star review. And if you do, please leave an improv topic that you want us to discuss or perhaps a question for a future guest. Another way to support the podcast is to give a monetary contribution on our Ko-Fi page. Anything helps, a dollar, five dollars does not matter. Anything helps in keeping the podcast going, you can find the link to contribute in our Instagram or in the link in the episode description. Thank you so so much for listening. It means so much that you're here. See you next time and scene.