Brian Stack 3/13/06 Part 2
J: When did Jazz Freddy form? What was the impetus to form that group?
B: Jazz Freddy formed back in ‘92. The group grew out of improv workshops run by Pete Gardner, a.k.a. Pete Zahradnik, at Live Bait Theatre in Chicago. The workshops were never started with the goal of putting up a show with a name or anything. All of that developed kind of unexpectedly as we went along.
Pete had previously been involved in the longform group Ed, which was directed by Jim Dennen. Ed had done two very innovative, well-received runs of shows at The Wrigleyside, and The Remains Theatre in Chicago. When the second run of Ed finished up, Jim Dennen decided to direct an experimental show called “The Filmdome,” which turned out to be really cool, but only featured a small number of performers like former Ed members Melanie Hoopes, Lauren Katz, John Lehr, and Carlos Jacott.
Pete decided to start up some new workshops of his own that would feature a lot of open scenework, and he invited former Ed performers Stephanie Howard and my future wife Miriam Tolan to come by for them, along with some other people he’d met in or around “Ed” like Susan McLaughlin, Chris Reed, and Meredith Zinner. Since Pete had also done a lot of work at ImprovOlympic, he invited some IO, or former IO, people to join in the workshops, too, like Kevin Dorff, Pat Finn, Rachel Dratch, James Grace, Dave Koechner, Jimmy Carrane, Noah Gregoropoulos, and me.
The workshops at Live Bait Theatre in Chicago were really fun right from the start. I could tell immediately that there was great chemistry between the people in the group. There was such a wide variety of personality types and performance styles. We mostly just did open scenes for each other, but everyone seemed really eager to push themselves a little, and try things they hadn’t necessarily ever done before onstage.
We did a lot of intensive rehearsals and workshops before there was even talk of actually doing any shows, but eventually we decided to do some shows on Monday nights at Live Bait. We had a lot of friends and fellow performers come by early on since few people did shows on Monday nights. I’ll always be grateful to those people for coming out and supporting us like that. I think some guys like IO’s Craig Cackowski came to about 10 shows during our first run. Thanks to the great crowds we got on Monday nights, we eventually did some shows on Friday and Saturday nights, too.
James Grace left very early on to go to LA, I think, and Meredith Zinner dropped out to do “Arabian Nights” at Lookinglass, but Carlos Jacott joined up with us as soon as Filmdome finished up. He was with us for most of the first run, and I’m pretty sure he did the entire second run. Man, was he a great addition to the group. He’s one of the best improvisers I’ve ever seen, and he’s obviously a great actor, too. We also had several great guest performers sit in with Jazz Freddy, usually one at a time, including Dave Pasquesi, Brian McCann, Theresa Mulligan, Evan Gore, Lauren Katz, etc. Theresa ended up becoming a full member of the group for the second run, and so did another woman named Molly Allen.
The first run of Jazz Freddy shows began in July of ‘92 and ended in the late fall. I think the second run began in early ‘93 and ran through to the summer. Pete, who’d been both performer and director for the first run, decided to just be a performer for the second run, and brought Jim Dennen in to direct. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do that second run myself, but I always loved seeing the shows when I could.
J: What was Pete trying to accomplish with the workshops? Did he want to do slower or more serious scenes or just to work with people who he liked?
B: I’m not entirely sure what Pete’s goals were when he started the workshops. I do know that the "Ed" group he had worked with had been very disciplined and focused in workshopping scenework, and since the results were so great from that, I think he wanted to do more of that kind of thing, at least in workshops. I remember there being a big emphasis on doing patient, reality-based scenework in the workshops that led up to Jazz Freddy. I think a lot of us were eager to push ourselves into that kind of thing, especially after sloppy “throwaway” stuff like “Gambrinus.”
I think the fact that everyone in the group liked each other a lot made the whole process more fun and productive. The former IO people like me benefited a lot from the attitude and focus of the former “Ed” people, and Pete was kind of the bridge between the two groups. The great thing was, the “Ed” people were serious about the work but they never took themselves seriously at all. That made them the perfect kinds of people to work with, I think.
J: I’ve heard that a Jazz Freddy show might not get a laugh for a half hour but it was still amazing. What do you think so many people found amazing about it, even if they were not bent over with laughter? It seems like it was much more dramatic than most shows, was that something you guys were intentionally going for?
