Dan Miller Knows Failure is Constant

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Welcome to another episode of the Comedic Pursuits Podcast. I’m your host, Seth Payne, and my guest today is Dan Miller.

You might know him from the indie group Sistine Robot. Or maybe you know him from the Washington Improv Theater house team, Madeline. Or maybe you know him because he’s the director of external relations at WIT. Or because he’s part of FIST champion team, Beverly Crusher.

Highlights from my interview with Dan Miller

Regardless of how you know Dan Miller, I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did. Without further ado, the Dan Miller interview.

Some of the questions and answers have been edited for clarity. To hear Dan’s full responses, listen to his podcast episode.

Dan Miller and Kate Symes at WIT — Let Dan Miller pour you a cup of coffee before you get into this interview

The early years

I’m from Chantilly, Virginia, and I come from a family of introverts. Everybody was constantly reading, and I was the one who was coming up with voices and generally wondering why everybody was so quiet.

I went to William and Mary and studied English. They had an improv group called I.T. (Improvisational Theater) that mainly did short-form. I auditioned, but I didn’t get on. Instead, I ended up spending hours and hours and hours at the student newspaper, The Flat Hat. A lot of my first comedic writing was for that paper.

Tifaux.com

When I graduated in the early 2000s, I had kind of a do-nothing job, so I ran a blog empire. I was writing several articles a day for my site, tifaux.com, just because I had nothing else to do. I wrote about Veronica Mars, Battlestar Galactica, and 30 Rock because those shows were on back then.

I feel like TV writing today is very recap-centric, and this was before that time. I would write my takes on different shows. It’s like the opposite of improv because I spent a lot of time crafting everything and trying to make sure my jokes were properly worded. I still very much appreciate a well-crafted joke, whereas you can’t really plan for that in improv.

But improv is so wonderful because of the community and collaboration aspect. And writing, whether you’re writing for a website or a blog, is a lot of alone time for five minutes of glory. Or in the case of a blog, nonexistent glory, hoping somebody comments to validate you. I can enjoy the process much more with improv and enjoy the product just as much.

Getting into improv

I got laid off from my job in 2009 and was depressed and just needed to get out of the house. I was still writing the blog then. I was interested in comedy and wanted to do more, but I didn’t necessarily have affinity for improv as a craft. I just knew it was a funny thing. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but it seemed like fun. And it certainly has spiraled from there.

My first class had Sara Rouhi and Jonathan Murphy, of Sistine Robot, in it. We picked up Paul Hitlin in Level 2, and that was the main group for quite a while. I’m really into the social side of improv. We’re all besties, so we’re hanging out constantly. Sara lived a block from me. I think that was really what kept me going even more than the actual craft side of it.

Harold and WIT ensembles

The first time I auditioned for Harold, I didn’t get on. But I got in on the next cycle. So listeners out there can take heart: I didn’t get Harold on my first try, and it was less competitive back then.

When I auditioned again, I was put on a new team called Telenovela. That experience was great. I learned so much. Justus Hammond, formerly of Commonwealth, was our coach. He drilled analogous game, hardcore, which took me a full year to get. It’s a skill I think you need to have, and not just for the second beat of a Harold. You need to have it so you can make other kinds of moves outside of Harolds. Overall, I was in the Harold program for three years.

After Harold, I went to King Bee, which had become an ensemble. I was on that team for about two years. It was a great experience. If I hadn’t gotten onto King Bee, I would have just taken a break. I was at a point where I was Harold-ed out. I like doing Harold, but it’s not my favorite thing to do. My King Bee casting came at just the right time.

Improv Actually

Around the time I was cast on King Bee, I pitched the first incarnation of Improv Actually. It was super exciting to be able to take on a project. Now there’s a lot more structure around creating WIT projects, but then, you made a pitch and waited to see what would happen.

Dan Miller and Mary Lauran Hall with Madeline at WIT — Dan Miller waiting to see what happened with his Improv Actually pitch

Mark encouraged me to get an assistant director, so I picked Jamie Bingner. I think Jamie and I are kindred spirits, and we think about things the same way. Especially for a rom-com, I really wanted to have a female, non-me perspective.

When I knew I had to step away from the project, I wanted to see if it could still move on. The format really meant a lot to Macey Schiff, who was a cast member, and she enjoyed it so much. I was happy to let her take on the mantle. There were a few holdovers from the cast, like Dan Miliken, but by the time she took over, she was really building from scratch.

FIST and Beverly Crusher

Winning FIST as Beverly Crusher with Jonathan Murphy and Lura Barber was a turning point. I don’t want to be like a smug d-bag, but it changed things. I think we all went into it with a “whatever happens…” attitude. Then we advanced and advanced again, and then all of a sudden we were psychopaths. I called my mom and told her to bring all of her friends. For our Sweet 16 match, my mom, my stepdad, and eight middle-aged Jewish friends of theirs were in the audience.

In our rehearsals, we were super clunky. Then our format really became our style, which was a lot of yelling and a lot of really clumsy sexuality. We played characters who were aggressive and dumb but also had a lot of heart. We all kind of found this zone together.

