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It’s 2019. It’s a new year. Maybe it’s a new you. But this is still the Comedic Pursuits podcast, and we’re still doing the same thing we did in 2018. We’ll be sitting down, talking with comedians in the area about their experiences, gaining their knowledge, and having a few laughs along the way.
In this episode, I finally got to interview someone I’ve wanted to know more about. He fascinates me. He warms my heart. He explodes my brain with how fast and good he is at improv. He’s been a role model for me. I’m talking about Denny Johnson, everybody.
Highlights from my interview with Denny Johnson
We’ll cover Denny’s backstory and how he went through the WIT program, how he was introduced to improv, his time on Madeline, his hit FIST team, Going to the Movies Alone, being cast on former WIT ensemble Commonwealth, and what he’s been doing since then.
We’ll also talk about his indie teams, To Be Frank and Ugh. When we recorded this episode a couple months ago, Denny had proposed a new concept show to Washington Improv Theater, and it’s since been approved. It’s called Starship Odyssey: The Final Mission. It’s an improvised sci-fi experience launching at WIT in 2019. Denny is a creator and co-director.
But I think you’re ready to dig into this lovely, hilarious episode. Without further ado, Denny Johnson.
Some parts of this interview have been edited for clarity. To hear Denny’s full responses, listen to his podcast episode.
The early years
I grew up in very rural Ohio. My grandfather was a dairy farmer, and my dad was a coal miner. We only had two channels on television, so my comedy exposure was limited. But I think I was still drawn to all the comedy classics.
When Ghostbusters was released, I was probably in first grade. Watching Bill Murray do his thing next to Dan Akroyd doing his thing—which is sort of their classic thing—I was rolling. I don’t think I even understood why it was so funny. My brother and I can still say lines from the movie to each other. But other than that, all we had was NBC and CBS.
I also watched SNL. My first foray into SNL would have been the Mike Myers and Dana Carvey era, the “Wayne’s World” years. Saturday Night Live was great television for us, and you had to watch it live at the time. My brother and I would fight to stay awake, and our goal was always to make it to Weekend Update. Then we would just pass out.
I didn’t really do any performing or theater. My high school didn’t even have a football team, let alone a drama club. There just weren’t enough people. However, I was in a couple of church plays that were actually musicals. They weren’t super based on religious stories. It was more like, “We’re all good kids, and here’s how you be good kids.”
I got into those performances by going to Vacation Bible School, which is something you do in the summer for a week. It’s free daycare, and the idea is to get all the kids together and indoctrinate them into Jesus Camp. I actually went with someone to their Vacation Bible School because I was bored and not doing anything.
They started putting on this play, and I got the lead, which kind of ticked some people off because I wasn’t even part of their church. But that’s when I realized I loved being onstage. I didn’t give a shit about Christian stuff, and I didn’t care about what the message was. I was like, “I need to know my lines.” I didn’t care that we were trying to make the world a better place. I was just onstage, and it was wonderful.
I wouldn’t say that’s exactly when I got the bug, but that’s when I realized I was very comfortable up there and that I should do more things like that. But there were no outlets.
All of that, I think, is from being in a very rural place with not a lot of opportunities. I think part of it was probably me also knowing I had to get the fuck out of there. Being a closeted homosexual helped with that, too. I was like, “Can’t stick around here much longer. They’re gonna figure this one out.” All made me think I should go where there are more… whatevers—financial opportunities, career opportunities, stage opportunities. I just wanted to get to a city at some point.
My stepmother worked for Ohio State Extension, which is a little office of Ohio State where they run 4-H Clubs, FFA, and all that rural stuff. I got half tuition if I went there, so it wasn’t even a question. It was like, “Denny, you’ll be going to Ohio State. Don’t dream too big,” which was fine. I was the first kid in my family to go to college, so going anywhere to college was a big deal.
I went to Ohio State, and it was country boy meets city. You could write it. It was exactly what you think it is. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t understand the bus system or using a laundromat card or anything. I was also still a closeted fat kid, and I very shy—terminally shy. I bet I said 50 words during my freshman year. I did not have friends.
