Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Stan.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: And I'm Shen.
[00:00:03] Speaker A: And each week we bring you the Stan and Shen Show.
And each week we talk about fun things through our travels throughout the capital region. We touch on food, we touch on news, try to touch heavily on good news. And Shen's always available with hot takes.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So if you could follow along and listen to us every week on DailyGazette.com or on all major streaming platforms, we'd love to have you join us.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Good afternoon, good evening, good day. Welcome to the Stan and Shen Podcast. We're back in Shannon's humble office that she's Shen Shui.
She changed it up.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: I was wondering how you're gonna figure that into this. I did. Yes. The desk is now on the other side of the room. Yeah, yeah, it's good.
[00:00:52] Speaker C: It's like you can look.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: And so much more space. I loved it walking in and the heaters over here. That's why I mainly did it for.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Me and because the window was closer.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: But anyway, both windows are.
Never mind, Stanley.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: But we are here and naturally unscripted because why would we have it any other way? And what a better time to have our favorite couple from mopco, Michael Burns and lovely cat Copet.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: And you both look great for 30. Thank you very much.
I just want to let you know that.
[00:01:30] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: So as Shen stares at me, I guess I'm going with the questions.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: No, go ahead. Well, you didn't even introduce why we have them on the show, which is very important.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Well, this is.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Well, this.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: I said they look good for 30. I mean, it's not a birthday party.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: But it's MOPCO's 30th anniversary of laughs in our community. And so we're. Yeah, Laughs in our community.
Yeah. Yeah. So we're excited to have them on. We recently did a ribbon cutting celebration for which they improvised their own ribbon for us. So that was great.
And everything went swell until we went to cut into said ribbon, which was balloons, if you can imagine.
It got a little stuck, but it all worked out.
[00:02:16] Speaker D: Worked out, Justin.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: Everything popped off. Yeah.
[00:02:22] Speaker D: See?
[00:02:23] Speaker C: So it's the 30th anniversary, we're told is the pearl anniversary.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:30] Speaker C: So our Shayna and Susie, our wonderful hard things people put a ribbon together of balloons. Pearl look like a school of pearls.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Oh, they Very nice.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Yeah. I gotta say, this year our.
Our local community businesses and organizations have gotten very fun with their ribbon cutting. So we've had some interesting ones like bittersweets 20th was she did licorice I think it was. Yeah. And I heard Slicks did a sandwich.
[00:03:01] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: The ribbon cutting was a sandwich.
[00:03:03] Speaker D: That's perfect.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So.
So it's been great. We had a lot of fun. We took some fantastic photos afterwards with the mopco chicken.
A lot of good laughs at the party. Delicious cake, which I. I got back to the office and was like, man, I wish I took a couple slices home with me.
[00:03:21] Speaker D: Oh, I wish you had, because I was eating after two days afterwards.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Yeah, but so talk to us a little bit just about, you know, being around for 30 years and just all the, you know, the great laughs that you had during that time, the different things that you guys do.
[00:03:38] Speaker D: Well, first of all, I find that I'm a lot rounder than I was Derek to do. And that's part of the, you know, the reason that we celebrate. I'm still here. I'm just larger barger than a life.
So I'm taking a lot of this because Kat's a late arrival. She got here after the first 10 years or so from the west Coast. But, yeah, I had a job for about 5, 5 minutes at a theater where I was the artistic director, and it was a total disaster. Let me tell you, celebrate failure.
Sometimes it's the best thing that can happen to you. And in that case, it really was. I just bombed out as artistic director. And I was sitting around saying, what do I do now?
Found a space in a karate studio, said, I'll teach improv. We'll do that. And it was the beginning of the rest of my life. It changed everything.
And teaching improv in a karate studio. Can I think of specific laughs? No, but it was pretty funny.
It was.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: And then how. Again, let's. I want to back up just a little bit before we get to the perfect match of improv is artistic director. But I mean, were you always.
Again, you and I are, you know, a little white in the.
[00:04:54] Speaker D: We're both 42.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Yes. And we're freight.
[00:04:57] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Raz Raitt and MDS are proud of us. The. Were you always the quote unquote, theater kid? Was that always a part of your life or did it find you? Did you find it? No.
[00:05:08] Speaker D: I wanted to be an accountant.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: My parents wouldn't want me.
I'm the opposite. I tried to be an accountant, ran into cost accountant, failed, miserable.
And I could spell, but I couldn't handle.
[00:05:21] Speaker D: There you go. You found it too.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: And I went into journalism because the most math a journalist has to do is percent change. And that's it.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: That's Right.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
Even now I can't count.
[00:05:33] Speaker D: I was always. I was. I was hooked very young on theater. At first I thought I was going to be a techie, design tech, because I thought actors were just idiots who bumped into things. But then I acted. I learned.
Right. And, yeah, from, you know, 13 or so, it was just the bug.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: And then so you get this wonderful opportunity in this wonderful karate studio. Nothing but space.
[00:06:03] Speaker D: Yeah. Oh, yeah, it was great. That was. Oh, yeah, that's all exactly correct. And. And I had done iaprov quite a bit before that, college and so forth. And I thought, well, I have no money, untrained actors, no sets, no costumes, no props, no scripts.
