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Welcome to another episode of the Comedic Pursuits podcast. I’m your host, Seth Payne.
I’m very excited for this episode because I got to sit down with one of my dear friends,. He’s someone I connected with right away in the comedy scene and an inspiration to me. He’s creative, crazy, hilarious, and cracks me up every time I see him. He brings so much energy to any room he’s in, let alone any project he’s part of.
I’m talking, of course, about Robin Doody.
Highlights from my interview with Robin Doody
We’ll talk about Robin growing up in Houston, Texas, and his transition from lacrosse bro to political madman. His interest in politics led him to DC, at which point he got involved with improv and moved through the ranks very quickly. He’s a ridiculous person. I enjoy every interaction I’ve had with him.
Robin was part of former WIT ensemble Commonwealth for a year before it was sunset. We’ll get into that, but I’m very happy to report that Robin has since been doing a lot of other creative projects.
Without further ado, Robin Doody.
Some parts of this interview have been edited for clarity. To hear Robin’s full responses, listen to his podcast episode.
Growing up, part one
I never identified as a creative person when I was younger, which I think was a missed opportunity. But I played the violin, and I performed a lot. I started playing the violin when I was four. We would do bank performances during the holiday season, but my favorite thing was doing Christmas carols around a neighborhood in Houston. We would also play fiddle at the Houston Rodeo. That was probably my first huge performance with a big crowd.
I always considered myself to be funny, and I was a class clown, for sure. I would push the limit a lot, and I liked to make my friends laugh. In retrospect, I was disrespectful to teachers and that wasn’t chill.
I didn’t do any theater in school, though. I did sports, and I was always the funniest kid on the sports team. I don’t have any regrets, but if I could do it over, I would probably give up the sports and focus on theater. When I’m feeling selfish, I wish I’d had a mentor to push me to do that.
The beginnings of a political career
After high school, I went to Rice University and majored in history. After I graduated, I moved to Galveston, Texas, and was a field organizer. I was very passionate at the time about turning Texas blue, which I think I could still be passionate about in life. But it would be on such different terms than I had at ages 22 and 23.
I wanted to run for office. In Galveston, I worked on a campaign and went from partying every day to living completely by myself and having a really all-encompassing job. It helped me mature faster. I was obviously still a little fuckboy, but I was maturing at a faster rate than other fuckboys.
I didn’t have internet at my little shack that I lived in, so I would run, work my dick off, and read political biographies. It was probably not the most healthy situation because I was still craving affirmation. At that time, I literally wanted to be president. The ambition was so unhealthy.
My whole plan was to move to DC, learn how to work in Congress, move back to Houston, and be a lawyer. That was the part of it that was the most up in the air. At various times, I thought I’d run for Congress or mayor. I had the mindset of an opportunistic politician.
So that was the plan. But there’s a beautiful phrase I heard on a therapy podcast: If you ever want to make God laugh, tell her your plans. That resonates with me because I’m not running for office. I’m wearing a bathing suit in my apartment in September.
Discovering comedy in DC
I had an internship lined up at a PR firm when I moved to DC in 2015. It sucked ass. That’s when I started taking improv classes.
Someone recommended that I take classes at Washington Improv Theater. I was looking for ways to keep busy and wanted to play sports and do improv. I joined a kickball league, like every fuckboy does. I thought I would get my sports fix, but then I found out it was a frat party for 30-year-olds. Everybody just plays flip cup and doesn’t talk.
When I started taking improv classes, I thought I was fucking good at it. I always wanted to be the best in the class. It was satisfying because I was getting fucked on a professional level. I was looking for jobs and interviewing all the time. I was so thankful to be good at something.
I did levels 1 through 4 trying to make friends and have fun, and I liked it a lot. But I wanted to be good. I was in level 4 with a different group of people, though, and our chemistry wasn’t as good. It was intense, and I was tired after that. So I took a break between levels 4 and 5.
I don’t really remember what I did, but the healthy part of taking a break was that a lot of people who were in that same cycle made Harold teams. I got to see that happen and experience that jealousy. It hurt at the time, but it was okay because jealousy is a feeling we have to interact with in this field a lot.