B: To tell you the truth, I’m always a little surprised when I hear comments like the ones you’re referring to. While the emphasis in Jazz Freddy may have been on doing patient, relationship-based scenes, I remember most of our shows in the first run being very comedic overall. It could be that director Jim Dennen may have tried to make the second run a little more “dramatic,” or maybe he altered the form a bit to encourage different kinds of scenes than the more “comedic” ones that developed in the first run. Since I wasn’t in the second run, though, I probably shouldn’t speculate about that. I should ask Miriam or Dorff for some of the “second run” details.
J: Was there a form that Jazz Freddy did? An opening?
B: I’m probably going to get some of this wrong since it’s been such a long time, and I apologize in advance, but here’s my best recollection of the Jazz Freddy “form”:
The main focus was on just trying to do the best scenework we could do, but there was a basic “jumping off point” for each half of the show called “2 back/1 forward.” Two actors would start the first scene after getting some simple suggestion like a location or a proverb, and that scene would be allowed to progress for a while. Then an actor would come in and “tag out” one of the actors in the first scene and take the remaining actor “back in time.” It could be “thirty seconds” back in time, “20 years” back, or whatever. For example, if the first scene involved a dad talking to his son, the next scene might involve the dad as a kid himself talking to his own dad, or the dad earlier that day at his job with a co-worker. The next scene would involve a “tag out” of one of the second scene’s actors and the remaining actor would somehow be taken back in time. The third scene would also involve a “tag-out” and a jump “forward” in time. After that, the scenes were wide open. The second half after the intermission would start the same way as the first, I think, and ideally some connections would form between characters or themes in the first and second halves. Not all the scenes were 2-person scenes of course. Many of the scenes turned out to involve big groups.
J: I’ve read that Jazz Freddy was a pretty slow group, but that you guys also either created or popularized the tag-out. Did you guys use tag-outs and were still slow, or did things speed up when you used tag-outs?
B: The “tag-outs” were basically just a device for removing one actor so the next scene could begin. Ideally, scenes would still be given enough time to develop before the next tag-out came along. If I remember correctly, the “tag-outs” rarely made the show get really fast-paced, but I do remember some shows having much more frenetic energy than others.
J: If Jazz Freddy was responsible for creating the tag-out, how was it created?
B: I wish I could remember if Pete Gardner invented the “tag out,” or if it was something he brought over or adapted from his days in “Ed.” Sorry, I’m not sure how exactly how it developed as an editing technique.
J: Why did the run of shows for Jazz Freddy end? Was someone just booking or renting space at the Live Bait theater? Did you guys ever consider going to IO and trying to get a regular show there?
B: I could be wrong, but I think the length of the runs just felt right to everyone. Also, since Live Bait did have a schedule of shows, I’m sure that was probably a factor, too. We never really considered doing “Jazz Freddy” shows at the ImprovOlympic space. Not because we didn’t want to work at IO, but because everyone in JF started going in somewhat different directions after the two runs finished up. A lot of us ended up back at IO later on though, in around ‘95 or so, when the “Armando Diaz Theatrical Experience and Hootenanny” started up on Monday nights at IO. That initial “Armando” cast had a lot of other people in it, too. That show was always so much fun to do. I did the “Armando” show whenever I could until I left Chicago in April of ‘97. Doing the ASSSCAT shows in New York has always felt kind of like a continuation of that in some ways.
J: Did you know Miriam before you started doing the workshops together?
B: I met Miriam very briefly in the Second City Training Center, but I didn’t get to know her at all back then. Her “Level 5” show started up just as ours was finishing, and I remember seeing her perform in it and thinking she was hilarious.
The next time I saw Miriam was about 2 years later. We were both at a “callback” audition for an improv group at the now-nonexistent “Funny Firm” stand-up club in Chicago. Believe it or not, the other guys at that callback were Adam McKay and Ian Roberts. I had met those guys in passing at IO, but I never really knew them at all at the time. I think we all did a show or two with the main guys in that group, but it was pretty depressing. The crowds, mostly guys with mullets and girls with big hair, were the worst. Every time I see clips of Bill Hicks screaming at the crowd at The Funny Firm it reminds me of doing those soul-crushing shows there. We never yelled at anybody ourselves but I think we all wanted to.
J: Do you feel like your personal relationship with Miriam made it easier to improvise together?
B: I’m not really sure about that. I think it helped in some ways that we were just friends when we first worked together, but I always had a great time working with her later on, too.
J: Why couldn’t you participate in the second run of Jazz Freddy?