It's an improv company. Here we go.
And actually, it was. I wanted that. I absolutely did. And we started gigging wherever we could.
If you're a young improv company, you very quickly get used to working under the TV that has the game on over your head while we're trying to do an improv show and that sort of environment. Very common.
Yeah. And that went on for a number of years.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: And then when did lovely Cat enter?
Which, you know, did Cat find improv? Did Michael find Kat?
[00:07:01] Speaker D: We looked. I lucked out is what happened. So I actually put the company to bed for a year or so. I had a book I wanted to write. There was a house I wanted to paint up in Maine. I did some other stuff. And then the phone rang one day and it was some people up in Glens Falls, and they said, we would love to have Mop go do a benefit show for our new theater that's opening up. And I said, well, we'd love to. That's great. And we made arrangements, and I hung up the phone. I don't have a mop cook, man.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: You really improvised that.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:07:35] Speaker D: I just said, yes.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: You know, that's. Are you through something closed? Yeah, this time, yeah.
[00:07:40] Speaker D: So in something of a panic, I put the word out and got some improvisers sort of kind of from the area, and among them was this person who had just come here from the San Francisco Bay area, and she knew so much more about improv than I did. It was just awesome.
So two weeks, I think we put together the worst improv show anybody's ever been involved in.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: Terrible.
[00:08:11] Speaker D: This theater that had us do a benefit, they were like, thank you.
Don't come back.
Very politely. Bad. It was bad.
But I met Kat Cobbit, and. And it was a little weird because her work took her literally all over the world.
So this brilliant Woman would come into rehearsals and be brilliant and then say, I'm off to India. I'll see you in a while. I say, who is this? Who is this person? Couldn't even remember her name.
And. But then we.
She found war tie, I guess, and I should let you pick it up, really, because I'm talking about you as though you're not here.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:08:50] Speaker D: You've taught me not to do that.
[00:08:52] Speaker C: Have I?
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Well, has she attempted.
[00:08:56] Speaker D: She's tried to teach me how not to do that.
[00:09:00] Speaker C: Yeah. I was an improviser.
I was a scripted actor who discovered improv to help be better at scripted theater. Things were very separate back in the day, in between Improv in New York City.
And I won't go through the whole long story, but I went back to San Francisco. I started applying improv in organizational settings and ended up here through a series of just looking really, for a place that was nice to live in and nice to raise a kid in, but couldn't quite kick the improv habit.
So I looked up all the improv companies that were in town when I first arrived. Mopko was not one of them.
And then, serendipitously, after sort of sitting in with a few other companies that don't exist anymore, I met someone who invited me to do a staged reading.
We were reading film scripts for some reason, some organization, and I was sitting next to someone who, in their bio, said they were part of the Mop and Beckett Company. I was like, what is that? And ended up showing up a week or two before this one show.
And that became my improv home here in. Here in town.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: The.
Well, you were. You were at the ribbon cutting. So you've been to mopco.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: I have.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: And I had the opportunity, I think it's a year ago now, that I went over with our good friend, a former friend, but good friend Amira D.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Well, she's not our former friend. She's still our friend.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah, but. Good save. We just don't want Zave. We just don't like where she works.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: She gave me.
She gave me, like, a thing last week, a code for a free Dunkin coffee. So she's definitely. At least she's still my friend. Okay. Yeah. She was like, don't worry, I still got you. And I was like, oh, bless.
All right, so she's my friend.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: All right, so she was the first one to break my heart. And then you quickly followed up. So she left me, and then you left me. But at least I get to see you. So I'm Happy. But went over to take an improv class and participated.
And again, obviously, number one fan. I thought she crushed.
I thought she was absolutely fantastic. It was just like one of the best assignment nights I think you can have as a photographer and just be as someone who enjoys everything. And you have rules. There's rules of improv. It is not. Well, we all. It's okay for anybody doesn't know. It's unscripted.
[00:11:33] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Okay. That's the easy part. But there are rules. There are things. And that's part of the night of training. And I think it's attempting everything. And then what. What are some of the rules of improv?
[00:11:44] Speaker D: Okay, so you came to a.
At all experience levels drop in class. Yes. And that. Or a beginning class. What I usually do is say there are four big things you need to know. Make your park. I look good. First of all, because that's all you got. That's all we have up there is our partner. So we're both working to.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: We really got to work on that.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: It's not the Stan and Shaner Prow show.
[00:12:09] Speaker D: I'm going to just jump in.
See, these kids are just kidding.
Listen, listen.
And human beings are not good at that because we're always got a running.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Especially the male of the species.
[00:12:24] Speaker D: Oh, you bet. Absolutely. It's a thing. Right?
Be able to blurt stuff out. Which requires that we turn down that sensor. That judge that's saying, nah, don't say that. No. Yeah. It wouldn't be cool.
Right?
And finally the concept of guess. And anything my partner does or says or doesn't do or doesn't say or anything that happens in the room, that's an offer.
And my job or our job as improvisers is to say, yes, that happened. And that's what I have to build with so I can have the best idea in the world ready to go in my head.
