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Welcome to another episode of the Comedic Pursuits podcast. I’m your host, Seth Payne, and I’m here with an exclusive, limited edition, rarely seen before, holographic, never been opened interview with the Comedic Pursuits creator herself, Kelsie Anderson.
Highlights from my interview with Kelsie Anderson
In this interview, we talk about how Kelsie created Comedic Pursuits, which is also on Facebook and Instagram if you haven’t checked it out already. We also talk about her indie teams, doing sketch comedy, and her sketch group Deer Friends. Kelsie is also on WIT Harold team Heirloom.
I hope you guys enjoy this interview as much as I did. Without further ado, Kelsie Anderson.
Some of the questions and answers have been edited for clarity. To hear Kelsie’s full interview, listen to the podcast episode.
What’s your comedy background?
My dad is super funny. He has a really weird sense of humor, and growing up, people would always compare me to him. My dad was probably my first comedy influence, I guess. I also remember watching a lot of SNL growing up. I loved Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Kristen Wiig.
But my sister was actually the performer of the family. I was very, very shy as a kid, so talking in front of people was not a thing I did at all. But my sister was into musicals and theater. She did a camp where they put on different scenes from different musicals, and she loved being the center of attention. And at the time, I could never imagine going up on stage and doing weird stuff in front of people.
I think the first time I performed and did something funny was during my junior year of high school. The juniors could write plays to fund junior prom. They wrote the scripts, cast the plays, and directed them. This was in 2008, and I was cast as Sarah Palin. My ex-boyfriend asked me to audition for his play, and asked if I could try out the accent. When I could do it, they decided to cast me. I won best supporting actress for that.
In high school, we had a ComedySportz team, and I was supposed to try out for it. But I chickened out and ended up leaving. My name was on the sign-up sheet, and I was supposed to go. Then I just got scared and walked right past the door and out of the buildings to my car. And it’s haunted me ever since.
Then I went to the University of Chicago, and I didn’t perform at all. I knew about improv in Chicago. I saw a Second City show in freshman year. Otherwise, I didn’t start going out to comedy shows until senior year. After that, I could drink, and a lot of the shows I went to were in bars.
My favorite show, Entertaining Julia, has since been discontinued. The Puterbaugh Sisters hosted it in this shitty little dive bar called Old Town Pub on Sunday nights. They always had a musical act and at least one stand-up. They did more experimental stuff and newer acts.
How did you get into improv in DC?
After college, I spent a year teaching in France and didn’t perform there. Then I moved to DC for a job. I lived with my best friend from college who also got a job here. So when I knew that I was moving here, we decided to live together. Otherwise, I didn’t really know anybody.
But I didn’t do improv until maybe six months after I got here. I was tired of just knowing my roommate and thought I should probably get out of my house, find a hobby, maybe make friends and talk to people. For some reason, improv just popped into my head, and I Googled “improv classes in DC.”
I took all the WIT classes back-to-back and went straight through.
How did The High-Fivers start?
The High-Fiver’s formed out of Paul Hitlin’s level four class. We did a bunch of high-fiving in a scene run, and Paul told us to stop high-fiving in improv scenes because people don’t high-five in real life. But the class was so supportive, and we actually would high-five outside of scenes and offstage.
After that class, we were all sitting at Lou’s, and David Shadburn got an email asking if he knew of a group who wanted to perform in LIT’s Improv Wars. So David asked everyone who was hanging out if they wanted to form a group, but we didn’t have a name. So someone suggested The High-Fivers.
How did CAKE get started?
CAKE was formed with the intention of becoming a sketch group. Cara Popecki, Analia Gomez-Vidal, and I decided to take a 101 sketch class with Stephen Hale at Drafthouse Comedy. It was a super fun time, so we decided to form a sketch group after the class ended.
But then we realized we didn’t have any time to write sketches or put on a show. So then we decided to do improv and hopefully get sketch ideas from there. But we have not put on a single sketch show.
When did you start doing sketch?
I started taking sketch classes from Dojo while I was in level two or three at WIT. I loved the level one Dojo sketch class, and I would recommend it to anybody who wants to try sketch. They do such a good job of walking you through all the different types of sketch formats.