Improv is a very soothing, cathartic experience. But you have to find your personal dosage of improv, which is dependent on how you create and interact with it. You can’t get too wrapped up in which teams or shows you get cast in because that’s out of your control.
The idea, I think, is to not be angry at yourself for feeling jealous. It’s a very natural feeling. But you have to be able to interact with it and not lose your world. You have to love yourself but never give up. You can’t put too much pressure on yourself, but you should keep putting creative influences in your life that make you feel happy.
Getting over politics
By the time I went back to WIT for level 5, I’d gotten a job. I was working for an idiot in Congress. Then the 2016 Democratic Convention happened.
At the convention, I got the opportunity to work advance for the Hillary Clinton campaign in the ensuing months. An advance, for those who don’t know, is when you fly in advance of one of the candidates or spokespeople for the campaign to a rally site, do the logistics of setting up the rally, and then do the logistics of dismantling the rally. You’re on the road or flying. The way it was described to me when I was young was that you were traveling with your best friends, seeing the country, working your ass off, then getting messed up with your friends when the event was done.
That’s what my realistic young person dream job was. I like campaigns more than I like Congress, and to work on a presidential campaign was a dream. I had to do it. I finished level 5, then went away and campaigned.
I left for three months, and it sucked. That was my big divorce from politics. It was exhausting. I got no sleep. It wasn’t fun. I’d get an email that I was going to Richmond, Virginia. Then they’d change their minds and say I was going to Green Bay, Wisconsin, in the same day. I had no control of my life. There was very little privacy. It was very intense. The payoff wasn’t cool.
And the worst part was, it wasn’t my best friends. The people were fucking terrible, for the most part. It was a lot of insecure politics, Type A, Hillary Clinton types. It felt like if someone said to them, “Hey, you can work in the administration. You just have to put a bullet in this guy’s head,” they would do.
So I didn’t end up liking that.
Obviously, the 2016 election was very upsetting for many reasons. But I remember coming back from it and going to a show, Rise UP, before the Women’s March. I thought that show was a much better way to talk about what happened than any of the campaign rallies I staffed. It was awesome. I remember that weekend as being one of the absolute best weekends of my DC life. So January 2017 was a turning point for me. After that, I decided to put a lot of my ambition into improv.
Yearbook
I auditioned for Harold and was put on AstroMom for six or seven months, which was a blast. I was also cast on the Yearbook special project while I was on Harold. That was probably the height of my improv cockiness because I’d never not gotten an audition.
I really liked Yearbook because I was good at that format. It was a story, and I liked being one character for a whole show. I really pushed myself to be very different kinds of characters in the shows I was in.
Yearbook was awesome, and I think it’s a technical masterpiece. Jaci Pulice was the architect of that. Getting to work with her on Commonwealth afterwards, I could see she’d thought about that show so much. That really changed things for me. I used to be so fucking nervous before Yearbook shows. It was a different pace, and they were my first weekend shows. But they were so satisfying and fun.
Commonwealth
After Yearbook, I made it onto former WIT ensemble Commonwealth. Jaci got to see me perform, and I’ve always chalked it up to Jaci making my life. She’s an improv mentor to me. She was very kind when I was insecure after Commonwealth’s dismantling.
I felt very stimulated when I got on Commonwealth. That feeling of being the best on the team flew out the door. I realized it was time to learn. I matured a lot. I wasn’t pissed off if I had a bad show or worried about “saving” shit. I mellowed out a bit, but I was also supported by such talented people.
In the beginning, Commonwealth was so fast. It was a good show if I had one cool line. I realized my role was as a supporting player. I really focused on expanding myself and becoming more of a team player. I think if it was a corporate structure, I was an associate when I came in, and I was a senior associate who was really experienced, getting called in to manage a lot of stuff, by the time I left.
I was on Commonwealth for about a year. When the team was sunset, it sucked because I felt like I’d just gotten a promotion to senior associate. But it was a team decision. Three people quit simultaneously, and when we had conversations about it, it made sense. It was time. The way it was framed to me, some people felt it probably should’ve ended before they pulled me and Kaelan in for another year. Some veteran members really wanted to go before it started getting bad. They weren’t fulfilled.
