Todd Stashwick 11/15/06 Part 1
Todd Stashwick performed with Second City Chicago throughout the 90's before moving to New York, where he helped to found Burn Manhattan, a highly physical, organic improv group. He currently lives in Los Angeles where he runs the Hot House, a theater which teaches organic improvisation.
JF: Where were you born?
TS: Chicago, Illinois.
JF: What were some early influences on your sense of humor?
TS: The earliest earliest I can probably think of are two things: the Donny and Marie Show and the Muppet Show. I think the Muppet Show was like the kid primer for Saturday Night Live. In High School, obviously SNL, Monty Python. Bill Murray was a big influence. I love watching those guys.
JF: Do you see their effects on you in your comedy now?
TS: Absolutely. Bill Murray is really a huge influence on me. There was a lovely understatement to what he did. He had the capability of being silly, serious, and he could also just rise an eyebrow and destroy something. There's something really understated about his work. As he gets older that's something he's able to do more. But he could always get the girl without doing a pushup. [laughs]
JF: When did you know that you wanted to be a performer?
TS: Since I was 9 years old. We were driving to Ohio and I had my little cassette tapes in the back seat. I remember listening to a tape of Elvis, and having an epiphany of 'wow, I'm listening to Elvis and that's his job.' That's when it all makes sense, that my Dad gets up and goes to work and does his job, and Elvis gets up and sings and entertains people.
And I did plays in Junior High School and High School. I think somewhere around Junior or Senior year of High School it occured to me that I was either going to be a graphic designer, like drawing and cartooning, or an actor. And being an actor was louder. I also couldn't handle somebody critiquing my drawings, but I never had a problem taking direction. I saw performance as an easy collaboration, but for me drawing was like that's the inside of your head and I couldn't get notes on that, you know what I mean? Now, drawing and graphic design is something I do on my own, and performance is what I do for a living.
JF: How did you get invovled with improv?
TS: I think it goes back to Bill Murray being an influence. It was one of those things where I connected the dots and went 'oh, he went to Second City before he was on Saturday Night Line and became a Ghost Buster and in Stripes and all of that.' I find year book entries that people had written saying 'we'll see you at Second City.' This is when I was 17 years old. I knew that I would be at Second City back then. Then I got my degree in Theater, then right out of college I went back to Chicago. I remember talking to talking to Holly Wortell, who was in the Touring Company of Second City and performed at Loyola when I was going there at the time, and I asked her how I could get a job at Second City. She said the best way was to get a job tearing tickets, or washing dishes or bartending or something like that and watching the shows and getting to know the process. So, right out of college I got a job at job at Second City Northwest, because I was in the suburbs. I was tearing tickets when Steve Carrell was on the Second City Northwest stage. I remember sitting in the back of the house, watching his work, taking secret notes.
Then when it came time to audition for the Touring Company, because I went through the program, and also studied at Improv Olympic with Del Close and Charna, when it came time to audition for the Touring Company, I knew what the job was, because I had seen hundreds of shows by that point. That was pretty early on. I got hired into Second City when I was 23.
JF: How long had you been doing improv at that time?
TS: I got hired in the Touring Company in late 91, 92, so I had been improvising for 3 or 4 years in Chicago of intensive improv study. ...My life was [improv.] I would be taking classes at Second City, taking classes at Improv Olympic, waiting tables during the day at the Hamburger Hamlet, sleeping in the bar across the street from Second City, going over to Second City, tearing tickets there, hosting, as they called it, at Downtown Second City until 1 in the morning, then I was performing at Improv Olympic on Friday night. I was pretty much submerged in the improv community from 90 to pretty much 96, the improv community in Chicago.
JF: Do you have any idea why it was so important to you?
TS: Well, I knew what I wanted. Like I said, I wanted to be Bill Murray or go that route. I wanted to be a professional actor on television and film, so I saw the well-tread route of Second City. It's kind of like High School when you join a band to meet girls, then along the way you fall in love with rock music. So, that's what I saw it as, a spring board to Second City to Saturday Night Live, then to movies, then somewhere in there, probably more in New York, I fell in love with improvising. I don't feel like I learned how to improvise until I left Chicago, even though I had studied with Del and Charna and Martin DeMaat and Mick Napier and Dave Razowski. All these great teachers. Don Depollo. It didn't all click or come together really until I got to New York.
JF: Do you think that's because you were on your own more, in a sense, in New York, and that helped you develop your own voice?
