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DC improviser and essential medical worker Angela Karpieniak sits down with podcast hosts Puss and Kooch to talk about the ability to be vulnerable, having no-clothes days, and the time and place for fart jokes.
Angela Karpieniak on Heavy Flo with Puss and Kooch
Angela Karpieniak was one of the iconic members of Wonder Whale, a now-retired Washington Improv Theater Harold team. (Fun fact: Wonder Whale was the team all of your podcast hosts were part of at some point in their improv careers.)
Angela is also a staple of the amazing indie improv team, Stovëtron. During the day, she’s an occupational therapist.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. To hear everything Angela has to say, listen to her podcast episode.
Having people’s backs, on and offstage
Since being quarantined, I miss improv. I miss performing. It was definitely a source of stress relief. I think there’s a vulnerability that comes with playing on a team of people you know and care about. That’s just not really happening now. It’s a part of life that is just different.
I haven’t thought about improv that way. I’ve always thought about it as a creative outlet, but it’s also a vulnerability outlet that we’re kind of missing now, too.
It’s interesting because a lot of times when I tell people I do improv or when people come see improv shows, they’re like, “I don’t know how you do that. You’re onstage. You have no idea what’s about to happen. And then you just deal with it.”
I think that’s a skill most people should have in life because, seeing what’s going on now, we don’t know how to deal with it. I think if you at least have somewhat of a, “That’s okay, I’ll just improvise how I’m going to survive right now,” attitude or coping mechanism, it makes the uncertainty a little bit better.
I’m definitely an oversharer. I talk a lot. But it does take something, I think, to put yourself out there, trust your teammates, and know that people have your back. It’s also a comfortable skill to have in life to know that you can trust people. People have your back. People aren’t going to leave you alone. In improv, that’s just what you get, which is nice.
Especially now, my job as an occupational therapist has become a huge team effort. If someone slips up, somebody picks up the slack. Whether they’re happy to pick up the slack or not remains to be seen. But especially now that the therapists are helping the nurses, it’s been more of a joint collaboration.
I think you can choose to have people’s backs in the real world. You don’t have to, but I think it’s easier to try and enter your everyday with kindness and respect and do your best. I have no control over what anybody else is doing, which is kind of like improv. You don’t have control. If people have weird ideas, you just have to go with it.
I think it’s easier just to say, “I’m taking care of myself. I’m going to do the best I can. I’m going to be nice. And that’s all I can ask of myself.” And whatever happens on the other end, hopefully it’s reciprocated.
The importance of shutting up and eating pizza
One of the psychiatrists at work did a webinar for all the therapists, doctors, and nurses about resilience in the workplace during tough times. This other therapist and I were talking about it after, and she said, “I don’t know if I’m ready to be vulnerable right now because everything kind of sucks a little bit. I have my masking tape where I need it, to get through the day. So if you start tearing down that masking tape, I don’t know if I can handle this.”
Even at home, my fiancé Josh and my family and friends have been great. But sometimes if I’m having a day or I come home and am feeling crappy or I’m just feeling a little bit sad, I don’t necessarily need people to tell me it’s going to be okay. I just need someone to listen to me complain, and then we’ll eat pizza.
I don’t know if we’re able to be vulnerable right now. I think everyone’s different. I agree with my coworker, though, when she said, “If you remove the masking tape that I’ve built up to get through this new normal, it doesn’t work.”
Josh and I have been going to Happy Gyro on 17th Street. They have amazing vegetarian food. It’s nice to look forward to small things. I’ll pick dinner up on my way home from work. Josh picks a movie. And then we just sit in silence, eat Happy Gyro, and watch TV.
Sometimes things like that, that’s just what I need, to be nice and peaceful and quiet.
Josh has been asking me to make pierogies for a long time. They turned out really great. Josh is also Welsh, so we made a Welsh recipe. On Mother’s Day, we took a break. But this upcoming week, I think we’re going to make a bread, honey, and poppyseed dessert that’s either Polish of Slovak.
