FIST 2019 Round 1 Recap - Comedic Pursuits

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We’re not your host Seth Payne. We’re Kara Kinsey, Kelsey Peters, and Krystal Ramseur. And we’re the new hosts of the Comedic Pursuits Podcast.

The first thing we’re going to bring to you is some hot goss about what people are feeling about this year’s FIST. That’s Washington Improv Theater’s Fighting Improv Smackdown Tournament.

Our first impressions of FIST 2019 Round 1

We’ve spoken to some competitors, and just to drop some names, we’ve got Justine Hipsky, Jenna Hall, the entire FIST team I Don’t Know Her, which includes Lauren Jordan, Precious Jenkins, Simone Webster, and Nichole Hill. We also talked to Isabelle Solomon and, the one dude, Tom Di Liberto, competing as The Lonely Weatherman.

The interviews below have been edited for clarity. To hear the full responses, listen to the podcast episode.

Jenna Hall, former FIST champion

I am Jenna Hall. I am a member of Hellcat and Nox! and a 2017 FIST champion as part of the team Childish Things.

As a recent FIST champion, do you have advice or suggestions that you would give everyone out there fighting to win FIST this year?

I have a hard time with this because I went into FIST not expecting to win at all. I am not kidding. I think we got to the Final Four, and then I thought maybe we could win it. So honestly, I did not feel any pressure. It didn’t feel stressful. I genuinely just had so much fun with the three guys on my team. I just wanted to keep playing with those fools. It was so much fun.

So I would say, just play to have fun, and don’t play to win. That’s a weird thing to say to people who are competitive. For those of you out there who really want it and are really competitive, I don’t know what to say.

How did you form Childish Things?

I was on Female Accent, which is an indie team that John Carroll invited me onto. I was talking to him about an idea for a FIST team based on a childhood toy and what would come from that. I knew I wanted to do FIST with Henry Ring because we took our very first improv class together back in 2013, and we went through the curriculum together, and we’d done FIST together two times before. So it was me, Henry, and John. And then, Liz Sanders recommended Joe Dawson. I’d seen him perform. He was great. So then he joined, and it was the four of us. We had one practice before we had our first show, and it was a blast.

Was anybody on the team super competitive?

I don’t think any of us were paying attention in that kind of way. We’d joke about Henry because literally no one even knew he was in the tournament. I think his girlfriend came to one show. I did have friends come to the show, but I wasn’t trying to hold a gun to anyone’s head or force them to come if they didn’t want to come. I was just grateful if they did.

What are some of our impressions after watching FIST 2019 Round 1?

This past Saturday, I went to FIST to support Brianna Lux, Kaelan Sullivan, and John Heiser, who are my teammates from WIT ensembles. They were on a team with Béatrice Leydier. They were first, and they were fantastic. There was a student team that was excellent, and then there was an all-Black female team, I Don’t Know Her. And holy shit, I was absolutely blown away. I was scream-laughing from the beginning to the end. They were flawless. Then I saw Shalimar, which was Sabrina Shamir and Mark Chalfant. And that was great, too. I was thinking, “Damn, I’m glad I’m not doing FIST this year because there are some incredible teams competing.”

I’m excited to see what happens the rest of the tournament. I think it’s gonna be good.

I Don’t Know Her, FIST 2019 competing team

I Don’t Know Her is Simone Webster, Lauren Jordan, Nichole Hill, and Precious Jenkins.

How did you guys come together to make this amazing FIST team that we keep hearing about?

Lauren Jordan: In my experience, there were times where joking and just comedy culture in general was super white within improv, There were things I just didn’t vibe with. I met Simone at a party wearing a District Improv shirt, and I’ve known Precious for a really long time because we went to undergrad at University of Michigan together. Then Simone brought in Nichole, but we already knew each other through work. So we all got together.

I put the ask out to the Black people I knew. And it was a beautiful friendship.

Nichole: I thought FIST was only a one-time performance. I thought we would all get together as Black women and just play together and practice. Then I showed up, and it’s like, “So we’re gonna enter a 64-team tournament.”

Had any of you done a show outside of a student showcase before this FIST show?

No.

How was your first FIST show?

It was so much fun. It was great.

Do you guys have a specific get, or what is your thing, your catch?

Our get is a song by a Black person.

So this was your first time out there. Nerves: yes or no? Did you just feel it?