I love Columbus. It’s a phenomenal place. I would be happy to land in Columbus again one day. But when I got there, it was such a culture shock, and I hated school because I had no friends. I was a Spanish major at the time, and my whole plan was to be a Spanish teacher. I didn’t want to learn Spanish so well I could make it to a Spanish-speaking country. I wanted to know Spanish better than the white kids back home so I could teach it to them. Again, not dreaming too big.
I signed up for study abroad and spent the last quarter of my freshman year in Mexico. That’s where I made my first set of college friends. We had a great time. We were a bunch of Ohio country bumpkins dropped down in Cuernavaca, Mexico. It was a dream.
After undergrad, I went straight to graduate school at Ohio State to get my master’s in public administration. I’d gotten a job there, so it was free. But I always knew I was moving to DC. I’d visited DC twice in high school for school trips, and I knew I was going to live here. I loved government. I loved history. I loved politics. If you’re going to act, you move to LA. If you’re going to do Broadway, you move to New York. I wanted to be in government and politics, so I knew I had to make it to DC.
John Kerry was running against Bush, and I thought he was going to win because Bush is crazy. But he lost. The next day, coincidentally, my academic adviser sent an email out to our listserv that said the Department of Labor was looking for a contractor. After Kerry lost that election, I felt like Washington DC needed good people—and I put myself in that category, however rightly or wrongly.
Ohio had also passed a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. I was still closeted, but I knew I was gay. So I was like, “I need to get the fuck out of here. Writing’s on the wall, homo. We gotta go.” I wrote my academic adviser and said I wanted the job and didn’t care what I had to do to get it. And I got the job.
Three months later, I moved to DC, in February 2005. I didn’t know a single soul in DC, and I spent the first year not talking to anyone. Then I made all my friends at work, and my friend group branched out from there. I came out of the closet and found other gays. But me making friends is a very difficult venture, so it takes like a lot of seed time.
Getting started in comedy in DC
I took an 18-day vacation to Europe by myself in 2012 to clear my head. I wanted to treat myself, so I decided to go to a Star Trek convention in London. I love Star Trek an insane amount. It’s pretty bad. This convention was the first time all five Star Trek captains were present. I got my picture with four of them.
I also went to Paris and Italy. I’d never been to Europe, and I wanted to do it. The trip was really to clear my head. I was getting off of a bad break-up. I was directionless. My career was going great, and I had a great friend group. But I wanted to find a husband. I was ready. I was 35.
So I went to Europe, came back, and realized I had to get into therapy. My therapist is wonderful. After two or three sessions, he gave me some homework. He wanted me to do two things. First, he wanted to me to do krav maga because I had a lot of pent-up anger, and I needed to hit something and pretend it was someone in particular. They know who they are.
The second thing he wanted me to do was improv. This is what he said: “You’re weird. And you need to be around people who are weird like you because you will blossom if you’re around weirdos like yourself.” He told me to go to WIT and take improv class to solve my problems in life. And it did.
Improv basically gave me an outlet to get all my weirdness out and be a fucking weirdo onstage with other people. I think it also allowed me not to be so needy in my other interactions with people. I could wring all that out of me and then be “normal” with other people. Normal is a word we’re not supposed to use, but you know what I mean. I don’t want to say my confidence grew, but it’s almost like I knew where to put my energies in life. That made all the difference.
Madeline
After classes, I auditioned for Harold and was cast on Madeline when it was a new team. I was on that team for a little over two years. It was so fun. Classes were great, but this was the application of the material. Our coach, John Windmueller, was brilliant. He’s an academic about improv. He can break it down and see the tweaks that need to be made. He can see what’s funny and what’s not and how to make something funny. It was such a learning experience. That’s when I became an improviser.
FIST-winning team Going to the Movies Alone
Ryan Krull, Kate Symes, and I were on a team called Going to the Movies Alone that won FIST in 2015. When we were first playing with our format, which Topher Bellavia created for us, we were focusing on creating these movie trailers in the show. The whole point is to make stupid actors do crazy things. We thought they were amazing, but then we realized the movie trailers should only last 10 or 12 seconds. The real show is going back to the strangers, figuring out why they came to the movies alone, and who they become to each other. We’re figuring out how these strangers are going to interact to make something bigger than their individual selves. It worked.
