Shannon O'Neill and Brandon Scott Jones

The Upright Citizens' Brigade Theatre
Two faces, a man and a woman look from behind a set of straws.
Courtesy of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.
Music Excerpt: “Foreric: Piano Study” from the album Metascapes, composed and performed by Todd Barton, and used courtesy of Valley Productions.  Shannon O’Neill: I love improv because I grew up playing a lot of sports. So it's-- improv is a team activity. Depending on the night, you're all taking a different position on the court. One of you might be scoring the points that night a lot more. We all might score the points evenly that night. But we all have to be there to support each other with that end goal of putting on a really cool and fun show. Jo Reed: That’s Shannon O’Neill, performer and artistic director of the Upright Citizens’ Brigade Theatre in New York City. And this is Art Works, the weekly podcast produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m Josephine Reed. The Upright Citizens’ Brigade is an improv and sketch group, founded in Chicago by Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh. The group moved to New York City in 1996 and began performing and offering classes in improv. These were so successful that the Upright Citizens’ Brigade were able to open their own theater. Now UCB has two theaters in New York City and two in Los Angeles, as well as training centers in both cities. Every day of the week, all the theaters are going strong, offering classes and performing improv and sketch comedy. Clearly, they’re doing something right. The alumni of UCB theater have gone on to write and perform in Saturday Night Live, Parks and Recreation, Veep, Inside Amy Schumer, The Daily Show, Broad City and I am only scratching the surface. This summer, four members of UCB, Shannon O’Neill, Brandon Scott Jones, Molly Thomas and Connor Ratliff headed to Washington DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theater to perform “We Know How You Die.” Here’s how it works: Someone volunteers from the audience and is asked a series of questions that are used as prompts for a full-length improvised skit that culminates in that person’s death—Trust me, it’s not at all grim, but ridiculously funny. The night I saw it, Steve, the audience volunteer met his end by being eaten by a cow crossbred with a coconut. The craziest part was, given his responses to the questions asked, it even made sense. Shannon O’Neill and Brandon Scott Jones were gracious enough to sit down with me before an evening performance to try to explain how they do what they do. Since UCB is known for its long form improvisation, I thought that would be a good place to start. I want to begin with just a really basic question, which is what is long form improvisation? I mean I know it’s longer. But what else do you need to bring to the table to long form improvisation that you might not with other work? Brandon Scott Jones: Like, long form, if you look at the improv that you might be familiar with on television, like Whose Line Is It Anyway?, those are called short form games where what’s funny about the scene is defined before the performers start doing it. So, we’re gonna do “World’s Worst” and we’re gonna see a bunch of the world’s worst doctors, world’s worst baseball players or whatever that is. In long form improv we still do need the audience. The audience does inspires us with a suggestion, but then we take that suggestion; out of that, we, through creating scenes much like you would see in a play discover what’s funny about whatever situation we’re in and we start to play with it that way. So, the act of discovering what is the comedic element of the scene is happening in the moment. Shannon O’Neill: Very well said, Brandon! Brandon Scott Jones: Was that good? Shannon O’Neill: Yes. Brandon Scott Jones: I really like lasered in on an idea and I was, like, “I think I can answer this question correctly.” Do you think I did it? <laughter> Jo Reed: It made sense to me. Brandon Scott Jones: Oh, Jo, thank you very much. Thank you. That’s what I want to do. Jo Reed: So, that’s good. Brandon Scott Jones: Yes. Jo Reed: I’d like to focus on this show that you’re doing at the Woolly Mammoth now: “We Know How You Die.” That is very long form because this is a night of theater of which I’d say three quarters of it is devoted to this one concept. Tell me about this show. Brandon Scott Jones: So like, just to describe the show and then we can kind of break it down from there, we come out and we ask for an audience volunteer and we ask them by saying, like, “Who wants to know how they die?” And they come up on the stage and Shannon will sit down and she will interview them in front of the audience and that is very much a part of the show, but that interview inspires us with details about that person’s life. And those details are the things that we sort of use to inspire those scenes. So, when I was describing long form earlier, we said, “Oh, you just give a suggestion.” That interview is essentially our big meaty suggestion that we sort of take and we have no idea where it’s going, what’s