But something else happens. I've got to let that go. And. Yes. And what's the. This moment. This moment. So those are four things that'll make you a great improviser if you're not already. You guys are.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Both of you, wonderfully.
[00:13:15] Speaker D: Oh.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Because we. We never know what's going to come out of the. The other one's mouth at any moment.
[00:13:20] Speaker D: Precisely.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: But makes it very scary.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: That's how we got our first bleep on this podcast way back when.
[00:13:27] Speaker D: Really.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: And it wasn't me. That was nice.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Hey, don't you dare point fingers.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: It's a Golden Toddcast moment in the Standing shin history is that Shen got the first beat.
It is. I was so tickled because I said, it's good. It's going to be something. And I'm just going to be Stan and I'm going to blow this thing. And.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Nope, See?
[00:13:50] Speaker C: So your favorite moment was a mistake.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: That's rare.
[00:13:54] Speaker C: And all of the principles, approaches, mindsets that Michael just mentioned, some people don't like to call them rules, are in order to do that, to be able to blurt and then build with whatever it is. And if it's a mistake, we celebrate that because it allows us to move on.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: And that we had a very good laugh when it. Cause I immediately, like, realized I did it. And it was just like my. Like, if we had been taping, this would have made a great, like, YouTube moment. Cause I was just like, oh, you're covering the mouth.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: And the reaction was priceless.
Because in her innocent shit, he goes.
[00:14:31] Speaker D: We just lost the podcast.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: She's like, we're gonna be taken off the air. And I'm like, you know, it's a podcast. We're kind of good.
[00:14:38] Speaker D: But now I gotta.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Now I gotta go find the beak. So for, like, the next half an hour, I'm gonna go digging around the Internet to find something.
[00:14:44] Speaker D: Find the right.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that was like. It was a long beep. Is there a short beep? And things like that.
[00:14:49] Speaker D: And these are things, folks don't think about. The hours spent finding the right beat. It's right tedious.
[00:14:56] Speaker C: That's tough.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: It's tedious.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: The two should make you appreciate the podcast more.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. The two sound effects that we have in the can are the beep, courtesy of Shannon. And then also the one on podcast, Tiff, where I thought she was gonna come over the desk on me when we talked about school budgets.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. It was a little bit of sparring going on.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: It was. It got heated. It got heated.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: But you guys would be on my side because I was defending the arts. So I'm just saying I'm outnumbered.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: So we're just gonna leave it there.
[00:15:32] Speaker D: You know, we try with our shows to not get political, which is impossible.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:15:37] Speaker D: It is impossible. Impossible to not be political. But we try.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: But also, like, the best comedy comes from political things.
[00:15:44] Speaker C: I mean, I think that's right. I think what's important for us is we don't want to be preaching or campaigning or proselytizing. We have opinions. Things happen, but it has to be entertaining. Our goal in that space, in that moment, is to offer entertainment and a positive Inclusive experience for people who've paid their money to be entertained. And unlike a lot of standup, we are not adversarial towards our audience. We're trying to make people feel good. And part of that is recognizing that everybody may not agree with us, so our values and approaches and political identities can come out in entertainment without it being like, you should vote for so and so, or this is I should think about this.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: And I know you, you know, you brought this up when you were, you know, giving your speech during the ribbon cutting and you mentioned just wanting MOPCO to be a space for everybody. So can you talk about that and just why that is so important in communities that there be a space where anybody can go and especially a place where you can kind of go, relax, laugh.
Yeah.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: I mean, there's all sorts of awareness of the importance of what sometimes called third space.
We have our house, we have our work, we go home, we go to school. But then where does that other place where we feel really part of community appreciated at home for lots of people, it's the house of worship that becomes your extended community.
It used to be a bowling league, and then there was that book a number of years ago, Bowling Alone. A lot of those places, those shared communal spaces outside of our individual houses or our jobs have gone away.
And so we need those. We need those in our communities. And there's no better place, nothing more aligned with those kinds of spaces than improv. I mean, you just heard those rules. Focus on your partner, make your partner look good, accept and build, co create.
All of those things are built for, including building community and letting people feel like they're supported and seen and heard.
Those are basic human needs.
So in some ways, the performing we do is just one application of these values and philosophies.
And since the pandemic, we find our classes are sometimes even more popular than our shows because people don't. You know, you can stay at home and be passively entertained, but to really interact and play together is important.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Being through the experience as a spectator, petrified. Going up.
[00:18:41] Speaker D: You were more than a spectator, if I recall.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: I was around. I was in the way and things like that, but he was in the way.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: Surprise, surprise.
The.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: In a sense.
Feel free to take this as a publication and a book, and I think you do a great job with it.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: Is you don't have to use it.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Like from the four rules. Yeah, Rule skylines right here.
Isn't that what all relationships should be?
[00:19:08] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Cats look over the top of the top rope.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Cats like, yes. Especially on the listening one.
[00:19:16] Speaker C: When we fight at home, very rarely, the very few rare times, the improvised fights we fight, one of the things that will happen in our fights is we'll be like, you're not. Yes and ing me or you listen. We're like, theoretically, we know the way to make it work is to be practicing what we preach interpersonally.
