Brian Stack 3/13/06 Part 3

J: When did you leave TourCo and what did you leave it for?


B: I left GreenCo in around March of ‘95, I think. I had always enjoyed touring, but I wanted to stop while I was still having a good time doing it. I made it clear that I was still interested in working in one of the SC resident companies at some point if they thought I seemed right for the slot, and director Norm Holly asked me to join to ETC cast a few months later.



J: What is the etc cast like? How is it different from the mainstage?


B: The etc cast is just like the Mainstage or TourCo cast--six actors, usually 3 men and 3 women. Second City tries to maintain diversity in the casts in terms of ethnic backgrounds, personality types, etc., but the extent of that diversity can obviously vary from group to group.

The etc space is slightly smaller than the Mainstage, but it’s right next door to it in the same building. Some people prefer performing in etc because they find it more “intimate,” but I’ve always loved both rooms.

The Mainstage usually does 8 shows a week while the ETC typically does 7, or sometimes 6. Both casts do 2 shows on Friday and Saturday nights, and both are off on Mondays. ETC is almost always off on Tuesdays as well. Both casts do improv sets every night after the shows, except on Friday nights.



J: Did you ever teach or coach? If so, how did you like it? If not, why not?


B: I did a little bit of coaching and teaching, but not much. I enjoyed it overall, but I never thought I was very good at it. I’ve never been very articulate when it comes to improv. The little teaching I did do gave me a tremendous appreciation and respect for those that truly have the gift for it. It’s truly a talent in and of itself, apart from performing.



J: What were the early Armando Diaz Theatrical Experience and Hootenanny like?


B: They were, in the words of Noah Gregoropoulos, a “blast from day one.” For one thing, we all loved working together, and many of us had been working together in various ways for a few years at that point. It was also great getting to work with some of the performers I had met, but hadn’t had the chance to perform with before.

Del Close led some early “Armando” workshops after Adam McKay and Dave Koechner had the idea to put the group together in the Spring of ‘95, and have us improvise scenes inspired by little monologues that Armando would do here and there throughout the show. Armando himself did all the monologues for the early shows, but later on the “Armando” was simply whoever was doing the monologues that night.

Thanks to Noah Gregoropoulos keeping a list, I can tell you that original cast for the “Armando” shows was: Armando Diaz, Matt Besser, Brian Blondell, Jim Carrane, Kevin Dorff, Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Neil Flynn, Jon Glaser, James Grace, Noah Gregoropoulos, David Koechner, Laura Krafft, Cara MacNamara, Brian McCann, Adam McKay, Theresa Mulligan, Rush Pearson, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, me, Miles Stroth, Miriam Tolan, Pete Zahradnick and Dee Ryan.

Very soon thereafter we added Craig Cackowski, Peter Gwinn, Pete Hulne, Susan Messing, Rich Talarico, Paul Vallaincourt and Matt Walsh -- and a bit later in ‘95 we got a lift from Stephnie Weir, Bob Dassie, Seamus McCarthy and Matt "Kid Sorrow" Dwyer. Later on we had help from Gwyn Ashley, Brian Boland, Liz Edwards, Ed Herbstman, Mary McCain, Neil McNamara and Steve Mosqueda.

Guest performers have also trod the Hootenanny boards, and have included Scott Adsit, Bill Chott, Andy Dick, Chris Farley, Pat Finn, Leo Ford, Rich Fulcher, Jenna Jolovitz, Will Clinger, Jay Leggett, Pat McCartney, Jerry Minor, David Pasquesi, Keith Privett, David Razowski, Peter Reinemann, Scot Robinson, Adrian Wenner and Rebecca Weinberg. I wish I could tell you all the people that have done it since I left Chicago. I know lots of great performers like T.J. Jagodowski and John Lutz did it in later years



J: In ‘95, you auditioned for SNL, right?


B: Yes. After the SNL producers came to Chicago to scout for new performers, several of us from Second City were flown out to New York to audition. I really appreciated the opportunity, but to be honest, I didn’t really like what I did for my audition. That was my own fault. I could’ve been a lot more prepared, and I didn’t really have any strong ideas for what to do for a one-person audition piece like that. I don’t have any regrets about how things turned out, however, since I loved working in Chicago for a couple years after that, and I’ve always loved working at “Conan.”

A few of my friends from Second City did end up getting hired that year though. Dave Koechner and Nancy Walls as performers, and Adam McKay was hired as a writer after submitting some hilarious sketches he wrote. I was very happy for them since they’re all great people.



J: What characters did you do for the audition? How would you characterize the experience?B: It’s all kind of a blur. Like I said, I kind of winged it since I unfortunately didn’t have any one-person presentational stuff prepared in advance. I did a little bit of Sean Connery which they seemed to like, but the other stuff I did was pretty unfocused and off-the-cuff. I think I did a British punk rocker guy without much of an idea to back him up with, and a half-assed Ted Kennedy impersonation because I’d been told that they’d like to see at least one “political” impression. Since I didn’t really have Kennedy’s voice down very well, I sounded more like Mayor Quimby from “The Simpsons.”