It’s perfect for FIST because you’re not trying to make high art. You’re just trying to make people laugh. It’s cheesy and fun for people who are new to improv or seasoned veterans watching improvisers do stupid stuff. For our last show, we bought 15 or 20 tickets, and people got so mad at us. I was giving them to my friends and trying to make sure they made it in. They were voting for me anyway.
Commonwealth
I auditioned for Commonwealth in May or June of 2015. Ryan and I were just coming off our FIST win. I’d like to think my audition was what sealed it, but Ryan and I were riding a high at the time. Our star was on the rise.
If 2013 and 2014 with Madeline was when I learned how to be an improviser, 2015 is when I actually felt like I was applying improv on my own. I felt confident, which had everything to do with the people I was improvising with. Alone or with other people, my confidence is all fake. It really comes from the people I play with.
Commonwealth was also my first introduction to joining an ensemble. Everything else I’d ever done, I’d been on the ground level. Commonwealth was in its third or fourth iteration and had already been a team for five years. Not only that, but the difference between a Harold team and an ensemble is that, as a Harold team, the director is in charge, and you are a tool. The structure is already there, but you’re really implementing the director’s vision. He or she is still molding you and making you into that team.
In an ensemble, that is flipped. You have creative control as the player. You get together with the team and decide what you’re going to do, and your director helps you pull that off. That had to be explained to me about five times.
I’m very proud of how Commonwealth ended. I think we could have gone another three years and maybe had great shows. But I think where we were, as a team, on a slow decline. I just think it would have slowly died down, and then maybe we would have been sunset, and it wouldn’t have been our choice. Getting to sunset on our terms and putting on a farewell show that we got to put together creatively allowed us to leave on a pretty high note. We have nothing to be ashamed of, and I think that’s not something improv troupes can often say.
The great thing about post-Commonwealth life is that, having been on Madeline and Commonwealth, I have had a consistent five-year structure of having some creative control, but not entirely. I wasn’t always playing with the people I would play with if given the option. Now I have all these tools, and I can make these decisions for myself. So I’m choosing to play with some very fun people who I’ve played with in the past.
Ugh
Ugh so rarely practices or performs that people don’t even realize we’re a team. But there’s an ease with which we can just be on stage together. If you can find that, you can do anything because improv is saying yes and supporting the choice. Whatever those motherfuckers go out and do, I’m like, “Yeah, okay. That’s what we’re doing.” I don’t worry about who’s going to make what move because we always follow the fun. Sometimes those shows are almost more for us than for the audience.
Recently, we’ve had pretty good shows. It feels like we’re hitting our stride. We also have two new amazing members: Bryce Slinger from LIZARD GIRL and Darnell Eaton. Bryce is brilliant. He reminds me of me, he’s so brilliant. Our sensibilities are the same with regards to what we think is funny and what we want to do in the scene. He feels very little brother-ish to me, which I hope he takes as a compliment. And Darnell can do anything. He barely has time for Ugh because he’s basically wanted in every project. He’s phenomenal.
We don’t have a structured coach. We really don’t practice that much. We all get our reps somewhere else. Usually, a week before a show, we’ll do a very long brunch and talk about what we want to get out of the show. We basically spend the rest of the time gossiping and making ourselves laugh. I think that chemistry comes out onstage, and the rest is just fucking easy.
The offstage matters more than the onstage. The offstage takes care of the onstage. If you don’t have chemistry, it doesn’t matter. You don’t trust that person. You kind of don’t want to be in a scene with that person. It’s just true. Even if you’re highly skilled improvisers and know all the right moves to make, you’re not making the moves for any other reason than to academically, technically pull them off. When I look at Jaci across the stage and walk into a scene and she knows that I want her to come in, both of our eyes light up. We don’t know what’s gonna happen, but we know it’s gonna be hilarious. You can’t fake that.