[00:19:37] Speaker D: And in fact, it really is. It's kind of a discipline. Right. To slow down enough to really pay attention to the person, whoever is that you care about that you're dealing with and not just run the scripts that you've written in your head that don't allow any new interpretation of anything or any, any presentation of alternate facts to the ones that you hold on to. Right. So it slows you down to apply improv to life, to everyday life.
The only people I know that are just innately bad improvisers are like 3 year olds.
They just learn it. They just like, they just block every offer.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: I thought it was going to be two because it's all theirs. It's mine. It's mine, right?
[00:20:26] Speaker D: Yeah. And you know you're a dragon. Oh, yeah, I'm a dragon. I'm breathing fire. No, you're not busy.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Judgmental three.
[00:20:34] Speaker D: Yeah, they're tough. They're really tough.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I just, I have a three year old nephew, so. Yes.
Yeah.
[00:20:40] Speaker D: I'm just coming from working with kids all afternoon, so it was on my mind. I had to dump that.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: The, Those dang kids.
[00:20:48] Speaker A: So the. Yes. And do you know you want to send me what font you want that on so I can put that on your desk? So every time we have a conversation, you can just say, I'm just going to reply from now on. Yes. And is that.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Don't you mean that? That should be. You're a desk though, right?
[00:21:03] Speaker A: When I. When I look at it and talk to you on the phone.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. And, and yeah.
[00:21:10] Speaker C: Okay, sir, I'd have to be a little nerdy here, a stern moment, since you brought it up.
You know, we do a lot of work on the applied side. Right. So working with leaders and organizations and individuals, you know, who are looking to build better relationships in whatever context.
And the reason we started doing that was because we had improv students who came to us and said, I wish my boss knew this. Yes. And rule. I wish my team could collaborate and support each other the way we do in improv.
We've been doing that for a number of decades. And what you just said this. Yes. And rule is really valuable. And really complicated. Because on the one hand, it does mean look for reasons to agree more. How do you say yes to me when we're having a conversation? What can you accept and build and agree with?
But ultimately it's much more nuanced than that. It doesn't mean you always have to agree with my idea. It doesn't mean just be a yes man and say yes to whatever I. Oh, man.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: See, I always have to say yes.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: But I'm usually right.
[00:22:21] Speaker C: So you can say like, well, what's the interest? Or what do you care about? Or what matters underneath that that we can accept and build with and find connection about.
So part of what you're doing that's delightful is you're arguing with each other as characters. Right. You're saying no to each other all the time, but underneath you're yes and ing the idea of. We want to be entertaining. We want to explore the nuance in something. We want to come to meaningful understanding, those kinds of things.
[00:22:53] Speaker A: Which means keep Shen happy.
[00:22:55] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: There's only two women in your life. Three you gotta keep happy. Your wife, Devin and I. Get it together here in that order.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: The big three. The big three. That's all I had.
[00:23:06] Speaker D: There you go.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: And as I politely explained to people about the Stan and Shen show, I said, my co host is 28 years old, half my age. Her name is Shenandella, and her name is as difficult as she is.
[00:23:20] Speaker D: Everybody gets it right off the rip.
I think your name is musical.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Please don't start singing the Shenandoah song.
I was like, I know it's going to come.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: It's going to come.
[00:23:32] Speaker D: You couldn't see it because this is. But the light just went out of Shenandoah.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: I was like, I've picked up the phone too many times and said, hi, this is Shenandoah. And it just starts.
[00:23:43] Speaker D: It starts. Wow.
[00:23:45] Speaker C: The.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: What's 30 years? Is a rot.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: No, no.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: In any relationship business.
[00:23:54] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: You know, things like that.
What have you Learned over the 30 years?
[00:24:01] Speaker D: Great question.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: And then we'll do the tough question at the end.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:24:06] Speaker D: You know, I think the biggest thing I've learned is that I don't know much. And I'm not joking. I'm really not joking. Thirty years ago, I thought I knew a lot.
And I thought that the role of a leader in a creative artistic project was to take my knowledge and, like, impart it on people, make them understand the right way, etc. Etc.
Thank God I've met Cat, who kind of showed me. Wait a minute. What? Who are you?
In a very positive way, mind you.
But, you know, it's dawned on me that I can learn from anybody and do. If I'm open.
And we like to say that the map goes a small C. Catholic technique or way of presenting improv. Improv. Because it's so tiny and so unimportant, people get really into. This is the right way to do improv. Our school, our way. Right. We say, yeah, cool, let's try that. And it's so much more fun. It is so much more fun to let somebody come in and show me something that at first. First I might think this is crazy. And then I say, oh, I just learned something important from that. So staying I dare I use the word humble.
Understanding that leadership is not about imposing.
It's about listening. Listening. And actually, the person sitting next to me has had a great deal to do with that life lesson.
You're a guy.
Yeah. It's been hard. You know, we have all this conditioning.
Right. And you gotta overcome that stuff. You really do.
That's my opinion.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: From women everywhere in the world. You're welcome.
[00:26:02] Speaker D: Yeah. It's been 30 years of trying to get right sized, I guess, is a way to put it. Yeah.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Imagine if they put us in charge of everything.