I think our nerves went to Patrick Slevin from Madeline. We externalized on him so much, and he just accepted us. So now he is our improv dad.

Any final words for the people on how you feel about FIST?

It’s so much fun! We’ll see you in Round 2.

Justine Hipsky, Love Language, FIST 2019 competing team

This is my fourth year competing.

What’s the furthest you’ve gone in FIST?

Last year, my team Oh No made it to the Elite Eight, and then competed in the Comeback Bracket. Our team was made up of four people who experience anxiety to varying degrees. We had a lot of fun exploring that.

How do you come up with something like?

I think personally, the most fun I’ve had with FIST is finding something super relatable, whether it was exploring this idea of situations that give people anxiety or exploring how anxiety disorders impact us. It’s relatable to the audience, and you’re doing something that comes from your truth. So even though it’s FIST, and it’s lighthearted, and it’s fun, and it’s fast, I still think everything I enjoy doing is tied to something that feels really true for me and my team.

This year, I’m on a team called Love Language with three of my dearest friends who I don’t ever play with anymore. We were on a Harold team together years ago. Love Language felt so true for us because not only do we get to explore love languages, which can be relatable and compelling for the audience, but we are so close and love each other so much that it’s a really warm, exciting, fun thing to do.

When you say love language, for you, is that a romantic thing?

We talked a lot as a team about how love languages refer to how you give and receive love, to your friends, to family. Obviously, the first thing we always go to is romantic love in our brains. But being four good friends, we also think about how we show up for our friends. Is it quality time? Do we you know do we enjoy hearing our friends give us words affirmation? Do we love it when a friend is like, “Hey, I saw this pin, and I thought of you, so I’m giving this to you.” So it’s not just limited to romantic love.

What is your love language?

I really can’t decide. For the show, I say gift giving, which is not untrue at all. I really love to give gifts. I think that’s the biggest way I like to show love. But when it comes to receiving, I can’t decide. I think maybe it’s quality time, when somebody is authentic with me and wants to spend time with me. I don’t know, maybe I’m just selfish and I want it all.

What’s your get?

We do an introduction that’s very ’70s dating show-esque with the music and general tone of our opening. But then we ask an audience member to share a little bit about one of their love languages.

Do you have advice for other FISTers on engaging the audience?

Never turn against an audience unless somebody explicitly shouts out something problematic and you’re gonna give them a little comeuppance. Unless someone does that, I think you should be warm. You should show the audience that you are there with a lot of joy and that you are excited to be on the stage and talking with them.

You don’t want an audience to worry about you. Because then the audience is going to be scare for you. You want them to feel totally comfortable and like they can they can relax and have fun with you on stage. And you don’t want to be mean to them. You want them on your side.

We want to open people’s eyes to how wonderful improv is as an art form, but also it’s a competition, and you’re trying to get votes. So don’t shit talk the audience. I have seen teams be shitty to an audience, and I’ve never seen them win.

Isabelle Solomon, Ramen Hood, FIST 2019 competing team

Our team is called Ramen Hood. We really wanted to play on the idea of Robin Hood and focus on status. The get is for the audience to name a high-status and low-status character relationship, like a teacher and a student. Once they name it, we give them a cowbell, and anytime during the performance that they want to see the status shift, they just ring the bell. It’s been fun having that audience participation, as well as performing.

You have an actual cowbell? And it’s one person in the audience that gets to control this?

Yep. We give all the power to one person.

What was that like? Did they ring the bell a lot?

We lucked out in the first round because we had a WIT teacher get the bell. He did a really good job spacing out it out, and as soon as he saw that the characters had sort of reached their statuses, he knew when to ding it. So it worked out really well.

Tell me a little bit about your team. How did you come together?

The four of us are on an indie team together with three other people. We were trying to see who was available to do FIST. It happened to be the four of us, and we’d previously all gotten dinner together and gotten ramen. So we decided to make our team name a play on getting ramen together.

Who’s on your team?

Svend Larsen, Chris Lewitzke and Turner Meeks. We met in level three at WIT.

Did you see FIST last year at all?

I saw a little bit of it. I was still dipping my toes into the improv waters at that point. I made a promise to myself this year that I’d get involved in as much as possible, and FIST seemed like a great opportunity to put ourselves out there in a very—I don’t want to say it’s low stakes because it’s a competition—but it’s one of those things where you can just go out, have fun, and see what happens. It felt like a good opportunity to jump in.