I was bummed. I wanted to change leadership or hold new auditions. But that’s not what we did, and I respect that. With three pillars of the team gone, it would have been a difficult process. But I’d felt like I was growing. I was really, really sad when I got the news, but I’m less sad now.
Life after Commonwealth
The end of Commonwealth hurt, but now I’m doing a duo, Regional Sauce, with Kevin Mahoney. We’re getting better, but it’s hard. I’m TA-ing and taking an acting class. It’s a different mixture, and there’s less performance, but that’s okay.
I was going through some maturing phases with Commonwealth. I really got to see that it doesn’t matter how big or small the crowd is. It doesn’t matter if they laugh or not. You just have to get better and have fun. Now it’s time to really put those theories to the test and see how it really feels when you perform once a month for six people.
I really like writing fiction. I’m going to keep TA-ing. I was taking acting classes, but I don’t think I want to take another one. I’ll probably audition for special projects and see if I get those. But if not, I would like to spend a night a week that I usually spend on a improv sitting down and writing. I’m making a list of literary journals. I have a couple short stories I’ve written that I want to sit down and edit. My goal is just to like get one of them published in a literary journal.
My wonderful girlfriend, Laura, bought me a masterclass for my birthday. Malcolm Gladwell has one about writing that I’m interested in. I think I might take that and really put some elbow grease into these short stories.
It’d be cool do more improv, but I’m taking my foot off the gas for now. My girlfriend and I moved in together, and it’s made me such a happy person. The day I found out Commonwealth was breaking up was the day my girlfriend and I moved in together. It was a stressful, weird day. But a week after that news, I realized the thing I can recover from was dismantled, but the thing that is my foundation and my joy was assembled. So it was an amazing week for life priorities.
What’s been your biggest aha moment in comedy?
I had a moment where all the notes Mark Chalfant was giving me on Commonwealth were: “Talk less. Deliver lines. React more. Be in the moment.” So I went and revisited a bunch of Harold shows that I thought were money and realized I did all that shit. It’s a fundamental part of my play that I would like to improve on.
I worked really hard on that this past year. I think I’ve made a lot of improvements, but there’s always still room for growth. I get nervous in scenes if I don’t feel like they’re going right, and I’ll try to fix it with words. But just like in stand-up, you can stew in that silence for longer, and it will work itself out.
What’s been your biggest failure within comedy, and how did you overcome it?
I think it was probably that cockiness after Commonwealth and Yearbook and showing up on Commonwealth thinking I would be one of the best players. I didn’t sit down and have that conversation with myself, but I was used to that thought process. It was humbling, and I realized I needed to prepare for some growth and respect to other people.
It was a very ongoing process that was part of my Commonwealth experience, even after the team settled down. To put it in perspective, I was on an ensemble for a year, and a lot of other people have been on ensembles for multiple years.
I’m not putting my mind on the resume portion of improv, like making ensemble. I’ve been performing for almost two years now, and that’s not very long. So I realize there are a lot of places to grow. I just need to find new classrooms.
To counter self-centeredness, I meditate before shows. I try to be kind to myself and remind myself that my laugh lines don’t matter. I’m evolving to really caring about the team. If the team had a great show, and I did something to help, that’s great.
On Commonwealth, I got such satisfaction from lofting softballs for laugh lines. I can recognize that pattern and in the third tag-out, I can let Denny crush it, and everyone will laugh. I just have to remember that a moment like that wouldn’t be possible without me. I’m learning to be a supporting player and gaining satisfaction from being on a team.
Where can people find you online?
I write poems on my Instagram. If you want to see some weird Instagram that doesn’t chase likes, you can follow me. I’ve written a couple pieces that I think are funny for The Prompt Magazine, which is a cool online DC magazine. If you guys want to check those out, please do. But don’t comment. Just comment to yourself. Write in your journal.
Thanks for tuning in!
Check out next week’s episode with former DC improviser Michael Bird.
You can follow this podcast on:
Apple Podcasts | Google Play | iHeartRadio | Spotify | Stitcher