Drag Brunch and The Real Housewives of Improv
Drag Brunch has really blossomed. I want to be clear that I’m not a part of the drag community. These girls are doing hard work, and I’m buying women’s plus-size clothes on Amazon and just showing up. I don’t know how to put on makeup or anything. In the drag community, I would be called a comedy queen.
I think I really caught a break with Drag Brunch. I wasn’t even supposed to be in in the show, but someone canceled last-minute. Adam Koussari-Amin asked me to come and do five minutes of Regyna Rubenstein, my character. It was great, and Adam asked me to host the next brunch. That’s a gift Adam has given me.
If you’re a gay guy who enjoys doing drag, it is so freeing. You feel like you can take on the world. I can’t explain why except that you no longer have the trappings of masculinity holding you back. You don’t have to be afraid that people are going to know that you’re effeminate because you’re leaning into that shit. You’re allowing yourself to be free. Putting on the wig and all the chunky jewelry and the resort-wear is so freeing. I truly feel like I become a different person. Or maybe I become myself. I don’t know, but it’s wonderful.
Denny’s biggest aha moment in comedy
We were at a Commonwealth practice, and Mark Chalfant pointed out that we were walking into scenes when something was already going on. He said it very matter-of-factly. We were adding shit when we already had a thing. It might not have been a funny thing yet, but he pointed out that you should walk on and hit that one thing that’s already happening over the head. If you walk on and add something, you are not moving forward.
If you watch improv, you’ll see people coming in and adding things because they think it’s funny. But you shouldn’t bring in your extra character or cup of tea, you should go in and hit that one thing over the head. Again, it may not be funny yet. But that’s the thing of the scene. One thing at a time.
I can’t tell you how many scenes I’ve walked into just thinking something will be zany, and it’s not serving anybody. But I can now watch on the wings and stop myself from walking out there before the scene has had room to breathe. Now I can walk out find the funny thing. Before, I felt like I would have to go out there and create a new character and start a new thing and save the scene—you put yourself in a savior role. But that’s the worst thing you could possibly do, adding new information when it’s not necessary.
Denny’s biggest failure in comedy and how he overcame it
I think comedy, for me, has been like the Marines in that I had to be broken down before I could be built back up. I am not someone who is unaware that I am funny. I know I’m funny. I’ve been funny for a very long time. But that doesn’t mean I’m good at improv. That means I’m funny. I think a lot of people like me have people in their lives who say, “You’re funny. You should do improv.” But to do improv, you have to be trusting and supportive and patient. And I was none of those things.
So I think my biggest failure was spending the first two years in improv doing it wrong and maybe not being told as harshly as I should have been why I was doing it wrong. My note to teachers would be to give these fucking notes, already. I needed to be sat down and told to stop joking, stop with the one-liners, stop saying no. Mark Chalfant had to beat that habit out of me on Commonwealth, so late in my improv career.
I wasted a lot of time because I thought I was funny. And that’s not what the improv scene or community or world needs. They need people who are supportive and patient. I wish I hadn’t done all of that. I can even think back to Going to the Movies Alone and great shows we had where I was very selfish. I think being selfish is my answer to my biggest failure that I’m still battling with.
Over the last six months, I think I’ve started to turn this Titanic around and truly be more supportive. I can feel myself editing myself in the scenes. Only in the last year have I realized I don’t have to go out in a scene. My team members are allowed to have fun onstage, and I don’t have to be part of it. But I’m white-knuckling it. I am still on that journey, but I think I’m self-aware now.
Parting words of wisdom
Improv can be so helpful in so many parts of your life. You don’t have to want to be on stage to be an improviser. If you take an improv class, you’ll be a better communicator and understand how to say yes to people.
To improvisers: hang in there, wait it out, and be open-minded. I think a lot of the notes people tried to give me early on weren’t taken because I wasn’t open-minded enough. So hear the notes.
Where you can find Denny online
You can follow me on Instagram. I’ve posted five pictures in five years. You can friend me on Facebook and get updates on To Be Frank, Ugh shows, and other adventures and cool projects.
Thanks for tuning in!
Look out for next week’s interview with DC improviser Kate Symes.
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