Beverly Crusher Does Childish Things performs at Washington Improv Theater's Improvapalooza on Friday, August 25, 2017 in Washington, DC. — Dan Miller and Lura Barber get in the zone for a Beverly Crusher performance

Now each year, we do the format of the year’s FIST winner. It’s kind of a dick move. This past year, we did Double Date’s format, and the entire cast of Double Date was in the front row watching. I did the thing where Joe Randazzo comes out stomping like the world has shat on him, and they recognized that I was making fun of him. But Joe Randazzo loves nothing more than being made fun of publicly because it’s still attention.

Teaching improv

I enjoy teaching and coaching improv, but it’s challenging. I really like teaching Level 1 and advanced electives. I feel like everything in between is more difficult. I’m a heady coach, and I give really specific feedback. I find that’s better for people who know what they’re doing—or who should know what they’re doing. But in Level 1, I don’t hold you to any standards at all. You’re just somebody off the street who signed up for a class. You can’t do any wrong, to an extent. So it’s one extreme or the other.

Working at WIT

I’ve been at WIT for about five and a half years, and my official title is external relations director. Some of my main roles are marketing, fundraising, and communications. I do everything from coordinating the press outreach to writing the grants to social media. Before WIT, I was working at an education reform organization. Mark encouraged me to apply, and it’s wild thinking about how much the organization has grown since then. Some of that’s me, a lot of that is Mark, and a lot of that is other people, like the board.

I have this theory that every regular year is three improv years. Last year at this time, you could catch a double-header with Commonwealth and King Bee, and now that seems like forever ago. So I feel like I’ve worked at WIT for 15 years, especially given all the organizational changes that have been happening.

Biggest aha moment within comedy

It all has to do with my attitude and the realization that the audience wants you to succeed. To this day, I have terrible stage fright. I feel sick before every show. It took me a while to realize that no one goes to an improv show wanting people to bomb. They don’t want to sit through you bombing, they want you to do well, and they’re going to be charitable. I feel like I started off every show at a deficit, thinking I was in a hole I needed to dig myself out of and that I needed to justify my existence. But as a byproduct of doing this for a while, I’m realizing people came there to enjoy a show.

Kate Symes and Dan Miller dance at WIT — Dan Miller and Kate Symes certainly put on an enjoyable show

It’s the same with auditions. I’m in the position now where I’m usually watching auditions, and nobody on the other side wants you to eat shit. We want everybody to do well. And often, we want to take everybody. Even if they didn’t have the greatest audition, we’re always concentrating on the great things people did.

So just go into it thinking that improv people are supportive people, and audiences want you to succeed.

Biggest failure within comedy

Sistine Robot did a show in Richmond, and I’ve never bombed like that before in my life. We were having fun backstage and had a good warm up. But we came out and couldn’t do anything right. It’d been a long time since I’d bombed that hard. I felt like I was making decent improv moves but getting absolutely no response. We were trying to figure out what happened after the show, and to this day, I don’t think there’s any one answer. But we certainly did not please the audience that night.

King Bee performs at Washington Improv Theater's Wintry Mix on Sunday, February 5, 2017. — Live footage of Dan Miller after his terrible Richmond show

But failure is just constant. You don’t do improv because of those shows. You do it because you know the other side of it. And it’s a good experience to have. I can say to myself, “Hey, Dan Miller, you won FIST, but do you remember that show you did in Richmond?” I definitely feel like I’m only as good as my most recent show.

Improv as a craft

A larger thing that annoys me—it annoys me when people in the community do it, and it annoys me when I see it in popular culture—is when I see improv being shat on as an indulgent activity. There’s an Onion article like, “Improv team graciously performs for free,” stuff like that. And people talk about improv shows as being bad or indulgent, in general. But we don’t need that. We don’t need that energy. This is an art where you learn your craft by failing publicly.

If you’re a painter, no one needs to see your shitty pictures of fruit. You can throw those away immediately. You have to see our shitty pictures of fruit as improvisers, and you have to sit there for 25 minutes. I think that weeds out a lot of people who don’t want to keep doing it. But I think there’s something valuable in being able to do improv well, and I don’t think people give improv as a craft enough credit.

Learning to do improv is hard work, and it’s not always fun. I go into rehearsals and workshops, and I’m there to learn and work. And it’s the work that makes it fun later. Where I’m at right now is, I want to have fun on stage because I’ve done the work to be able to do it.

If you’re having fun but putting the craft second, people are going to sense how much fun you’re having, but it’s not necessarily gonna be a great show. You need to learn how to do brushstrokes if you’re painting, and then you can have fun painting.

Dan Miller on Jonathan Murphy's shoulders — Dan Miller (and Jonathan Murphy) are ready to fight you if you keep shitting on improv

Where can people find you?

I’m on Instagram and Twitter, even though I hate Twitter. You can follow also follow my dog on Instagram for dog pictures. For performances, you can follow Sistine Robot and Madeline.

Thanks for tuning in!

We publish new episodes of the Comedic Pursuits Podcast every Friday at 3pm. You can listen to new episodes as they come out by following us on any of the platforms below.