B: I actually started work on the second run with everyone else, and I did a few workshops with Jim Dennen, but then I got offered a full-time slot in GreenCo, one of the Second City Touring Companies and I just couldn’t turn it down. At the time, GreenCo included Pat Finn, Suzy Nakamura, Renee Albert, Todd Stashwick, and Jay Johnston. It was a tough decision, but I have no regrets about joining GreenCo since I loved working with them so much, and with later GreenCo members like Adam McKay, Neil Flynn, Miriam, etc., and since I got to watch several of the second run Jazz Freddy shows.
J: What was TourCo like? Where were some memorable places you went? Were you doing long-form and sketch?
B: I loved touring so much. While I really enjoyed working in the Second City-ETC resident company later on, I think many of the best times I had at Second City were when I was touring with GreenCo. Luckily, I got to work with a few of the GreenCo people in ETC later on, like Neil Flynn and Miriam. Since about 90 percent of the touring experience is spent offstage, in the van, in restaurants, etc., it obviously helps a lot if you get along with the people you tour with, and I had a great time with all of them.
As I mentioned earlier, the first GreenCo group I toured with included Pat Finn, Suzy Nakamura, Renee Albert, Todd Stashwick, and Jay Johnston. Jon Glaser and Rachel Dratch sat in for a few shows early on, too. Later on, some of the other people that passed through GreenCo while I was with them included Miriam, Nancy Walls, Adam McKay, Theresa Mulligan, Laura Krafft, and Neil Flynn. Just before I stopped touring, Amy Poehler did a GreenCo tour with us, too, but I can’t remember if she stayed in GreenCo after I left. All of those people were so hilarious to travel with, and I loved doing shows with them, too.
The kinds of places we played on tour varied so much--from beautiful professional theatres to crappy little dumps, from college auditoriums to hotel ballrooms.
In terms of “memorable places we went,” I think my favorite tour we ever did was through the Colorado/Wyoming area. Second City usually called that “The Ski Tour.” I had never been to that part of the country, and I fell completely in love with places like Crested Butte and Jackson Hole. I can’t really ski worth a damn, but it was so beautiful that I still enjoyed myself on the relatively “easy” slopes. Miriam actually did her first skiing ever in Jackson Hole, and it was so hilarious to watch. She didn’t fall down much, but she had no idea how to stop. The crowds were amazing out there, too, especially in Crested Butte. It was like a great college crowd that never gets much entertainment passing through town ordinarily.
One time, we played a rock club in Ashville, NC that was owned by a lovable old hippie that clearly didn’t care at all about money. I saw a poster on the wall that said the old 70’s band Foghat was coming to play there shortly after us. I asked the guy, “How are the ticket sales for Foghat?” The hippie smiled and said, “I’m taking a fuckin’ bath on that one, man!”
We also once played a little college in Bangor, Maine. We asked where we’d be doing the show and some mildly-stoned guy led us to an ordinary classroom. We thought he was joking at first. We then asked him where the “lights” were, and he flipped the lightswitch on the wall. Then we asked if people even knew we were coming, and he just shrugged. Renee Albert ended up going over to one of the dorms and rounding up 5 or 6 guys to watch the show. It ended up being a pretty fun show, actually. Since there wasn’t even a piano, our piano player sat in as an actor for our improv stuff.
Sometimes, the most fun we had was in places we’d never have been in a million years if we hadn’t been sent there. For example, I remember being in a little “bowling alley” bar somewhere in rural Indiana after one of our shows. The only people in the bar were us, a drunk redneck couple, a toothless old trucker, and an 18 year-old kid with a karaoke machine. We spent the next few hours eating jalapeno poppers, drinking 3-dollar pitchers, and taking turns singing karaoke like idiots. The drunk redneck woman’s off-key but heartfelt rendition of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” was rivalled only by Neil Flynn’s swinging version of “Mack The Knife.” Bobby Darin would’ve been proud.
J: TourCo sounds like a pretty intense experience. Were there any instances where a group didn’t like each other and had to be broken apart?
B: There were never any entire groups that were broken up over personal conflicts, but as with any other organization, some people got along better than others. I rarely saw any intense animosity between people, but sometimes people just didn’t “click” with each other. When I first got hired into the TourCo, I understudied for all three companies before joining GreenCo full-time, and there was completely different chemistry between people in all three of the groups.