TS: Well, I think it's cumulative. I was doing Second City and their thrust wasn't improvisation. It was sketch comedy. Improvisation was used as a tool to get to scenework. Also, there was a bottom line at Second City. They're a business. When we would tour or do shows, when we would improvise, we would do improvised games and they have a hook and a pattern. So, you go on a well-tread path, get the funny out, because you're on the road and you're selling a product. You find you're repeating yourself a lot.
There was also a slight edge of competition within the Chicago improv community. When you're not in Second City, you're competing to get into Second City. When you're in Second City, you're competing to get into a Touring Company. When you're in Touring Company, you're competing to get into a resident company. When you're in a resident company, you're competing to get through the ranks to the Mainstage Company.
As Spolin states in her book, competition [doesn't] work. It's Darwinian, and it needs to be a business to survive. And I cast no dispersions on Second City. But as far as my education as an improviser, just getting on stage with nothing, starting with zero, and going and trusting the ensemble, and trusting the work, to do it for its sake with no ulterior motive of ascension, I didn't learn how to do that until New York. I learned a lot of things at Second City and I'm grateful for the experience. I learned about fast. I learned about funny. I learned how to be quick on my feet, quote, unquote. I also toured with the funniest people in the country, so with exposure to really talented minds, you're going to learn a lot. You're sort of humbled by the level of funny that you're surrounded by, but it wasn't until Burn Manhattan with Kevin, Matt, Jay and John and Shira, our director, that I really learned to love improvisation.
JF: How did your acting training effect your improv? Did you find it to be helpful to you or a hinderance?
TS: They're one in the same. Improvisation is a form of acting. All acting is improvising, except some things have to be said with the writing around it. My friend said that. That's brilliant and that's the truth. They're not mutually exclusive. It's not like now I'm improvising and now I'm acting, because when you're improvising you're playing characters. You're heightening relationships. You're listening. You're playing make-believe. You're giving over to the circumstances, fictional circumstances, believing them and having to convince an audience of the truth of the moment. I mean, there's no difference.
As far as my studies in college, I had a lot of voice training, and movement training, and character training, and understanding dramatic structure training. I think when I brought that to my improvised work, it brought a more theatrical level to my improivsed work. Because I understood plays and scene structure and characters and how to move in space from having done lots and lots of plays. Performing wasn't a new experience to me. Performing without a script was a new experience. But I think they're the same creature, just different ways of doing it, like oil painting or acrylic painting or water color painting, they're all painting.
JF: Who were some of the people in your Touring Company?
TS: I toured with Nancy Walls, Adam McKay, Neil Flynn, Brian Stack, Pat Finn, Teresa Mulligan, Jay Johnston, [inaudible], Miriam Tolan, Matt Dwyer, sometimes.
JF: Burn Manhattan was known for being very physical. Were the seeds of that for you planted in Chicago?
TS: Oddly no. I found Chicago improv to be very cerebral. I can't speak for it now. I found it to be very fast-minded or quick-witted, and not very physical as in terms of what I know to be physical. Like Europe has a long tradition of physical comedy, clowning and what not. The seeds of Burn Manhattan that got planted in me were when I had gone with Second City to Scotland for the Fringe Festival and saw this group that was based out of Liverpool called 'Rejects Revenge.' They had done this show called Pee Super. There were 3 people who created all of their environments, all of their props, all of their special effects just using physical devices, how they would shape their bodies. They would make you see things that just weren't there. It was just a firecracker in my head. It made me think that all the work I had been doing up until that point was just standing still.
I think Second City's strength are their characters and their relationships, and deriving the humor from those moments, but they're not a terribly physical show, not in the way that I knew was possible until I went to Europe and saw this tradition expressed in front of me. So, I watched this group and just bullied my way into getting to know the theater company, Rejects Revenge, and picked their brains, and stole so much. I said to myself 'how can I make a show look like what they're doing, only improvised?' They were a very rehearsed group. They devised all their physical bits in rehearsal, then did a play with them. I wanted to figure out how to improvise with that sensibility.
JF: What were some of the ideas that you took from Rejects Revenge and how did you adjust them to improv?
TS: They would create their environment. They would embody fog, or they would be candles or they would be heirogliphics. There were 2 guys and a girl, and in one scene she fell down a well. They picked her up and showed her falling down the well. She would be on a swing in a garden. There was no swing, but she would create it. She would move through space as if she were on a swing. There was an entire train chase at the end and all they had was 2 boxes on stage that they stood on. And they would create a chug, chug movment with their bodies while they maintained the scene. There was a lot of comedy and music and whatnot. It was unbelievable, and I thought 'wow, we really don't understand this whole idea of 'environment.'' We don't understand shaping space the way these people did. It really transformed the way I looked at what improvisers could do. Everyone else was doing scenes in kitchens and restaraunts and bookstores, very linear. These people were exploding the environment palate.
