From Splitsider...
Is this something you’d recommend for humor writers — to start with improv comedy?
Absolutely. I think there are a few reasons why it’s a great idea. One is simply that you learn timing — what does and doesn’t work with audiences. If you’ve never experienced an audience in this specific way, it’s more difficult to learn later on.
It also helps — if you are going to write for somebody else, like I have for Conan, Jon, and Stephen — to understand the needs of a performer. Sometimes writers become very enamored with their own material — especially those who write for print. But what is very, very funny on the page might not work before an audience. The material might be too difficult for the performer and for the audience to follow. Get rid of all the verbiage, and refine your way to the core of the joke.
Third, I think it’s vital that comedy writers don’t hole themselves up and work alone. They need to meet and have a community of like-minded people — some of whom might hire you down the line. It is much easier to create this community if you’re performing.
Do you get the same high writing that you used to when performing?
It’s a different high. I love being backstage and watching one of my jokes really hit. It’s the grace of being an anonymous donor, only better. My name is on the credits. It’s the best of both worlds.
Did you receive a drama degree from Yale?
I was a humanities major, but it’s been mentioned by a few journalists that I was a molecular-biology major — which I definitely was not.
I read that, too. I was very impressed.
I said at some point that I matriculated as a molecular-biology major, but that just means that I started Yale as one. Once I was there, I got much more into the humanities. I do love science, though. I worked in a lab for several summers and got my name on a paper in the journal Plant Physiology. The paper is called “Association of 70-Kilodalton Heat-Shock Cognate Proteins with Acclimation to Cold.”
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