I’m not a chef, by any means. But I think trying to find other things to look forward to is important. I just want to go somewhere. I want to eat out somewhere. I picked beer up from a local brewery and I was so excited about that. But it was literally just me grabbing it and then going. I kind of just want to be elsewhere.
So I’m trying to find things that are fun that you could still do at home and look forward to. Cooking is what that is right now.
The other day, I was so mad at myself. I have to shower every day when I come home from work. Right when I walk in, I take my clothes off, throw them in the wash, and then run up and shower. Last week, I didn’t get dressed after. I either was naked or I just had a robe on. And we stopped going for walks. I just sat and binge-watched TV. And I was so mad at myself. I felt like I was being so lazy.
But is that a reason to be mad at myself? That is how I got through that portion of the week. I just couldn’t do it. Me finally watching Superstore was a good thing. So I think cruising is fine. I think sometimes we can cruise. I think that’s good.
I think it’s not trying to fix it, too. Because you said this is such a different thing that we’re going through. Let’s not try to fix what’s happening.
Well, and nobody knows how to fix it. So when people say, “It’s gonna be okay,” they don’t know that. I mean, it will be okay. We just don’t know how we’re gonna get from point A to point B. And there is no fixing it. We should just do our best, wash our hands, see people from afar, and we’ll figure it out. It’ll be okay.
Improv at work
Normally, I’m an occupational therapist. Occupational therapists help people get back to functioning every day. So if you have a brain or spinal cord injury, I try to identify the things that are wrong so we can try to fix them or help you adapt to make your life a little easier, to make you more independent, and help you engage in your environment as much as possible.
Improv has definitely helped with that because a lot of times there’s no right answer for certain adaptations. You just kind of have to figure it out. Those are some things I do. But some occupational therapists work with kids in schools. Some occupational therapists work in jails. When I was in college, I did work in a county jail. You can do anything, really. OTs can find their niche.
I normally work in an in-patient rehab, so people who have issues and are in the hospital but aren’t ready to go home yet because they need rehab. I see these patients for about an hour and a half a day, in combination with physical and speech therapists. Then we all meet and chat and send them home or to whatever the next level of care is. Stroke, traumatic brain injury, and pediatrics is the normal population I work with. Right now, it’s kind of a hodgepodge.
I’ve done my best to incorporate improv into my work. With some people it works really well, but it varies in how effective it is or how adaptive I have to be with it.
Since the COVID patients aren’t allowed to leave their rooms and have to stay inside, I feel like I have a leg up on the team as an improviser because I’ve been able to figure a lot of stuff out with minimal resources and sometimes make things a little bit more fun.
Fart jokes versus being raw on stage: discuss.
I enjoy comedy so much more when I can relate to it. I think the more we bring ourselves into it, the better the comedy is. For example, even though The Feminine Experience isn’t necessarily comedic—like, nobody was trying to be funny—the stories were masterpieces. There were times during that show where I felt like I’d never laughed so hard or cried so hard.
I think when people are their true selves or just trying to be a little more vulnerable or just putting themselves into their characters or scenes, that’s when you enjoy it more. It’s better than people trying. You can always tell when someone’s trying to be funny. Just tell me about what you did for breakfast. I’ll laugh more at that than your fart jokes.
Although I do love fart jokes. Josh will be mad at me, but when I’m having a bad day, I ask him to call and make fart noises over the phone and hang up. The first time he did it, I laughed so hard. So I just started asking for it. It’s so stupid. So fart jokes do have their place.
Thanks for getting wet with Puss and Kooch
Tune in next week for a special hot take episode from Puss and Kooch.
You can follow this podcast on:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn
Check out these other podcast episodes from DC comedians
- Kara Kinsey talks about starting out in stand-up in Dallas.
- Veteran improviser Kate Symes talks about her journey from Oregon to DC.
- Improviser Robin Doody talks about his time on WIT ensemble Commonwealth.
- Comedic Pursuits founder Kelsie Anderson talks about how this whole site got started.