I like improv a lot, but you can’t go back and edit it. I’m very type A, so that’s good for me because you have to just let things be. And I relax about improv a lot more now than I did when I first started doing it, but when I first started taking sketch classes, I was really excited about being able to control whatever happens onstage.
But at Dojo, you don’t really put on a show at the end of the class. You do a reading of your best sketch, but you don’t act anything out. I really wanted to put on a show, but there weren’t enough people to do a level three class at Dojo. At Drafthouse, you put up a show at the end, even in the level one class. And that was what I wanted to figure out how to do because that’s what was missing from my from my sketch repertoire.
How did Deer Friends form?
Right after that level one class at Drafthouse, Murph put together a bunch of people to do holiday sketch shows, so I started doing those. Deer Friends formed out of the core people who kept coming back for those shows. The first show we did as an unofficial group was a Halloween show in 2017. But officially as Deer Friends, our first show was for Mother’s Day 2018.
I think I write the least out of everyone in the group. When we first started out, Murph would have topic meetings where you could bring a couple pitches for sketches, and the group would help you flesh them out and give you ideas. Eventually, you were supposed to turn in rough drafts and final drafts. I would always intend to write a sketch, but I never did until our Mother’s Day show. I would always show up to perform, though.
I think the loose guideline we have now is one sketch per person, per show, so we can at least attempt to get enough material to put up a full hour. But Martin Steger and Mike Bock write so much, and they’re so funny. They’ll come in with 10 full ideas, and I’ll sit there and say, “I have a thought that could turn into a sketch.”
What does putting a sketch show together look like?
On Deer Friends, we look over all the parts we have and see if we need more performers. I tend to write sketches where, somehow, there are seven people in the sketch. I never know how that many people get on the stage. I had one sketch that everyone in the group was originally cast in for no reason other than that I just had a bunch of zombies running in at some point.
So once we trim down all my roles, we put a rough run order together and rehearse at Dojo to see how it looks onstage. We’ve gotten a lot better with how many times we’ll rehearse before a show, especially now that we’re an official Dojo group.
I remember for our Christmas show, the first time we could get everybody in Dojo to rehearse was the day of the show. It was such a mess. I think we were only doing the show that night. We all left Dojo after we’d been rehearsing all day, and we thought the show was going to be terrible. We were all thinking about telling the people we had coming not to come.
But then it was totally fine. We had some really solid sketches. I think we were just nervous about putting it together. I also think once you see you’re doing not a great job in rehearsal, you realize you really need to get it together. And since it was the day of the show, we really had to lock it down. But afterwards, everyone told us it was a great show.
What were sketch classes at Drafthouse like?
I did two levels of sketch at Drafthouse. The way it works right now is that the standout people from level two are highly encouraged to form a house group. That program is in its beginning stages, and Stephen Hale is really trying to build it up. He’s such a good visual person. He knows what sketches need when they’re on stage.
When I took that class, I wanted to know how to put sketches up and put them onstage. I’d taken a screenwriting class in college, and the only writing for performance I did was for the screen, which is super different from writing for the stage. And Stephen so good at visually tweaking sketches. He has such an eye for how something looks to an audience.
Level one at Drafthouse was more editing focused, but for level two, you write two-ish sketches a week and put up two shows. For the first show, everybody gets at least one sketch in. But for the final show, you put all the sketches to a vote, and the group decides which sketches make it in. So you’re not guaranteed any sketches, and it’s a little more real-to-life. In a group, you only put up the stuff you’re proud to put up—or the stuff that doesn’t need as much work.
Did you like Dojo or Drafthouse better?
I loved both experiences, but they’re very different. Murph’s and Stephen’s teaching styles are really different.
Murph will dig into the comedy weirdness of something. He’ll pinpoint what you’re trying to go for and help you figure out how to make it funnier or better. Level one and level two at Dojo are very writing heavy. Since you don’t put up a show, all you’re worrying about is getting writing down. You discuss a type of sketch, and then you come back with that sketch for next week. Then you do a table read. That involves in-depth editing, which I thought was great. Whoever’s teaching the class gives feedback and constructive criticism, but everybody has a chance to give suggestions.
Stephen is also great, but his feedback style is very different. He’s very thoughtful and he gives great criticism, but he’s also humorously blunt. He’s a little more direct, and he spends a little less time getting into the dynamics of the written sketch. He’s more interested in whether something works onstage. Because you can have a really well written sketch on paper, and then you put it up and realize it sucks or the way you thought it would work won’t work, things like that.