[00:26:10] Speaker D: That be awesome.
Yeah.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Coming off election night, this is what she wants to come over the top with. Fantastic. This is great. This is great. You were missed last night. Election night, it wasn't the same without you hanging out till midnight to not get stuff.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: I meant to call and ask how many cups of coffee you had for the day and ask if you had stopped at a reasonable point.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: I did.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: I did.
I went to energy drinks after.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: My guy.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: My stomach was a little bit better for it.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: We learned our lesson from last year when I was still working for the Gazette. We got to the Panera probably, what, two hours before we had to be somewhere for actual coverage to begin. And we were so shaky that we were like, we're cut off. We looked at each other and we were like, we're done for the day.
Yeah.
And we went. We went to, what, two in the morning, I think, that night. Yeah. Because. Yeah, it was crazy.
[00:27:04] Speaker D: The good old days.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: When you look at the. Yeah.
[00:27:06] Speaker D: When you look.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Well, hold on. Cat didn't get to answer.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: I was gonna segue back. Off of election.
Off of election to. What did you see?
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Okay. Anyways, now that we're through your segue.
[00:27:23] Speaker C: Well, I don't know what I've learned. I mean, one of the things I've learned is that you have to learn the lessons over and over again. And knowledge isn't the same as skill.
So especially as a leader.
I taught leadership development for 30 years. And as our company grew and we had more employees and I had to be a leader, it was different. Right. So we say sometimes improv is the gym for exercising these muscles like listening and paying attention and collaborating, creating.
I have to do the exercise and then apply it as a leader.
And I guess if I were going to pull that thread, we have a really wonderful company right now.
And when we really committed to relaxing control, as Michael was saying, not just in terms of saying we're the experts, we have the knowledge, but also we need to be co creating this.
You create a format, you become the director.
We want to be better marketers. Let's invite other people in. We need to create this community. You're part of creating it, not just being given it.
That's when we started to really feel good about what we were creating and then it would be sustainable.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: You gotta be.
[00:28:40] Speaker D: We can.
Yes, yes, we do. I'll lean into this morning.
Yeah.
Well, we've got two shows, which is not unusual. Friday and Saturday night. Improv comedy is how we roll.
But this is our anniversary weekend and it was roughly this time of year that we did our very first show at the Cafe lena in Saratoga 30 years past.
So it's really fun to mark that.
Friday night one of our other quote unquote house groups down the rabbit hole is going to open for the Mop and Bucket company. And then we've, I guess we've designed a format actually kind of interviewing each other and improvising off of us as, as inspiration for bits of improv. And I think it's going to be a huge amount of fun. I really do. And then Saturday is amazing theater sports anniversary show. Here's the thing. There's going to be. Are you ready for it? Free popcorn. Free. Not a dime for the popcorn. Plus other gifties for everybody there to have that festive, wonderful kind of feeling. It's already there with theater sports, but we're gonna, we're. We're up in the game, literally. Right? So I'm excited. I think we're gonna have a wonderful time.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: You know, you talk about in a relationship and your life for the most part is improv and you are together a lot when you have those are there those moments when you're together and it's a conversation and it becomes in crowd. Is there that desire to like, oh, I gotta pocket that. Oh, I gotta remember that for Thursday. Oh, my God, that's gold. That's gold, Jerry. That's gold.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: Well, he's thinking already of pocketing this whole interview. He's like, oh, I'm not what?
[00:30:39] Speaker C: I thought you were gonna ask.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Did you think he was gonna ask if you improvised the fights?
[00:30:48] Speaker C: Yes, something like that. And I think that when we are at our very, very best, we are able to say, oh, we're in this little improvisational scene. How do we make each other look good? Or how might we be playful?
I have some friends who are improvisers and partners who will literally say, okay, we're going to do this now as an Alphabet scene where each next.
A sentence that we say has to start with the next letter of the Alphabet while we're fighting. Right. And it allows them to sort of flip into playful mode. We're usually transparently. Not that on top of it, to be able to do that in our fight. That's what I thought you were going to ask.
The answer to your actual question, do you go like, oh, I have to save this. I have to save this? Is. It's actually much harder to plan ahead.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: As a Michael said was like, all, I'm gonna land this and.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Cause it's never gonna work.
[00:31:42] Speaker C: It keeps you from being present. And no matter how funny it is in your head, it's not gonna be the right thing if it's not authentically growing out at the moment.
I do find sometimes, you know, we're doing shows every week that if I can come with some sort of awareness of my day, that can feed what's happening on stage. Like, if I read a good book or if I watched a movie in a certain genre or was listening to a podcast or had this conversation, then maybe that informs an offer I make as a character or a piece of information I have. And that's fun. I just don't know where it's going to show up.
[00:32:21] Speaker D: Early. Early on, before Kat's arrival, I did try with some of our shows. We would do short form. Short form improvis. Sure. And law. And form, of course, is law.
[00:32:32] Speaker C: There.
[00:32:33] Speaker D: There's the technical explanation we would try to have during intermission. We'd get an idea at the end of the first act and run backstage and put together essentially, a scenario for an improvised play for Act 2 during intermission.