What are your impressions so far now that you’ve advanced from Round 1?

It’s a lot of fun. It’s very different from doing indie improv, and it’s very different from doing classes because it feels a little more like anything goes. You’re not trying to stick with the type of team that you’re on. You’re not trying to impress your teacher for a showcase. You have a schtick, you go out there, you run with it, and it’s so much fun seeing what everyone else brings to the table, too.

Were you nervous before you went onstage for the first time?

I hate to admit that I was not, but I think it’s because we kind of went in like, “If we don’t make it past this first round, at least we tried.” I think that sort of took the expectations off of ourselves, which was good.

What do you most want to get out of FIST?

I think part of it is getting more performance time. I think part of it, because of what my team is doing, is getting that audience interaction and really getting a feel for reading the audience and basing more things off their reactions. And just getting to play around with my friends, just keeping it fun and keeping it light.

Is there a team you’ve seen that you’re intimidated by or a house team you’re looking forward to seeing?

In Round 2, we’ll be going up against the number one seeded team, MacKenzie Bezos, Traps Queen. So I’m excited to see what they bring to the table and what we bring to the table. I think that’ll keep it really interesting. And I think Nox! is actually performing the night that we perform, as well, and they’re really great. I’m excited to see them.

Tom Di Liberto, The Lonely Weatherman, FIST 2019 competing team

I’m doing The Lonely Weatherman, which is a one-person show.

What shows have you seen so far that you like?

I’ve seen a lot of montage shows so far, which are always fun. Sometimes with FIST, you get stuck in the format, especially if you don’t practice enough. I like to see a straight-up montage because it makes it easy, and it lets people be as weird as they want without any kind of external barriers. Unbridled weirndess is what I enjoy. That’s what FIST is about, being weird and high-energy.

Why a one-man show?

As with most things I do, it started off as a joke. I found out there were two other people on Wonder Whale doing one-person shows. When they reopened the submission process, I thought, “Obviously, there should be more Wonder Whales doing one-person shows.” It took me about a week before my show to realize I had to come up with something that I was going to do for the show. So it was a whirlwind. It’s been a lot of fun, though.

I’ve been telling people I don’t get afraid enough going out for Harold shows, so why not go out by myself just to remind myself of the fear of going out. When you go out there and realize it’s just you, and then you look at the clock and realize you have 12 minutes to come up with stuff just by yourself…I really felt for the audience at that moment.

Can you talk about your experience last year at FIST, being in the Comeback Bracket?

It was such a great experience making it to the semi-finals because it was like a snowball rolling down a hill. We got better and better and better as we went through the competition, and we ended on such a high with our semi-final show. We did so well, and then we lost. Then I feel like the exhaustion of FIST kind of overcame me, and I was just done. I was mentally done. I honestly don’t even remember what I did in that show.

You don’t expect it because it’s improv. It’s not super physical, and it’s not like you’re running a marathon. But by the end FIST, you’re just exhausted from asking people to come to your shows and having the constant stress of performing, waiting for results, sitting there, and then doing it again and again and again. It just wears on you, the mental game. You have to be really tough.

But you decided to do it again. Why?

I wasn’t going to do it again. I was going to take the year off to mentally come back down from FIST and not have the night terrors I had when I thought about FIST. And I thought to myself, “You know what? I’ll do a one-person show. I’ll probably lose in the first round and not have to worry about again.” Plus, it’s such a low time commitment if I’m just by myself. It’s easy to practice because I can put both my kids to sleep and go in my basement and practice by myself.

I also made a rule that I’ll make a Facebook event, but I’m not going to email anybody to come to my shows. It’s purist at heart. But people seemed to like the show, which is good.

They like you, Tom. I guess people like you.

I like to think that people like to see another human being decompose on stage emotionally. I think people enjoy a good old mental tearjerker.

That’s all we’ve got

So now you’ve heard all about FIST. And you’ve heard that we’re taking over the Comedic Pursuits Podcast. It’s Krsytal Ramseur, Kelsey Peters, and Kara Kinsey. And behind the mic, Kourtney Ramseur is our executive producer

Buckle up and get ready for this new season. Season two is going to be the most dramatic ever… but not really. Just, you know, a good conversation. Like on a porch.