going to happen, how this person is going to die. But as we sort of start playing with things, start seeing different characters that this person might have described, ones that we invent for them, we get to a place where we show the audience member, “Oh, this will be your death.” And, hopefully, our goal is that it’s a funny, very cathartic way to die and, so, that’s what the show is. How it kind of came about is, well, Shannon sort of was the-- she’s the one that the Woolly Mammoth— Jo Reed: That’s what I was gonna ask, yeah. Brandon Scott Jones: Well, maybe you want to talk about our relationship with the Woolly Mammoth and how we got down here. Shannon O’Neill: Woolly Mammoth and UCB became in contact with each other and Woolly Mammoth was very interested in us coming down for a residency essentially of three weeks, which would be the longest performance residency we’ve ever done outside of our theaters. But they wanted something that was kind of like developed for them. “We Know How You Die” was just something that I came up with to give it a nice hook. So, yeah, I just developed it and then through discussion with Howard here at the Woolly Mammoth it became a thing that, like, yeah, let’s do it and then we’ve been working on this show at our theaters in New York since March. So, we did it two or three times a month to workshop it and tweak it and figure out exactly how, like, we wanted it to work in the beginning, what the right questions were to ask— Jo Reed: I was gonna say, that would be very important. Shannon O’Neill: Yeah. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. And I think also, like-- again, because there’s no planning of what we’re doing on that stage, but, like, the general feeling of what we wanted the show to be like. If you see our show, there’s-- we have a little bit of an opening where we sort of come out through the audience and that’s something that sort of was born out of us doing the show. Shannon O’Neill: Yeah. Brandon Scott Jones: And just kind of, again, like figuring out different ways and different tools we could use to maybe sort of explore whatever we get from the interviewee, which I think could be really fun. Shannon O’Neill: And we very much want to take advantage of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre. It’s such a beautiful theater. Brandon Scott Jones: Oh my god. Shannon O’Neill: It’s gorgeous. Brandon Scott Jones: It’s absolutely amazing. Jo Reed: Yeah, it’s a wonderful theater. Shannon O’Neill: It’s a wonderful theater and it’s so great to perform in. Improv is just such a specific art form that, like, not every theater feels like a good place for improv to be, but this feels very much like, “Oh, improv totally works here.” Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. And we’ve been doing shows a long time in New York City and the venues that we could describe that we have performed improv in-- I mean, I have done improv underneath a bar; I have done improv, like, on the back of a stage in, like, a kitchen-- you know what I’m saying? Like, there’s, like, a kitchen not too far away. Shannon O’Neill: I did a show in an old auto body shop that was used for storage up till the day before and they cleared it out just so we could perform in it. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. It’s like- Shannon O’Neill: Did not work very well at all. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. <laughs> I know. So, like the one thing that-- improv’s a little bit like pick-up basketball. Like, if there’s something that can look like a stage sort of like there’s something that can be like a hoop, you could do it there. But there’s sometimes where it feels, like, very right. And this is a theater where it is a very warm experience coming out onto that stage. Jo Reed: I would imagine, as you said, developing the right questions, but then picking the right person. I was there on opening night and the guy you picked-- the engineer who played the ukulele and— Shannon O’Neill: Oh, Steve. Brandon Scott Jones: Steve. Jo Reed: Steve. Oh my goodness. You couldn’t buy him. Brandon Scott Jones: I know. Shannon O’Neill: And the great thing is though we’ve had that every night. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Shannon O’Neill: We’ve had someone every night where it’s kind of like-- you got so lucky with that person, because I think we don’t trust that we’re all interesting. <laughs> Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah, I know! There’s that thing of-- I think a little bit of an improv philosophy to believe like, “Oh, everyone’s interesting. Everyone has something to them.” And Shannon, who’s been interviewing people on stage like that in different contexts and talking to different people and, you know, different shows and so forth, she knows how to get to that place. But also people are willing to open up. Once they start-- they can almost like in a nice way, they can start hearing themselves be interesting and it’s very, very nice. Shannon O’Neill: That’s very much it. It’s like as a comedian, when we got our first laugh it was like an encouragement of, like, “Oh, I can do this.” Where when you’re interviewing someone and they first get a reaction from the audience it’s like, “Oh, the audience is interested in what I’m saying.” Or “I just said something that was funny to them, so they feel good because they’re making the audience laugh as well.” Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah, it’s so funny because we do ask people what’s interesting about them, before we bring them on stage. And inevitably every single night it feels like somebody has said, “Oh, the most interesting thing about me is that I’m a consultant.” And it’s sort of like, come on, really? Like, that is the most interesting thing about you? And it’s like maybe that is? But you ask them one more time and then they always, inevitably give you something way more interesting. You just have to, like, think about it. Like, people don’t give themselves enough credit sometimes for being interesting. Jo Reed: Is there any kind of person you avoid? Shannon O’Neill: Well, yeah, it is something we did in our New York shows, because our New York shows are so full of improvisers and actors or people that want to be performers. And we-- maybe it was like the second or third show we decided we’re going to eliminate those people from the beginning because they’re doing something that we’re already doing. We’re already performers-improvisers, so their lives don’t interest us as much. Because we also want to be interested in the material that we’re performing, which is essentially this person’s life. So, we eliminate those type of people. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah, and then also I don’t know if I-- just like, people who are, like-- what’s a nicer-- what’s a more, like, podcast-y way of saying, like, an asshole. <laughter> Brandon Scott Jones: Like, we don’t want— Jo Reed: Jerk. Brandon Scott Jones: A jerk! That's right. Oh my god, it’s been so long since I’ve used the word jerk. I go straight for like, the bad words. Shannon O’Neill: Yeah. Brandon Scott Jones: What’s wrong with me? Jo Reed: But “jerk” is a good word. Shannon O’Neill: Yeah. Jerk. Brandon Scott Jones: But “jerk” is a great word. It’s got punch to it. Jo Reed: Yeah, I like it. It’s a good word. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah, it’s got a good one. Yeah. Shannon O’Neill: We want someone that will cooperate. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah— Shannon O’Neill: So, from the beginning it’s like what’s interesting about you? And they say a joke back. We might give them one more shot at something, but we don’t need someone to be making jokes, ‘cause that’s our job to come up with the comedy. We want someone that’s just gonna be like honest and sincere and put their wall down a little bit and let us into their lives. Brandon Scott Jones: And that will inevitably always be the funniest part of it, too, is that people being honest and, like, really putting themselves out there. Like, that is so much more fun and interesting and it makes people lean into it a little bit more. Jo Reed: Okay, so there you are. It’s just the four of you on stage: Connor and Molly and you two. You have decided on your audience volunteer. You have questioned that person. It’s not like you run backstage and have a little consult. You just go. Brandon Scott Jones: Oh my gosh. Shannon O’Neill: Every time we go back stage, Brandon says, “I forget everything that person said.” <laughs> Brandon Scott Jones: That is a very true thing. I do: I run back stage and I’m like, “I remember nothing,” and that is the only conversation we’ve had and the rest of the time we run right back out on stage and-- literally just enough for us to do a costume change. Shannon O’Neill: Yeah. We’re just pulling our robes off and then we go back on stage. Jo Reed: Any one of you can begin. Brandon Scott Jones: Any one of us can begin. And it’s that very beginning moment and I don’t know how Shannon feels and I’m interested to know actually, too. But it’s that first moment of the show where it’s, like, “Gosh, well, here we go. We have to do it. I hope somebody has something.” <laughs> And it’s like I also have things, but there’s a little bit of that-- like, I don’t want to say anxiety, but that rush of it’s gonna start now. And then once somebody gets out there, there’s no rules. We have-- I mean, it’s just like we go for it and— Shannon O’Neill: Yeah. I agree with that, ‘cause that first scene is basically us-- we can explain the show as much as verbally say what we’re gonna do, blah-blah-blah, the talk, but once we show what we’re gonna do, that’s when the audience is like, “Oh, I get it.” Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Shannon O’Neill: So that’s what—that first scene very much defines-- that first move, that first line of dialog that is said is showing-- is now showing the audience exactly what we’re gonna do. And it’s pulling something specific from the interview. So, they see, like, “Oh! They are using that interview.” Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Shannon O’Neill: “Now I get it.” Jo Reed: UCB teaches classes in improvisation and I know, Shannon, you’re a teacher. Shannon O’Neill: Mm-hm. Jo Reed: And you’re a teacher. Brandon Scott Jones: Yes. Jo Reed: So, there has to be some method. Brandon Scott Jones: Yes. Shannon O’Neill: Oh, yeah, of what we’re doing? Jo Reed: Yeah. Shannon O’Neill: Oh, there’s rules. There’s techniques and concepts that basically it’s a language we’ve all learned, this language of long form improv and UCB style of improv. So, we speak that same language. So, yeah, there’s rules we follow. Brandon Scott Jones: It’s like tools and it’s a language we speak that we have. Like, these tools in our belts. So, it’s the idea of, like, again, nothing is planned, but it’s a muscle that you work as well. And, so, improvising is very-- it’s very fun, but it’s a very mental thing. But then after a while it has to start to feel a little bit like in your body and— Shannon O’Neill: It’s instinctual. Brandon Scott Jones: It’s instinctual. Jo Reed: Like driving a car. Brandon Scott Jones: Exactly. Like driving a car. Shannon O’Neill: Like, Brandon will step out into a scene and then my brain just quickly decides based on what he has just said, how he’s said, who he may have established himself or myself as in this scene, my brain quickly just processes that so that my reaction can honor his initiation in the best way I feel that-- the best way can, so that we can, like, just build a really fun scene. Jo Reed: And is that one of the rules-- accepting when somebody puts out there? Shannon O’Neill: Yep. Brandon Scott Jones: Yes, exactly. It’s the idea of saying, “Okay, this is what you’ve given me. Yep, that’s what this is. I’m gonna add to it.” And whether it’s something you were expecting, or even better if it’s something you weren’t expecting, when I say, “We’re gonna be fine.” Because this is not a one and one-- this is a two. Does that make sense? It’s not one person improvising with another person who’s improvising; it’s two people improvising together, if that makes sense. And that this scene lives and dies on us having some sort of relationship up there, where we’re communicating not only as characters, but we’re communicating as improvisers. And the more and more you improvise together the more that language starts to feel a little bit more fluid as well, that I have a sense of, like, after performing with Shannon for a very long time now I know the types of things that she likes and I know the way she’s gonna sort of make a big character choice, you know. I know what she might go for. I don’t know exactly the specifics of it. I might not always be prepared for it. But you get that sense or, “Oh, I can sense Shannon really enjoys doing this because she’s said it a couple of times and, so, like let’s follow that path and just trust that, like, I don’t know where this is leading, but if we go there together, we’ll end up some place great.” Jo Reed: I would imagine-- and knowing nothing about this, but I would just imagine that being present would be so important so that when Shannon’s talking you’re not thinking, “Oh, what am I gonna say next?” But you’re actually really listening to Shannon. Shannon O’Neill: It’s called “being in the moment”. Brandon Scott Jones: Oh, yeah, being in the moment, listening is—is super key. Exactly what Shannon described earlier of, like, I say something and she quickly has to-- there’s definitely like the nimble side of it where you have to be very quick or agile with your brain, but she’s also-- she’s heard it and she’s willing to take it in and if she mishears something, she’ll ask for clarification. If she mishears something and doesn’t realize she mishears something she’s gonna still make a choice and I’m gonna have to listen to that. And it’s just building off of each other, if that makes sense. Yeah. Listening is key. Shannon O’Neill: It’s also being able to be ego-less when you’re performing. Brandon Scott Jones: Oh, yeah! Shannon O’Neill: ‘Cause we’re all gonna have great ideas. We’re also all gonna have probably like stinker ideas here and there, too. Brandon Scott Jones: Me. Shannon O’Neill: Me. Brandon Scott Jones: Me, me, me. Shannon O’Neill: It’s just how it is, ‘cause we’re making it up all the time. So, there’s like etiquette when you’re improving, too. Let’s say, like, Brandon and I step out at the same time. We both have an idea. Brandon speaks first. I forget my idea. I let it go immediately. Because he has now made a move on it. Okay, I’m gonna listen to his idea. I’m not gonna listen to his idea and then think, “Well, let me see if I can force my idea in as well.” ‘Cause that’s just-- that’s being a jerk of an improviser. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah, it is. Shannon O’Neill: ‘Cause it’s not about trying to prove anything Jo Reed: So, it’s not-- when you’re on stage it’s not competitive at all. Shannon O’Neill: Exactly. Jo Reed: Like, “I’m gonna be funnier. I’m gonna be the funniest--” Brandon Scott Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah. Jo Reed: “Who’s the funniest tonight.” Shannon O’Neill: Nope. Nope. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah, it’s not that at all. Shannon O’Neill: The best compliment is, “You all worked so well together.” Brandon Scott Jones: Oh, yeah. Shannon O’Neill: Like that’s the best compliment. Or, “You wrote that.” Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Shannon O’Neill: People believing that you wrote the show is also an amazing compliment. Brandon Scott Jones: That’s the number one compliment. Shannon O’Neill: Number one compliment is, like, “You guys wrote that, right?” It’s like, “No, we made it all up and we’re never gonna do it again.” Brandon Scott Jones: <laughs> I know! Shannon O’Neill: Isn’t that a waste? Isn’t that such a waste what we just did? Brandon Scott Jones: I know! Thanks for thinking we could’ve written it down. Man- Shannon O’Neill: I calculated the other day-- I was just thinking, like, we’ve probably done, in our first week— Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah! Shannon O’Neill: --eight to ten hours of material that we completely made up, that we’ll never use again. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Shannon O’Neill: Just so much material that just goes away. Jo Reed: And the interviews, I mean— Brandon Scott Jones: Those too. Shannon O’Neill: That’s also part of the show. Jo Reed: They were hysterical. Shannon O’Neill: Yeah. Jo Reed: Does your heart break a little, that, like, “Bye.” It’s like Gone With The Wind? Brandon Scott Jones: You know, that’s a great question— Shannon O’Neill: It does, but— Brandon Scott Jones: That is a great question. Shannon O’Neill: Yeah. Brandon Scott Jones: Oh, I like that question. Shannon O’Neill: I wouldn’t say it breaks, but there’s certain scenes where I’m, like, I don’t-- it’s not like a thing where you want them to go on forever, ‘cause there’s sometimes you get into a scene where it’s like this is so easy right now and so fun and it’s just clicking so well that you never want it to end. It’s very much a drug. <laughs> Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah, it is a drug. Shannon O’Neill: It’s a drug. Yeah. Brandon Scott Jones: It has that drug feel to it. I go through ebbs and flows with that where I’m like, “I’m grateful that what I’m creating is gone the second it’s created and I’m grateful for that.” And there’s something very free about that. Jo Reed: I was about to say there must be such freedom in that. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Jo Reed: It’s like, “Oh, well.” Shannon O’Neill: Mm-hm. Brandon Scott Jones: Good-bye, That’s sort of like I kinda used to think that, too. I’m like, “Oh, well, if the audience doesn’t like this it’s like give me a break. I’m making it up.” <laughter> Brandon Scott Jones: You know what I’m saying? But then, like, if it’s really jiving the way Shannon talked and you’re like in a scene and it just feels easy, or like you just feel like you could live in those characters and I find-- I personally find that those-- there’s moments where you’re just silent on stage and you’re there, but you still feel very present and very connected. Or like, you’re just like firing off jokes and left and right. And then there’s those moments where you’re like, “God, is there any way we can do that again? Can we-- is there somehow we can do it?” Shannon O’Neill: Mm-hm. Brandon Scott Jones: And you can’t. That’s not to say that improv doesn’t inspire written work, you know what I mean, later on down the road, but it’s never gonna be-- Jo Reed: Almost <inaudible> Brandon Scott Jones: Oh, yeah. Shannon O’Neill: Yeah. There’s sometimes you can take it and try and write it up, but you’d have to-- it’d be more like, “Oh, this was-- this character was really funny, because their behavior. Their interesting and unusual behavior was really fun to play.” So, you could take a character and then, like, write something up about it. You might be able to take scenes Jo Reed: So, it’s more based on a conversation than trying to come up with it by rote. Jo Reed: Okay, this is the bad question, but— Shannon O’Neill: I agree. No. <laughter> Brandon Scott Jones: Okay. Jo Reed: You might. Okay, I’m really curious, because we all have really lousy days. What happens if you’re up there and nothing’s working? Brandon Scott Jones: That’s great. That’s another great question. That is a good question. Shannon O’Neill: That happens. And that’s the beauty of performing on a team, ‘cause you have other people on stage with you that take care of you. Any time we go on stage we say, “Got your back.” We look in each other’s eyes lovingly and say, “Got your back.” And that just means I could step out and it just happens to be that night I don’t have the best ideas. My scene partner out there with me will turn that into gold. They’ll make it great. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Shannon O’Neill: That’s what team work is. We all-- our jobs are to make our teammates look good. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah, to pick us up. So, like, if Shannon and I are having an off night, Molly, Thomas and Conrad lift-- the other two cast members-- are right there to sort of, like, not even just, like, pick us up and, like, hurdle us into the sky. I mean, if they can-- if they’re having a hot night, they can bring us with them and it is a very, very-- it’s one of the weird comforts of doing something at a more dangerous sort of like, live performance. You know what I mean? Where you’re making everything up. If you can give yourself over to that trust suddenly something starts to feel a little bit, like, lighter. It’s not as heavy if you’re making mistakes and so forth. Jo Reed: Yeah. Shannon O’Neill: Yeah. Jo Reed: Did you come from improvisation from comedy or from acting? ‘Cause I could see either. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Shannon O’Neill: I have no acting training at all. Mine’s all through UC. I came to UCB for comedy, never considered myself a performer, and then I just started to take-- and then I fell in love day one. And I was like, “I’m a performer now.” <laughter> Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Jo Reed: And what about you, Brandon? Brandon Scott Jones: I studied drama. I went to a drama school in New York and then I took some time off and I started writing and then kind of about a couple years out of drama school felt a little creatively stifled and I wasn’t sure what I was doing and I had gone to see this show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. When we walked out the friend I was with like, “I could get up there and do that.” And I remember thinking to myself, “I could never do that in a million years.” And so flash forward a year from that moment I, like, go and I had just watched the movie Strangers with Candy, the film version of it. And Steven Colbert and Amy Sedaris were there talking about their time at Second City in improv and as I walked out of that theater somebody said, “Come take classes at the UCB,” and I was like, “okay.” And I did! And I really never looked back. Same thing with Shannon. I just fell in love day one. There was just something like really crazy about it. Jo Reed: And for you comedy was really the driving force? Shannon O’Neill: Yeah, the reason I started my UCB class I had in college my major was communications broadcasting. So, I thought I was gonna be, like, a behind the scenes TV producer or maybe even a screen writer, more of like on the writer side, behind the scene stuff. And then I saw a Second City show in Chicago while on a field trip in college and it was called “Paradigm Lost” and it had Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch- They’re nobodies. <laughter> It had a bunch of nobodies named Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch-- It was like a killer cast. A couple of other folks whose names are escaping me. And I was watching it and I was like, this is so cool. And I went there 'cause I was such a huge SNL fan, but I never had dreams of being on SNL. But I was like, this is really cool. And then when I moved to New York, I was like, I want to take an improv class, 'cause Second City did a sketch show and then they did an improv set at the end, and the improv, I was really, like, whoa. That really blew my mind. And I asked a friend at work and they said, "You should take classes at UCB." And it was really just 'cause I had been living in New York for just like a few months. So it was just like where-- Like, I want to do something, not just go to work and go home. And so I signed up for a class and yeah, and then just fell in love with it. And I remember the move I made in, like, day one that got a huge laugh, and it was just me being in the moment and not trying to be funny. And I was like, "Whoa. That was really cool." So any time I have a stinky show-- Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Shannon O'Neill: I think back to day one-- Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Shannon O'Neill: Of my level one class, and it's-- it's like to remind myself that I can do it. <laughs> Jo Reed: I know it's hard to describe why you fall in love with something or someone for that matter, but can you talk about what it is about improvisation that just grabs you and makes you want to get up there and not know what you're gonna say, but somehow say something anyway? Shannon O'Neill: I bet we both have different answers. Brandon Scott Jones: We, yeah, I bet we do. There's a couple factors to the answer. I would say, have you ever been at, like, with a friend or at a party or maybe just out to dinner, it doesn't matter where you are, but you're just having this conversation and it's just the most stimulating thing in the entire world. Like where you just feel like, like, wow, we are just really, like, I'm syncing with somebody on something and it feels really, really, really great. I really think, the people and the way I get to interact with them is very addictive to me. So my answer would be, like, the thing that draws me to it over and over again is just hearing the way people think and how they take my ideas and how we combine together. And then, I've known you for a long time now and we still talk, and, like, you still surprise me in scenes, you know. Shannon O'Neill: Oh, yeah. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Like constantly. Shannon O'Neill: <laughs> Brandon Scott Jones: I feel like I don't know what's coming next, and even if I kind of do know what's coming next, it's maybe because I'm trying to get her to do the thing that I love the most. It’s this weird interaction that you have and that you're conversing with people playing characters. Without sounding like a pretentious jerk-- <laughs> without sounding like that-- Shannon O'Neill: Too late. Brandon Scott Jones: Too late, I know. And am I really sounding pretentious? Shannon O'Neill: <laughs> No. No. Brandon Scott Jones: Oh, my God. No, no. Jo Reed: No, no at all. Brandon Scott Jones: But there is just something to it. There's something to that idea of, oh, we're adults playing a very fun, very crazy, very, challenging game of make believe in this, really-- it's like what a release that is. I don't know. It's very silly. Shannon O'Neill: Mm-hmm. Brandon Scott Jones: When you're an adult, life is not as fun as it looks in the movies when you're a kid, I've found. And when you're improvising, it's fun and silly and suddenly you're making sketch comedy on your feet. That’s my answer. Shannon O'Neill: Yeah. Mine is I love improv because I grew up playing a lot of sports. So it's-- improv is a team activity. Depending on the night, you all, you're all taking a different position on the court. One of you might be scoring the points that night a lot more. We all might score the points evenly that night. But we all have to be there to support each other with that end goal of putting on a really cool and fun show. So I like the team aspect of it the most. I also love that I don't-- and it's not 100 percent true, but I would say probably, like, 99 percent of the time, I'm in the moment on stage and I'm not thinking about the stupid stuff, because life is hard. <laughs> Brandon Scott Jones: Yes. <laughs> Shannon O'Neill: Living in New York is hard and life has so many ups and downs, but improv is, it is that thing. That's why it is like my drug. It makes me forget about-- if there ever is, like, just dumb stuff happening in life, I get to forget about it for 30 minutes, an hour, maybe two hours a night depending on where I am improvising. And also, that same thing of I don't love breaking on stage, but I love breaking on stage, because someone has-- someone has surprised me. Like Brandon and Connor, I’ve improvised with the most consistently for years and when they surprise you, which is nightly, it’s the best. Jo Reed: You’re both teachers. Is there something that if you had to think of something you really want to impart to your students about this craft, what-- and the UCB way of performing-- what would it be? Shannon O'Neill: My number one thing is you have to fail to succeed. You have to fail to succeed and also stop trying to be perfect. That's where I've learned my biggest lessons on stage or in the classroom, just making a dumb move, a dumb mistake, just saying something and then the teacher just giving me notes on it, and then I learn from that. 'Cause success is great. It's just, like, oh, when you get the laugh, it's like, oh, that just encourages. That's reinforcing that I'm funny and I can do this. But the, like, the failures or the attempts that don't work is a lesson in just me becoming a stronger performer and improviser. And the perfection part is I-- sometimes I'll ask a performer that I'm so very fond of, which is everyone at UCB, but I might say, "Hey, six months ago, we talked about you writing a show. Where is it?" And they're like, "Oh, yeah. It's just not-- it's not coming out right and I just keep rewriting it." And at that point, I'm like, "Submit me something next week, 'cause you're trying to make it perfect and you're not gonna make it perfect. You have to get it up on stage before you realize where-- what's actually wrong with it." So that's mine. And that's what the beauty of the UCB Theatre is, is that it's a place that we can experiment and fail and figure stuff out. You can't do that when a network is like, "Here's a bunch of money for your show." You don’t have a chance then, and they're gonna give you notes that you're not gonna like, and it's gonna change your actual vision. Brandon Scott Jones: Yeah. Shannon O'Neill: So it's like, UCB is the place where it is. Get your honest-- Find your real voice and figure out who you are, 'cause I'm not gonna tell you to change the way you think. Brandon Scott Jones: That's great advice right there. Be compassionate towards yourself and your learning process. And the other thing is put in the work. Jo Reed: Well I’ll let you get ready for your DC audience tonight. Brandon Scott Jones: Oh my gosh-- Jo Reed: Thank you guys, I appreciate it. Brandon Scott Jones: Oh my gosh. Sorry, we talked forever-- Jo Reed: Not at all. Brandon Scott Jones: You were so lovely. Jo Reed: It was fun! That was Shannon O’Neill and Brandon Scott Jones from the Upright Citizens’ Brigade Theater. Find out all about them at UCBcomedy.com. You’ve been listening to Art Works. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I'm Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening. <music>

Pushing the boundaries of improvisation.