The people at the audition were very nice to us, but it was pretty damn intimidating auditioning by myself directly to camera on the “host” stage in Studio 8-H that I’d been watching on TV for 20 years.



J: How did you become a writer for Late Night with Conan O’Brien?


B: The circumstances surrounding my getting hired were pretty weird. Back in the Spring of ‘97, when I was working at Second City-ETC, I got a call one day from “Conan” writer Brian McCann, who as I mentioned before was an old friend of mine from Chicago improv groups. He said that another “Conan” writer and former Chicagoan, Tommy Blacha, had broken his leg really badly and they were looking for someone to fill in for a few months until Tommy came back. Brian, Tommy, and another writer, Greg Cohen, had recommended me to the then head writer, Jonathan Groff, based on my work in Chicago. Jonathan asked me to send in a packet of ideas right away. I wasn’t in any way expecting to actually get the job, but luckily I did. Miriam, who was also working in Second City-ETC at the time, and I got a sublet in New York, thinking we’d be going back to Chicago in three months. Fortunately, Jonathan Groff and Conan liked the work I was doing and they talked NBC into letting them keep an extra writer on staff after Tommy came back. I’ll always be grateful to them for that.



J: How did you manage to adjust to working at the show?


B: I had a great time here right from the start. I had to adjust to the way the show actually runs and how things are produced and all that, but the people here made me very comfortable right away. It helped of course that I already knew McCann, Andy Richter, Tommy, and Greg, but the other people on staff, from the writers to the band to the crew to Conan himself, have always been really great to work with.



J: What is the typical day like at Late Night?


B: We work most days from around 11am until 11pm or so, but we usually leave right after the 5:30pm taping on Fridays. There are some nights when we get out earlier than 11, but sometimes we’re here later than that, too. We usually start the day with a production meeting at around 11:15am. Then we work on stuff for the show for a few hours before rehearsal. Rehearsal usually runs between 2 and 4:30 or so. We usually tape at 5:30. Brian McCann goes out and warms up the crowd before the show. Mike Sweeney used to do that before he became our head writer. The band also plays for a bit before taping, and Conan goes out to meet the crowd, too. After the show tapes, we’ll usually have some dinner and then work on upcoming stuff the rest of the night.



J: What is the atmosphere like?


B: It’s a great atmosphere. The people here are all very nice and fun to work with. There are some days that get more stressful than others, of course, and every now and then people might get pissed off at each other, but it’s always been a great place to work. Sarah Vowell, one of my favorite guests, was at our Christmas party a few years back and she said to me, “You do realize that this is an unusually good environment to work in, don’t you?” That was nice to hear from her since I respect her opinion so much.



J: Not to single one writer out, but what was it like working with Jon Glaser? He seems like he’d be a very interesting person to work with.


B: Jon’s a great writer and performer, and he’s a lot of fun to work with. I wish he were still on our writing staff, but he still comes around to do acting bits for us now and then. I always loved working with Jon back in Chicago, too. Jon is an excellent actor, and I could actually imagine him doing dramatic work very convincingly if he’s ever interested in doing that.

Jon couldn’t be more different from me in terms of our personalities, but I find that I often work best with people that are very different from me, as long as we like each other and find the same kinds of things funny. In my experience, different personality types can often complement each other really well when it comes to bouncing ideas around.



J: Does your improv training play a role in your work on Late Night?


B: I think my improv background has helped me a lot as a writer, actually. Like I said, we often bounce ideas off of each other when we’re writing here, and a lot of my favorite bits on our show have developed through riffing around with each other. Also, as with improv, many of the best things we’ve done here at the show have developed accidentally. Paul Westerberg from The Replacements, one of my all-time favorite bands, once said, “Rock and roll is about mistakes, and making those mistakes work for you.” I think that same statement could be applied to a lot of my favorite comedy stuff over the years.



J: How do you keep up your improv chops?


B: I only improvise a few times a year nowadays. I did a few ASSSCAT shows at UCB this year, and I’ve always loved doing that show, but since I work such long hours and rarely see our two little daughters, Nora is 8 and Colette is 3, I like to watch them on Sunday nights and encourage Miriam to go do ASSSCAT whenever she wants to. She does it pretty regularly. Before the kids came along, I used to do ASSSCAT almost every week. I’ve always loved seeing those people, and I appreciate any chance I get to work with them.



J: Do people ever improvise around the office? I think you guys should put together an NBC team. You’d kick serious ass. Do you and Miriam ever improvise together in your home?