Stephen’s classes are much more about the show and what stuff looks like in the context of a full show onstage. Murph’s classes are more about making something really funny. He wants everyone to laugh about this joke you thought was super funny, funny enough to spend an hour trying to put on paper.
Why did you start Comedic Pursuits?
I was bored on the Metro.
Also, I write for a living, so I already have experience with how blogs work. I was really not into my job at the time, but I love writing. I wondered what would happen if I was writing about something that I actually cared about, and something I care about is comedy.
So when I was on the train, I basically did an extreme improv exercise. I tried to think of 10 ideas I could write about. Then I pushed myself to come up with 100 different blog topic ideas because I didn’t think it was worth it to start a whole website if I didn’t have any ideas. I knew it was going to be a lot of work on the backend, and I wanted to actually commit to doing it if I was going to do it. I also didn’t want to be scrambling at the last minute trying to figure out what I could write about.
I also started the site because I was running into so many issues with the indie scene. I’d just finished my WIT classes, and I was wondering what the next level was. I started thinking about what it would take to put up a show, and I just kept running into so many barriers that could have been overcome by asking 100 people how they did things. But it didn’t make sense to me why that would be the only way to figure things out.
Plus, so many theaters operate in their own bubbles. I didn’t meet a lot of the people at Dojo until I started doing sketch shows where we had both performers and writers coming in. I feel like people pick a crowd and stay with that crowd. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But I do stuff at both theaters and like people from both theaters, and it didn’t make sense to me why we don’t have resources for operate between or outside of these groups. It very much annoyed me.
So I started this blog because I was annoyed and bored. And I figured I couldn’t be the only one who wanted to know how to do these things. Especially in improv, you meet so many people who are so nice and so helpful and so willing to help you out if you ask. But there’s also a lot of knowledge stored in different minds. And if you only vaguely know somebody, it can be difficult to talk to them. It’s hard to talk to someone you met for two seconds and ask them to tell you all their secrets.
But I also acknowledge that I’m not the expert. My first blog post was called “Please Welcome Comedic Pursuits to the Internet Stage,” and I think the tone of that blog post was, “Please don’t criticize me too much. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just trying my best.”
What’s been your biggest aha moment in comedy?
I’ve been not to keep throwing stuff into a scene. It’s easier to pick one idea, slow down for a second, and stop adding stuff to the scene. I’m still trying to be better about it.
Jordana describes it as sticking with the first thing you brought onto the stage, which I struggled with in her class. I would come into the scene with an attitude of, “What are we doing?” So all of my characters ended up being confused because I was really trying to stick with that first choice.
I’m trying to remember that walking out, being confident, and paying attention to the first emotion I have can tell me so much. I don’t necessarily have to know who my character is yet, but my character is acting in this way, and that’s what’s happening.
I can build off of this one small piece of information. Then all I have to focus on this one piece and the next little bit and the next little bit. I can do things incrementally instead of trying to get it all out there at once or saying 20 things that nobody can keep up with.
What’s been your biggest failure with comedy, and how did you overcome it?
In both sketch and improv, I’m trying to invest more in the scenes I’m in. After the last show I did at Drafthouse, Stephen Hale gave everyone notes. His notes for me basically said, “Look, you’re funny, and you tend to commit 90 percent to the stuff you’re doing. But if you just throw yourself in the rest of that 10 percent or even more, you could make something so much more funny.”
I think that’s partially being in my head a little too much and second-guessing myself. If I walk out and nobody’s laughing at my character, sometimes I can feel like I want to change my mind and that I don’t want to do that character anymore.
I think I’m building on that now. When I look back at characters that didn’t quite land, both in sketch and improv, I feel like it’s because I wasn’t really doing it that well. I wasn’t really diving in and being that character in the moment.
Where can people find you?
You can follow Comedic Pursuits on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I’m also on Facebook and Instagram. I do shows with CAKE, The High-Fivers, Rancy Neagan, Heirloom, and Deer Friends.
I wanna say those are all the things, but who knows.
Thanks for tuning in!
Come back next week for my interview with Kate Symes.