What a mess. How difficult that was because we, first of all had all this pressure to essentially write a play in 15 minutes. That's crazy. And secondly, to remember it while we're on stage for Act 2.
Some of them ended up okay. One night there were a lot of people in the group who, like everybody else in the world had had various traumas and so forth. It turned into this psychodramatic mess where people in the audience were sitting there sobbing and it was just like, I wanted to die. I just wanted to die right there. And at the very end, one of the members got up and said, okay, that's it. It's desperate. Sorry.
The show ended in dead silence.
So we don't do that.
Yeah, you can't. You really can't. It all seemed funny at intermission.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: You know the.
I just love the experience because again, for people that have not had the opportunity to see improv and embrace improv and things like that.
And I want to say, is it a crude sense to say like improv is the ultimate icebreakers?
[00:34:02] Speaker D: Because the.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: When we did the drop in class.
[00:34:05] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: It was like, okay, we're going to do this, we're going to do this. We're going to do abc. We're going to do ABC and we're going to do yes and. And we're going to do this.
[00:34:12] Speaker D: And it was.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: And I from just being around and in meetings and life and you know, bosses and all that four wall stuff, it was just so much fun to like, oh yeah, I could do that next time, I could do that next time. And is that just like you said, everybody should be able to do improv.
[00:34:34] Speaker B: Except for three year old does do improv.
[00:34:37] Speaker C: Right?
[00:34:38] Speaker B: Except for three year olds.
[00:34:39] Speaker C: We're all improvising all the time.
What three year olds are doing is practicing the scene of differentiating.
Right. And forming their identity. So that sort of, whether it's the terrible twos or, you know, three year olds where, where they're saying no, what they're doing, saying, I'm recognizing myself as a separate entity from my parent. That is absolutely an improv exercise. Like a testing. What happens if I set a limit? What happens if I say no? What happens if I. If I become the one with the power trying to control you? Like that's all in. We are all improvised.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: Don't give the three year olds that much power.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: It was boss, baby. Look what happened.
[00:35:23] Speaker C: So not only do we believe everybody can improvise, we believe everybody does. It's fundamentally what we're doing all the time. And what Michael said about the scripts in our head, when we are formally training people in these principles of improv, what we're helping us to do is break out of Our sort of unconscious, habitual performance to expand just your range of options, right. So that you can improvise with more alignment to whatever your intention is or more range to match what situation you're in.
But it's not some special, unique, differentiated skill.
[00:36:00] Speaker D: And to answer that on a different facet, so to speak, lots of folks get together doing improv. We've had a couple of improv couples and babies over the years, and it's not like it's a big hookup scene at all, but people find company and communion and understanding and form real, deep relationships of all kinds. So to me, that's really a huge part of the joy of doing this kind of work. I mean, I love to be in front of an audience. That's great. But seeing people get real with each other better, it really is.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: I got nothing. That was a great. That was a great spot to end on.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: All right, I'm gonna ask the tough question.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: Oh, Joy.
See, don't make them sad.
[00:36:52] Speaker C: Tough questions are the best.
[00:36:53] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, we love.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: We're not.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: We're not gonna. We're not gonna make it. It's. I say it's the tough question, but it's. It's a standard for me in. In my interviews and things like that.
30 years of improv success.
Joy.
[00:37:09] Speaker D: Definitely joy.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: Maybe more joy than success.
We can't take joy to the bank, but, you know, I wish we could.
So the big. The tough question is, what's next?
[00:37:20] Speaker D: It's a great.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: That was not a tough question.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Sudok is a tough question. That way, when it comes in and it hits, it's okay.
[00:37:27] Speaker D: Yeah, okay. We do. We've been thinking a lot about that question.
[00:37:32] Speaker C: Here's what we imagine is next, and we've already, in some ways, previewed it in this conversation.
We would love this community to live beyond us. We want it to be sustainable.
And right now, we have a community that has the expertise and the passion and the skills beyond the stage to take it on.
So I don't know if that means next year or five years or what it is, but what we are in the process of doing is thinking, how do we separate the MOPCO from Kat and Mike and sort of nurture it to survive and thrive and grow beyond us?
[00:38:18] Speaker D: And that allows a number of things, which is creative people always want to do something else.
So I have a list of projects that, you know, I would love if I had slightly less involvement down on North J, including, I think my favorite is to just sit on my porch and say, get off of my lawn.
That's. That's big on my priority list.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: That was originally gonna be my first podcast.
[00:38:42] Speaker D: Get off.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: Get off my Law.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: I was just gonna.
[00:38:45] Speaker D: You ever get around to it? I want to be on it.
[00:38:46] Speaker A: I was. I was just like, sit there and just like.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: I feel like that's like my whole being.
We got to have a side gig.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: See, this is the whole. This is like when. When. When it goes off the rails is like, Shen's like, here we go. And she just.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: At least I give you a warning. Most of the time. It's usually. I wasn't going to talk about this, but we're going to talk about this.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: So I was driving and. What is wrong with people? Like, what's wrong with the turn seat? Oh, my God. It's right there on the counter. What's wrong with him?