B: Well, a lot of our writing sessions feel a lot like improv in that we’re bouncing ideas around. Also, people tend to do a lot of “bits” with each other around the office that remind me a lot of improv. Jon Glaser, Kevin Dorff, Brian McCann, Miriam, Jodi Lennon, and I got together for four shows last summer at UCB under the ridiculous name “The Goofaround Gang.” We had a great time doing those shows. I felt a little rusty, but it was a lot of fun. I wish we had time to do more of that stuff.


J: What would you like to be doing professionally 5 or 10 years from now?


B: Well, I’ve always loved working for “Conan” and I have no real plans to leave, but I do hope at some point to at least try writing a screenplay or two. I admire anyone who’s written a screenplay, even a bad one. Even if mine turned out to be terrible, I’d like to know that I at least took a shot at it. Whatever I’m doing later on in life, I also hope to continue performing in some way, even if it’s just improv on weekends or whatever.



J: What are some qualities of good improv?


B: I think that what defines really “good improv” often differs from person to person, but a lot of my favorite improv over the years has usually involved the following things, among others:

-Performers that genuinely want to be there, and have a great time working together.

-Performers that really listen to what their fellow performers are saying, and watch what their fellow performers are doing.

-Performers that aren’t trying to be funny, but rather trusting that the laughs will come out of just playing the scenes, and responding to what’s happening in some kind of truthful way.



J: What makes a good initiation? Do you find you typically initiate with a premise or with something more abstract?


B: My favorite times to initiate a new scene are when I’m building on something that’s already been going on. For example, if a woman timidly tells a co-worker she’s been having a “little problem” at home with her husband, I might really enjoy suddenly initiating a scene in which I’m that husband with her at home, being far more than a “little problem,” but rather the most nightmarish husband on Earth.

In terms of brand new scenes not inspired by previous ones, I think some of the best initiations I’ve seen have involved a strong emotional choice. It’s such a gift for your scene partner if instead of entering in a completely neutral emotional state, you enter crying or angry, or with a stunned look on your face or whatever. I’ve been as guilty as anyone else of starting scenes tentatively in “neutral” and that can obviously be fine much of the time, but it’s amazing how much more your partner has to react to and how much more interesting a scene is right from the start when there are some real emotional stakes involved.



J: How do you come up with characters?


B: It really varies a lot. Sometimes I’ve discovered characters while doing improv. Sometimes I’ve based them on people I’ve encountered in real life. Sometimes they’re inspired by characters I’ve seen in movies or real people I’ve seen in documentaries. And sometimes I’ve been asked to play some kind of character and then developed it with the person who asked me to do it.



J: Are there any types of characters that you find difficult to play?


B: For a long time, especially when I first started doing improv, I always avoided playing characters that were anything close to myself. I think I felt a lot less self-conscious when I was playing someone completely different from me. Later on, I got more comfortable playing people more like myself, but I do still tend to gravitate toward characters that are pretty different from me in the way they talk, act, and look.



J: How has improv changed you as a person?


B: I’m not sure exactly. I’ve been doing it for so long now that it’s hard to remember when it wasn’t at least a small part of my life. I know that improv changed my life completely in terms of the people I’ve met, the friends I have, and the work that I’ve ended up doing, so I’m sure it has changed me quite a bit as a person, directly and indirectly.



J: What makes a great team?


B: Sometimes that can be really hard to define, I think. Team chemistry is such a mysterious thing. You kind of know a great team when you see one, but it’s often hard, at least for me, to tell what it is that makes one team great and another good. Sometimes the whole can obviously be greater than the sum of its parts. Kind of like the New England Patriots winning the Superbowl without any huge stars on the team. I think that, like with great rock bands or whatever, there are just some groups that seem to gel together perfectly. If you took one of the pieces away, the whole thing might not collapse, but the team would lose something important.

Sometimes it’s only obvious to the people within a group what makes their group great. An old teacher of mine told me that he once directed a group that was a real killer ensemble. A club owner told him to fire a woman in the group because “she’s not funny.” The director tried to explain to the owner that the woman in question was essential to the group’s dynamic and that she made the other players funnier by grounding everything in reality and supporting their choices completely. The club owner refused to listen and insisted that the woman be fired. Needless to say, the group collapsed without her. She was the glue holding them together. The director knew it and the team knew it, too. Luckily, they got her back into the group right after that and found somewhere else to perform.



J: Do you have anything that you would like to say to the improv community that we didn’t get out?


B: I guess, I’d just like to repeat a quote about improvisers that Adam McKay heard Del say in class once years ago. Del said, “Simply by getting up and doing this kind of work makes you unique. Many people go through their entire lives and never try something this daring.” Adam said that he really found that inspiring, and I do, too.


[For people who are really big fans of "Conan," Brian did an incredibly indepth Q&A with fans here: http://www.aspecialthing.com/phpbb/v...c.php?p=33932&]