JF: Where were you born?
TS: Chicago, Illinois.
JF: What were some early influences on your sense of humor?
TS: The earliest earliest I can probably think of are two things: the Donny and Marie Show and the Muppet Show. I think the Muppet Show was like the kid primer for Saturday Night Live. In High School, obviously SNL, Monty Python. Bill Murray was a big influence. I love watching those guys.
JF: Do you see their effects on you in your comedy now?
TS: Absolutely. Bill Murray is really a huge influence on me. There was a lovely understatement to what he did. He had the capability of being silly, serious, and he could also just rise an eyebrow and destroy something. There's something really understated about his work. As he gets older that's something he's able to do more. But he could always get the girl without doing a pushup. [laughs]
JF: When did you know that you wanted to be a performer?
TS: Since I was 9 years old. We were driving to Ohio and I had my little cassette tapes in the back seat. I remember listening to a tape of Elvis, and having an epiphany of 'wow, I'm listening to Elvis and that's his job.' That's when it all makes sense, that my Dad gets up and goes to work and does his job, and Elvis gets up and sings and entertains people.
And I did plays in Junior High School and High School. I think somewhere around Junior or Senior year of High School it occured to me that I was either going to be a graphic designer, like drawing and cartooning, or an actor. And being an actor was louder. I also couldn't handle somebody critiquing my drawings, but I never had a problem taking direction. I saw performance as an easy collaboration, but for me drawing was like that's the inside of your head and I couldn't get notes on that, you know what I mean? Now, drawing and graphic design is something I do on my own, and performance is what I do for a living.
JF: How did you get invovled with improv?
TS: I think it goes back to Bill Murray being an influence. It was one of those things where I connected the dots and went 'oh, he went to Second City before he was on Saturday Night Line and became a Ghost Buster and in Stripes and all of that.' I find year book entries that people had written saying 'we'll see you at Second City.' This is when I was 17 years old. I knew that I would be at Second City back then. Then I got my degree in Theater, then right out of college I went back to Chicago. I remember talking to talking to Holly Wortell, who was in the Touring Company of Second City and performed at Loyola when I was going there at the time, and I asked her how I could get a job at Second City. She said the best way was to get a job tearing tickets, or washing dishes or bartending or something like that and watching the shows and getting to know the process. So, right out of college I got a job at job at Second City Northwest, because I was in the suburbs. I was tearing tickets when Steve Carrell was on the Second City Northwest stage. I remember sitting in the back of the house, watching his work, taking secret notes.
Then when it came time to audition for the Touring Company, because I went through the program, and also studied at Improv Olympic with Del Close and Charna, when it came time to audition for the Touring Company, I knew what the job was, because I had seen hundreds of shows by that point. That was pretty early on. I got hired into Second City when I was 23.
JF: How long had you been doing improv at that time?
TS: I got hired in the Touring Company in late 91, 92, so I had been improvising for 3 or 4 years in Chicago of intensive improv study. ...My life was [improv.] I would be taking classes at Second City, taking classes at Improv Olympic, waiting tables during the day at the Hamburger Hamlet, sleeping in the bar across the street from Second City, going over to Second City, tearing tickets there, hosting, as they called it, at Downtown Second City until 1 in the morning, then I was performing at Improv Olympic on Friday night. I was pretty much submerged in the improv community from 90 to pretty much 96, the improv community in Chicago.
JF: Do you have any idea why it was so important to you?
TS: Well, I knew what I wanted. Like I said, I wanted to be Bill Murray or go that route. I wanted to be a professional actor on television and film, so I saw the well-tread route of Second City. It's kind of like High School when you join a band to meet girls, then along the way you fall in love with rock music. So, that's what I saw it as, a spring board to Second City to Saturday Night Live, then to movies, then somewhere in there, probably more in New York, I fell in love with improvising. I don't feel like I learned how to improvise until I left Chicago, even though I had studied with Del and Charna and Martin DeMaat and Mick Napier and Dave Razowski. All these great teachers. Don Depollo. It didn't all click or come together really until I got to New York.
JF: Do you think that's because you were on your own more, in a sense, in New York, and that helped you develop your own voice?
TS: Well, I think it's cumulative. I was doing Second City and their thrust wasn't improvisation. It was sketch comedy. Improvisation was used as a tool to get to scenework. Also, there was a bottom line at Second City. They're a business. When we would tour or do shows, when we would improvise, we would do improvised games and they have a hook and a pattern. So, you go on a well-tread path, get the funny out, because you're on the road and you're selling a product. You find you're repeating yourself a lot.