[00:39:17] Speaker D: It spoils the fun.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: So. So that's, like, not that serious of a. Of. Of me going off. I've had more, like, serious, like, support local journalism rants and support small business rants and like, let's be more involved in, like, the. Like the. To me not to bring it back up, but the sports and the arts should be funded the same in school districts. I don't care.
They should be equally funded. And what you get is what you get.
You're welcome, everybody.
Hate me if you want. I don't care.
[00:39:48] Speaker C: There's an improv activity that we do a lot in organizations called Rant.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Why would be good at it?
[00:39:54] Speaker C: It's a listening exercise. So you get to rant and then you have to feedback. Here's what I heard you say, and here's what I hear you care about.
So you're listening until she's wrong.
It's.
We're not in disagreement.
But that's the.
[00:40:13] Speaker B: I like this.
[00:40:13] Speaker C: But see, this is the thing. Like, so you might absolutely disagree with the position. This gets back to the Sam thing. I heard you say arts and sports should be funded equally here. What did you hear she cared about in that?
[00:40:27] Speaker A: The arts and opportunities for kids. And that's what we agreed on.
[00:40:32] Speaker D: There you go.
[00:40:33] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Stan really wants to put a button.
[00:40:38] Speaker C: What else does she care about? Like, I don't know. Like, is it. Is it.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: She looks but is like, bursting inside of it.
[00:40:44] Speaker C: Care about the arts or do you care about kids having every opportunity to develop?
[00:40:48] Speaker A: Do you care about opportunity for all children and all their interests? Totally agree with that.
[00:40:54] Speaker B: Right.
[00:40:54] Speaker C: How about, you know, developing capacity? You know, all of these things. Right? And you. And you say you dismiss it. Oh, I care about it. But you really do care about it. And then when you come back with your opinion, you can frame in terms of here's where we agree and here's what I also what I care about. And then you can do it back and forth.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: Kat, you sure you never want to be a therapist? This feels very much like, sit on the couch. And the I feel I am feeling, Stan, right now that you're not really listening to what I'm saying.
And then you respond, that I'm feeling. And then I go, okay, well, yes.
[00:41:29] Speaker A: And I've been listening to you for five years.
[00:41:33] Speaker D: Well, this is a sad thing.
So Cat actually is a psychology, organizational psychology. It's slightly different than the individual kind. But the tie in for real between psychology and improv is like they are just two sides of the same coin. No question about it. And I'm delighted. We are delighted. I think that scientists are catching up with what improvisers have been saying for decades.
Right. The effect on the brain and how it's good for you and so forth. And this is what. When Kat talks about implied.
Implied applied improv out there in the corporate world, that's what we're talking about really, is being a psychologist through improv. It's great work.
[00:42:11] Speaker C: What we say in our classes is because people are like, this is therapy. It happens all the time. We say it's non therapy. It is therapeutic.
A lot of vista. But we are, you know, disclaimer.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: You're not.
She said, go get a damn therapist.
We can say damn on the podcast. Don't worry. That's not a belief.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: We can say damn.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: Yeah. We just can't. Just can't say the F word.
[00:42:32] Speaker A: Well, it's. I've got to credit, you know, a friend of ours that's. That's a cardiologist. He goes, if everyone was on Lipitor and had a therapist, we'd live to 103.
[00:42:41] Speaker C: Let's do it.
[00:42:41] Speaker D: Probably. Yeah. How do I get looked to? I'm hefter.
[00:42:45] Speaker C: I'd want to let the Perrier.
[00:42:47] Speaker D: No, I'm sick me there. Yeah, well, we better work on that.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: We gotta go.
[00:42:54] Speaker D: We're doing drugs.
[00:42:56] Speaker A: Hey, better. Hey, world. And up. Better living through chemicals. I mean, that's been part of our life for years.
[00:43:01] Speaker D: But now it's Lipitor.
[00:43:03] Speaker A: It's.
[00:43:03] Speaker D: I know.
[00:43:04] Speaker A: It's. You know, Keith Richards doesn't know what he's missing.
[00:43:08] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:43:09] Speaker A: Oh, Lord, thank you so much. You two are absolutely a Joy to see you again. Yeah, it's great to see you and happy 30th.
[00:43:19] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: @ the Improb and coming over to the boss's office now. The Shenshuade DSIC office.
[00:43:28] Speaker B: There's only one boss in this office and her name is Maureen.
[00:43:31] Speaker A: Yeah, but we're kind of in the. You know, we're in your space.
So therefore, be the boss of your. Yes.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: Wait.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:43:40] Speaker B: You're in MySpace.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: You are giving homage.
[00:43:43] Speaker C: Why do you hear.
[00:43:43] Speaker A: She cares that her bosses.
And then during the podcast, I care about my boss.
My co host being Ben. And that's why Candy should be 50% off at Walmart.
[00:43:58] Speaker D: Darn right.
[00:43:59] Speaker B: Listen, so. So I'm just going to point this out, Stan.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:44:04] Speaker B: And I feel very upset that you forgot my coffee again today. This is the second time. This is the second podcast in a row. This is.
It's in the writer is all I'm saying. You know, it.
It's in the agreed upon handshake when we started this.
[00:44:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: It's upsetting, but I'm gonna let it slide.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: Apologize.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: That's okay.