I recall one trip in which the people in the van hardly said one word to each other the whole ride to and from the show. I didn’t think anyone necessarily hated each other in that group, it just seemed they were just in their own separate worlds when they weren’t onstage. My later experience in GreenCo was the exact opposite of that. We always had such a great time together in GreenCo, on and offstage. I’m very grateful for that, and I never took it for granted.
J: Was TourCo the sole source of income for most people in it?
B: Most people in TourCo had to find other sources of income to get by. We were paid Equity wages for shows, about 70 or 80 bucks a show back then, I think, plus about 30 bucks in “per diem” money per day when we were actually traveling out of Chicago. There were some times of year when we did very few shows, though, like the summer months when we sometimes did as few as four or five shows a month. Every three weeks, each TourCo would do a Monday night “home show” in the Mainstage space since the Mainstage cast had Monday nights off, but sometimes that would be it for another week or two in terms of shows. During the non-summer months, we usually did a lot more shows, partly because of all the college shows we did.
Most performers worked other kinds of jobs to supplement their income--teaching, waiting tables, doing commercial work, whatever. I had to leave my full-time job at the ad agency when I started touring, but I was lucky enough to start getting some “voiceover” work after that. I’ve always enjoyed doing that kind of thing, and I still do now and then when I have some free time here in New York. If I’m able to do it at all, though, it’s usually just in the morning before 11 or so. We start work around 11am usually, but we often work until 11 or 12 at night.
J: You seemed to have worked pretty closely with dozens of people who are now well-known comedians. Did you think that so many of your friends would be come accomplished in the comedy world?
B: Well, I found many of the people around me to be incredibly hilarious, and I saw the reactions they got from audiences, but back then “success” or becoming “well-known” seemed to me like something that happened to people in some other dimension or something. I knew nothing about the way “show business” worked, or how unknown people got brought into the “business.” Later on, the whole process became far less mysterious, but that was kind of a gradual process for me.
Looking back, I’m not the least bit surprised that many of the people I was lucky enough to watch and/or work with became well-known later on. There’s obviously a lot of luck, good and bad, involved in comedy though, and humor is such a subjective thing, so I’ve never assumed that the people whose work I love will necessarily become successful, even if I think they deserve to be. We’ve all obviously had the experience of thinking that sometimes there’s justice in the world in terms of who becomes successful and sometimes there’s not.
B: Jazz Freddy formed back in ‘92. The group grew out of improv workshops run by Pete Gardner, a.k.a. Pete Zahradnik, at Live Bait Theatre in Chicago. The workshops were never started with the goal of putting up a show with a name or anything. All of that developed kind of unexpectedly as we went along.
Pete had previously been involved in the longform group Ed, which was directed by Jim Dennen. Ed had done two very innovative, well-received runs of shows at The Wrigleyside, and The Remains Theatre in Chicago. When the second run of Ed finished up, Jim Dennen decided to direct an experimental show called “The Filmdome,” which turned out to be really cool, but only featured a small number of performers like former Ed members Melanie Hoopes, Lauren Katz, John Lehr, and Carlos Jacott.
Pete decided to start up some new workshops of his own that would feature a lot of open scenework, and he invited former Ed performers Stephanie Howard and my future wife Miriam Tolan to come by for them, along with some other people he’d met in or around “Ed” like Susan McLaughlin, Chris Reed, and Meredith Zinner. Since Pete had also done a lot of work at ImprovOlympic, he invited some IO, or former IO, people to join in the workshops, too, like Kevin Dorff, Pat Finn, Rachel Dratch, James Grace, Dave Koechner, Jimmy Carrane, Noah Gregoropoulos, and me.
The workshops at Live Bait Theatre in Chicago were really fun right from the start. I could tell immediately that there was great chemistry between the people in the group. There was such a wide variety of personality types and performance styles. We mostly just did open scenes for each other, but everyone seemed really eager to push themselves a little, and try things they hadn’t necessarily ever done before onstage.
We did a lot of intensive rehearsals and workshops before there was even talk of actually doing any shows, but eventually we decided to do some shows on Monday nights at Live Bait. We had a lot of friends and fellow performers come by early on since few people did shows on Monday nights. I’ll always be grateful to those people for coming out and supporting us like that. I think some guys like IO’s Craig Cackowski came to about 10 shows during our first run. Thanks to the great crowds we got on Monday nights, we eventually did some shows on Friday and Saturday nights, too.