There was also a slight edge of competition within the Chicago improv community. When you're not in Second City, you're competing to get into Second City. When you're in Second City, you're competing to get into a Touring Company. When you're in Touring Company, you're competing to get into a resident company. When you're in a resident company, you're competing to get through the ranks to the Mainstage Company.
As Spolin states in her book, competition [doesn't] work. It's Darwinian, and it needs to be a business to survive. And I cast no dispersions on Second City. But as far as my education as an improviser, just getting on stage with nothing, starting with zero, and going and trusting the ensemble, and trusting the work, to do it for its sake with no ulterior motive of ascension, I didn't learn how to do that until New York. I learned a lot of things at Second City and I'm grateful for the experience. I learned about fast. I learned about funny. I learned how to be quick on my feet, quote, unquote. I also toured with the funniest people in the country, so with exposure to really talented minds, you're going to learn a lot. You're sort of humbled by the level of funny that you're surrounded by, but it wasn't until Burn Manhattan with Kevin, Matt, Jay and John and Shira, our director, that I really learned to love improvisation.
JF: How did your acting training effect your improv? Did you find it to be helpful to you or a hinderance?
TS: They're one in the same. Improvisation is a form of acting. All acting is improvising, except some things have to be said with the writing around it. My friend said that. That's brilliant and that's the truth. They're not mutually exclusive. It's not like now I'm improvising and now I'm acting, because when you're improvising you're playing characters. You're heightening relationships. You're listening. You're playing make-believe. You're giving over to the circumstances, fictional circumstances, believing them and having to convince an audience of the truth of the moment. I mean, there's no difference.
As far as my studies in college, I had a lot of voice training, and movement training, and character training, and understanding dramatic structure training. I think when I brought that to my improvised work, it brought a more theatrical level to my improivsed work. Because I understood plays and scene structure and characters and how to move in space from having done lots and lots of plays. Performing wasn't a new experience to me. Performing without a script was a new experience. But I think they're the same creature, just different ways of doing it, like oil painting or acrylic painting or water color painting, they're all painting.
JF: Who were some of the people in your Touring Company?
TS: I toured with Nancy Walls, Adam McKay, Neil Flynn, Brian Stack, Pat Finn, Teresa Mulligan, Jay Johnston, [inaudible], Miriam Tolan, Matt Dwyer, sometimes.
JF: Burn Manhattan was known for being very physical. Were the seeds of that for you planted in Chicago?
TS: Oddly no. I found Chicago improv to be very cerebral. I can't speak for it now. I found it to be very fast-minded or quick-witted, and not very physical as in terms of what I know to be physical. Like Europe has a long tradition of physical comedy, clowning and what not. The seeds of Burn Manhattan that got planted in me were when I had gone with Second City to Scotland for the Fringe Festival and saw this group that was based out of Liverpool called 'Rejects Revenge.' They had done this show called Pee Super. There were 3 people who created all of their environments, all of their props, all of their special effects just using physical devices, how they would shape their bodies. They would make you see things that just weren't there. It was just a firecracker in my head. It made me think that all the work I had been doing up until that point was just standing still.
I think Second City's strength are their characters and their relationships, and deriving the humor from those moments, but they're not a terribly physical show, not in the way that I knew was possible until I went to Europe and saw this tradition expressed in front of me. So, I watched this group and just bullied my way into getting to know the theater company, Rejects Revenge, and picked their brains, and stole so much. I said to myself 'how can I make a show look like what they're doing, only improvised?' They were a very rehearsed group. They devised all their physical bits in rehearsal, then did a play with them. I wanted to figure out how to improvise with that sensibility.
JF: What were some of the ideas that you took from Rejects Revenge and how did you adjust them to improv?
TS: They would create their environment. They would embody fog, or they would be candles or they would be heirogliphics. There were 2 guys and a girl, and in one scene she fell down a well. They picked her up and showed her falling down the well. She would be on a swing in a garden. There was no swing, but she would create it. She would move through space as if she were on a swing. There was an entire train chase at the end and all they had was 2 boxes on stage that they stood on. And they would create a chug, chug movment with their bodies while they maintained the scene. There was a lot of comedy and music and whatnot. It was unbelievable, and I thought 'wow, we really don't understand this whole idea of 'environment.'' We don't understand shaping space the way these people did. It really transformed the way I looked at what improvisers could do. Everyone else was doing scenes in kitchens and restaraunts and bookstores, very linear. These people were exploding the environment palate.
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