[00:44:23] Speaker A: Failing you again.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: Again.
[00:44:25] Speaker D: Oh, we've transformed in other relationships.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: I'm just kidding. We're fine.
[00:44:31] Speaker A: But this is where I get in trouble now is because they're. Because I do have a gift that I didn't bring up.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Never mind. It's all. We're good now.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: Just so every podcast it is. It is birthday month.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: I didn't get. No, that's not fair because I haven't. I haven't done. I haven't done yours yet.
[00:44:50] Speaker C: No. It must turn.
[00:44:52] Speaker B: So again, we're split by like 3 days.
[00:44:55] Speaker A: 3 days difference for the day.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: The decade.
[00:44:59] Speaker D: A lot of the work we do is based on status and yours just went way up.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: So it's.
So that's where we're at.
So credit my wife. She's called birthday month for decades now that as soon as the clock strikes one in that month, it's like birthday month. So everything applies.
We're not saving up for one day or things like that. It's. Anytime we can impart something on a friend or loved one, we do. So, um, we have very strict rules this year. Shannon put down a request for a.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: Birthday this year, so I did. Which I am going to mention on the package just because it's a good way to get it out there.
So I don't. Because I hate making it about me. But since you brought it up, I did request this year and ask that anybody that listens to the podcast do the Same.
Please donate to a local food bank this year.
Families in our. It makes me sad to talk about this because I'm a kid who grew up on snap.
Families in our community are really struggling right now.
And, you know, any day that you go hungry is a bad day, and any day that we watch someone in our community go hungry is a bad day. But to do it and have this happen around the holidays makes it so much more incredibly, like, tough to see and just, like, worse in general.
And so I ask anybody, even if it's five dollars, ten dollars, a hundred dollars, you know, donate something.
I always say money is better than food just because they can buy in bulk. But if you can donate food to do that as well. Because I just. I know what it was like to think about not having Thanksgiving dinner or, like, showing up to a food line as a kid or, you know, you get called into the counselor's office and they give you a little basket for the holidays.
So I know what that's like, and I know a lot of families are struggling right now, and I think the best thing you can do on Thanksgiving is be thankful for what you have and then get back to the community. All right, now we ended on a sad note, so I want to end on a high note.
[00:47:06] Speaker D: So this was also.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: So again, I've been trained well by my wife. So. Yes. So we will be making a donation on behalf of Shannon. For that, you'll be happy to know the dip that the gift that I did get you, I did shoplift. So I didn't take. I didn't spend any money on it.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: Please tell me it wasn't at a small business.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: It was a big box.
[00:47:29] Speaker B: Oh, so it doesn't count.
They have broom in the. Yeah, so it's in the math.
[00:47:35] Speaker A: Generally the gifts back and forth are. Are very, very small. And. And diffie. And the. I don't see the full assortment of Shen stress balls, which I think she had 30 of at 1.
[00:47:46] Speaker B: I actually left them at the Gazette. Yeah, I thought you guys needed them more.
I had a stress corner at the Gazette and I left it there.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: This action. She left the chair, the therapy chair there. And that was.
[00:47:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I did use the therapy chair.
[00:48:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's. It's still there.
So. Yeah, so.
But yeah, so it's. That was something that we're doing this month as we. Again, we share the birthday a couple days apart. And we'll be together after mine and before yours will be fun.
[00:48:17] Speaker B: And I'll be making a donation also helping a distribute tomorrow at the food bank giveaway at SUNY Schenectady Community College. So.
So, yeah, so if you're in need of food, come down 5:30.
So, yeah, be on the lookout. We have shared on our social media that the county has extended its donation program for this season. As some people know, Schenectady Shares is our grand marshal for the holiday parade this year.
I couldn't think of a better organization for it to be this year.
And so, you know, they have a link. It's shared on our social media page about all the different places that we'll be accepting donations.
And we're continuing to ask our local businesses here in downtown Schenectady if they want to be part of that or if they want to make donations. So anything helps. Honestly. It really does. It's just like when they tell you on election day that your vote matters.
That can of soup matters. If it's one can of soup, it matters.
If it's a case of water, that matters.
So, yeah. So I just. I ask everybody to keep that in mind this holiday season. Cause we're at a significantly tough time in our country, so.
[00:49:33] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:49:34] Speaker B: And.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Think of others.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: And think of others.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Not only this time of year, but every day.
[00:49:41] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Yes.
Yep.
Best practice you could have is to think of others.
All right.
Are you gonna do your little saying now?
Okay.
[00:49:54] Speaker A: But we have our guests say ta. Ta for now.
[00:49:57] Speaker B: Oh, yes.
Give us your goodbyes.
[00:50:00] Speaker A: Goodbye.
[00:50:04] Speaker D: Goodbye.
[00:50:06] Speaker B: That was beautiful. Do we have to end on your quote?
Because we can cut this part right here.
[00:50:12] Speaker A: Yes. And I appreciate letting me.
[00:50:16] Speaker B: All right.
[00:50:18] Speaker A: Live your life. Love it. So, anyone you got?
[00:50:21] Speaker B: I should have this down pat by now.