James Grace left very early on to go to LA, I think, and Meredith Zinner dropped out to do “Arabian Nights” at Lookinglass, but Carlos Jacott joined up with us as soon as Filmdome finished up. He was with us for most of the first run, and I’m pretty sure he did the entire second run. Man, was he a great addition to the group. He’s one of the best improvisers I’ve ever seen, and he’s obviously a great actor, too. We also had several great guest performers sit in with Jazz Freddy, usually one at a time, including Dave Pasquesi, Brian McCann, Theresa Mulligan, Evan Gore, Lauren Katz, etc. Theresa ended up becoming a full member of the group for the second run, and so did another woman named Molly Allen.
The first run of Jazz Freddy shows began in July of ‘92 and ended in the late fall. I think the second run began in early ‘93 and ran through to the summer. Pete, who’d been both performer and director for the first run, decided to just be a performer for the second run, and brought Jim Dennen in to direct. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do that second run myself, but I always loved seeing the shows when I could.
J: What was Pete trying to accomplish with the workshops? Did he want to do slower or more serious scenes or just to work with people who he liked?
B: I’m not entirely sure what Pete’s goals were when he started the workshops. I do know that the "Ed" group he had worked with had been very disciplined and focused in workshopping scenework, and since the results were so great from that, I think he wanted to do more of that kind of thing, at least in workshops. I remember there being a big emphasis on doing patient, reality-based scenework in the workshops that led up to Jazz Freddy. I think a lot of us were eager to push ourselves into that kind of thing, especially after sloppy “throwaway” stuff like “Gambrinus.”
I think the fact that everyone in the group liked each other a lot made the whole process more fun and productive. The former IO people like me benefited a lot from the attitude and focus of the former “Ed” people, and Pete was kind of the bridge between the two groups. The great thing was, the “Ed” people were serious about the work but they never took themselves seriously at all. That made them the perfect kinds of people to work with, I think.
J: I’ve heard that a Jazz Freddy show might not get a laugh for a half hour but it was still amazing. What do you think so many people found amazing about it, even if they were not bent over with laughter? It seems like it was much more dramatic than most shows, was that something you guys were intentionally going for?
B: To tell you the truth, I’m always a little surprised when I hear comments like the ones you’re referring to. While the emphasis in Jazz Freddy may have been on doing patient, relationship-based scenes, I remember most of our shows in the first run being very comedic overall. It could be that director Jim Dennen may have tried to make the second run a little more “dramatic,” or maybe he altered the form a bit to encourage different kinds of scenes than the more “comedic” ones that developed in the first run. Since I wasn’t in the second run, though, I probably shouldn’t speculate about that. I should ask Miriam or Dorff for some of the “second run” details.
J: Was there a form that Jazz Freddy did? An opening?
B: I’m probably going to get some of this wrong since it’s been such a long time, and I apologize in advance, but here’s my best recollection of the Jazz Freddy “form”:
The main focus was on just trying to do the best scenework we could do, but there was a basic “jumping off point” for each half of the show called “2 back/1 forward.” Two actors would start the first scene after getting some simple suggestion like a location or a proverb, and that scene would be allowed to progress for a while. Then an actor would come in and “tag out” one of the actors in the first scene and take the remaining actor “back in time.” It could be “thirty seconds” back in time, “20 years” back, or whatever. For example, if the first scene involved a dad talking to his son, the next scene might involve the dad as a kid himself talking to his own dad, or the dad earlier that day at his job with a co-worker. The next scene would involve a “tag out” of one of the second scene’s actors and the remaining actor would somehow be taken back in time. The third scene would also involve a “tag-out” and a jump “forward” in time. After that, the scenes were wide open. The second half after the intermission would start the same way as the first, I think, and ideally some connections would form between characters or themes in the first and second halves. Not all the scenes were 2-person scenes of course. Many of the scenes turned out to involve big groups.
J: I’ve read that Jazz Freddy was a pretty slow group, but that you guys also either created or popularized the tag-out. Did you guys use tag-outs and were still slow, or did things speed up when you used tag-outs?
B: The “tag-outs” were basically just a device for removing one actor so the next scene could begin. Ideally, scenes would still be given enough time to develop before the next tag-out came along. If I remember correctly, the “tag-outs” rarely made the show get really fast-paced, but I do remember some shows having much more frenetic energy than others.
J: If Jazz Freddy was responsible for creating the tag-out, how was it created?
B: I wish I could remember if Pete Gardner invented the “tag out,” or if it was something he brought over or adapted from his days in “Ed.” Sorry, I’m not sure how exactly how it developed as an editing technique.
J: Why did the run of shows for Jazz Freddy end? Was someone just booking or renting space at the Live Bait theater? Did you guys ever consider going to IO and trying to get a regular show there?
B: I could be wrong, but I think the length of the runs just felt right to everyone. Also, since Live Bait did have a schedule of shows, I’m sure that was probably a factor, too. We never really considered doing “Jazz Freddy” shows at the ImprovOlympic space. Not because we didn’t want to work at IO, but because everyone in JF started going in somewhat different directions after the two runs finished up. A lot of us ended up back at IO later on though, in around ‘95 or so, when the “Armando Diaz Theatrical Experience and Hootenanny” started up on Monday nights at IO. That initial “Armando” cast had a lot of other people in it, too. That show was always so much fun to do. I did the “Armando” show whenever I could until I left Chicago in April of ‘97. Doing the ASSSCAT shows in New York has always felt kind of like a continuation of that in some ways.
J: Did you know Miriam before you started doing the workshops together?
B: I met Miriam very briefly in the Second City Training Center, but I didn’t get to know her at all back then. Her “Level 5” show started up just as ours was finishing, and I remember seeing her perform in it and thinking she was hilarious.
The next time I saw Miriam was about 2 years later. We were both at a “callback” audition for an improv group at the now-nonexistent “Funny Firm” stand-up club in Chicago. Believe it or not, the other guys at that callback were Adam McKay and Ian Roberts. I had met those guys in passing at IO, but I never really knew them at all at the time. I think we all did a show or two with the main guys in that group, but it was pretty depressing. The crowds, mostly guys with mullets and girls with big hair, were the worst. Every time I see clips of Bill Hicks screaming at the crowd at The Funny Firm it reminds me of doing those soul-crushing shows there. We never yelled at anybody ourselves but I think we all wanted to.
J: Do you feel like your personal relationship with Miriam made it easier to improvise together?
B: I’m not really sure about that. I think it helped in some ways that we were just friends when we first worked together, but I always had a great time working with her later on, too.
J: Why couldn’t you participate in the second run of Jazz Freddy?
B: I actually started work on the second run with everyone else, and I did a few workshops with Jim Dennen, but then I got offered a full-time slot in GreenCo, one of the Second City Touring Companies and I just couldn’t turn it down. At the time, GreenCo included Pat Finn, Suzy Nakamura, Renee Albert, Todd Stashwick, and Jay Johnston. It was a tough decision, but I have no regrets about joining GreenCo since I loved working with them so much, and with later GreenCo members like Adam McKay, Neil Flynn, Miriam, etc., and since I got to watch several of the second run Jazz Freddy shows.
J: What was TourCo like? Where were some memorable places you went? Were you doing long-form and sketch?
B: I loved touring so much. While I really enjoyed working in the Second City-ETC resident company later on, I think many of the best times I had at Second City were when I was touring with GreenCo. Luckily, I got to work with a few of the GreenCo people in ETC later on, like Neil Flynn and Miriam. Since about 90 percent of the touring experience is spent offstage, in the van, in restaurants, etc., it obviously helps a lot if you get along with the people you tour with, and I had a great time with all of them.
As I mentioned earlier, the first GreenCo group I toured with included Pat Finn, Suzy Nakamura, Renee Albert, Todd Stashwick, and Jay Johnston. Jon Glaser and Rachel Dratch sat in for a few shows early on, too. Later on, some of the other people that passed through GreenCo while I was with them included Miriam, Nancy Walls, Adam McKay, Theresa Mulligan, Laura Krafft, and Neil Flynn. Just before I stopped touring, Amy Poehler did a GreenCo tour with us, too, but I can’t remember if she stayed in GreenCo after I left. All of those people were so hilarious to travel with, and I loved doing shows with them, too.
The kinds of places we played on tour varied so much--from beautiful professional theatres to crappy little dumps, from college auditoriums to hotel ballrooms.
In terms of “memorable places we went,” I think my favorite tour we ever did was through the Colorado/Wyoming area. Second City usually called that “The Ski Tour.” I had never been to that part of the country, and I fell completely in love with places like Crested Butte and Jackson Hole. I can’t really ski worth a damn, but it was so beautiful that I still enjoyed myself on the relatively “easy” slopes. Miriam actually did her first skiing ever in Jackson Hole, and it was so hilarious to watch. She didn’t fall down much, but she had no idea how to stop. The crowds were amazing out there, too, especially in Crested Butte. It was like a great college crowd that never gets much entertainment passing through town ordinarily.
One time, we played a rock club in Ashville, NC that was owned by a lovable old hippie that clearly didn’t care at all about money. I saw a poster on the wall that said the old 70’s band Foghat was coming to play there shortly after us. I asked the guy, “How are the ticket sales for Foghat?” The hippie smiled and said, “I’m taking a fuckin’ bath on that one, man!”
We also once played a little college in Bangor, Maine. We asked where we’d be doing the show and some mildly-stoned guy led us to an ordinary classroom. We thought he was joking at first. We then asked him where the “lights” were, and he flipped the lightswitch on the wall. Then we asked if people even knew we were coming, and he just shrugged. Renee Albert ended up going over to one of the dorms and rounding up 5 or 6 guys to watch the show. It ended up being a pretty fun show, actually. Since there wasn’t even a piano, our piano player sat in as an actor for our improv stuff.
Sometimes, the most fun we had was in places we’d never have been in a million years if we hadn’t been sent there. For example, I remember being in a little “bowling alley” bar somewhere in rural Indiana after one of our shows. The only people in the bar were us, a drunk redneck couple, a toothless old trucker, and an 18 year-old kid with a karaoke machine. We spent the next few hours eating jalapeno poppers, drinking 3-dollar pitchers, and taking turns singing karaoke like idiots. The drunk redneck woman’s off-key but heartfelt rendition of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” was rivalled only by Neil Flynn’s swinging version of “Mack The Knife.” Bobby Darin would’ve been proud.
J: TourCo sounds like a pretty intense experience. Were there any instances where a group didn’t like each other and had to be broken apart?
B: There were never any entire groups that were broken up over personal conflicts, but as with any other organization, some people got along better than others. I rarely saw any intense animosity between people, but sometimes people just didn’t “click” with each other. When I first got hired into the TourCo, I understudied for all three companies before joining GreenCo full-time, and there was completely different chemistry between people in all three of the groups.
I recall one trip in which the people in the van hardly said one word to each other the whole ride to and from the show. I didn’t think anyone necessarily hated each other in that group, it just seemed they were just in their own separate worlds when they weren’t onstage. My later experience in GreenCo was the exact opposite of that. We always had such a great time together in GreenCo, on and offstage. I’m very grateful for that, and I never took it for granted.
J: Was TourCo the sole source of income for most people in it?
B: Most people in TourCo had to find other sources of income to get by. We were paid Equity wages for shows, about 70 or 80 bucks a show back then, I think, plus about 30 bucks in “per diem” money per day when we were actually traveling out of Chicago. There were some times of year when we did very few shows, though, like the summer months when we sometimes did as few as four or five shows a month. Every three weeks, each TourCo would do a Monday night “home show” in the Mainstage space since the Mainstage cast had Monday nights off, but sometimes that would be it for another week or two in terms of shows. During the non-summer months, we usually did a lot more shows, partly because of all the college shows we did.
Most performers worked other kinds of jobs to supplement their income--teaching, waiting tables, doing commercial work, whatever. I had to leave my full-time job at the ad agency when I started touring, but I was lucky enough to start getting some “voiceover” work after that. I’ve always enjoyed doing that kind of thing, and I still do now and then when I have some free time here in New York. If I’m able to do it at all, though, it’s usually just in the morning before 11 or so. We start work around 11am usually, but we often work until 11 or 12 at night.
J: You seemed to have worked pretty closely with dozens of people who are now well-known comedians. Did you think that so many of your friends would be come accomplished in the comedy world?
B: Well, I found many of the people around me to be incredibly hilarious, and I saw the reactions they got from audiences, but back then “success” or becoming “well-known” seemed to me like something that happened to people in some other dimension or something. I knew nothing about the way “show business” worked, or how unknown people got brought into the “business.” Later on, the whole process became far less mysterious, but that was kind of a gradual process for me.
Looking back, I’m not the least bit surprised that many of the people I was lucky enough to watch and/or work with became well-known later on. There’s obviously a lot of luck, good and bad, involved in comedy though, and humor is such a subjective thing, so I’ve never assumed that the people whose work I love will necessarily become successful, even if I think they deserve to be. We’ve all obviously had the experience of thinking that sometimes there’s justice in the world in terms of who becomes successful and sometimes there’s not.
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