733 - Learning Comedy

23:24And I say the beautiful thing about improv is you do it once and then it's gone. We can never do that exact same scene again. So if you're embarrassed, you're like, well, it'll be over and I'll never have to do that exact same scene again. And sometimes I think when like the writer brain turns on that frustrating thing of like, oh, I had something right there and now it's gone. And so that's, I think, a little bit in there is where you sort of get that improv to sketch, which is what Second City does and what I really liked to do as a performer and then a teacher and a director and all that stuff.

23:58John August:Yeah, so let's start making that transition because you're saying that no one wins in improv and it's like, did we have a good time? Did the play happen? Did we sort of get through that moment? and I'm sure you can, you know, then look at the tape or sort of go back and analyze like what things worked, what things didn't work. And you, but you're probably focusing on like, was everybody present? Was everybody honest? Was everybody playing the game the way you play the game? Then as you move into sketch, you really are like, what am I trying to achieve here? You're probably coming in there with a character, with a concept where you're clearly communicating that concept.

24:33John August:And if things didn't land, if things didn't get a laugh, that's when you can actually start to pick apart. Like, well, why didn't that get a laugh? Or that thing did get a big laugh. Why did it get a big laugh? And our instinct is going to be like, oh, well, you can't analyze comedy. You can't pick it apart. But of course you can. Just like we can, on Three Page Challenge, we can look at sort of why this scene is working. You can look at a sketch and say like, oh, this is not working for this audience in this moment because of X, Y, or Z. Talk us through how you're getting started getting people thinking about sketches and how you're improving sketches.

25:05So even just to get that first step of the first thing in improv that I have to teach you to do is I have to teach you to make a choice. You have to make a choice. You have to say yes. You have to pick up the rock and look what's underneath it. You have to look at empty space in front of you and be like, that's a butterfly. And there's absolutely. I have to get you to make a choice. The second thing I want you to do is I want you to make a choice that will serve you a little better. A choice that will make your life a little easier. so if we're in an office and there's like oh look at that on the desk it's probably going to make everybody's lives easier if it's a paycheck so now you can see your co-worker's paycheck it's going to make your life a little harder if that's like a tiny man who can speak German to you like we can do it it's going to be a little harder or we're doing a different thing now and then I think that transition from improv to sketch is looking at every you know so there's lots of different ways to do it but one like you're talking about if we've done we've improvised something we've improvised a scene or maybe a form and now we're looking at what do i want to see again and then you kind of run through okay what do i want to see more of in this scene what do i want to see less of what i you know i always say what do you want to see more of what confused you what It felt, you know, I go easy, hard, fun, stupid.

26:30How was that? What do we want to see more of? What confused us? You know, and so then you're looking to pick out, maybe you're picking a character. Maybe you're picking a whole arc. Maybe you're picking a turn of phrase that we like stumbled on, like an interesting point of view or a piece of dialogue. But then you're looking and saying, what do I want to see again? What choices do I want to make again? And then go from there.

26:59John August:So what is the first version of a sketch that you might see as a person teaching this class? So you have students who've gone off, they're coming back in with a sketch. Is it a written thing that they're putting up on their feet? Are they showing you a piece of paper? Or have they just worked out with their classmates what they're going to do? What does it look like when you're first seeing something? Yeah, so it's all kinds of things. And okay, personally, I love to see. I have an idea. We want to try it. and it's like we got together and she's going to do this, and I'm like, great, don't tell me anything.

27:29Get up there, just start doing it, and I'm going to call time probably around three and a half, four minutes, and then we're going to sit down and talk about it. Students can also bring in like an outline where they've written down, this happens and this happens and this happens, or it could be a fully written that they've used their office printer at their day job and they're bringing it to class and they hand out copies. the thing that students do oh they will give me a copy on and everyone's on their phone i'm like that is terrible that is terrible yeah i don't like figure out who in your class who in your class has a day job you can abuse the printer and bring a written sketch but i think for all of those situations the next step is what were you trying to do what were you trying to say what do we want to see more of?

28:18And my personal thing that I really like, really pushed and want to get my students, the thing that motivates a lot of my work is like point of view and like self-expression. So a student will put their scene up if they're improvising through it the first time or they're using it from a script. And I go, cool, what was the point of view? And like, there's a lot of different things that you can mean when you say that. But I go, what was your point of view? I don't always say it in these words, but like, what were you trying to do? And then I go, great, that's what you want. Here's what we can change to make that like louder, clearer.

28:57Because I really am from the school of thought of if you know what you want to say, then we can take your idea and put it kind of anywhere. And I think a lot of, you know, the majority of my training at Second City with social and political satire being kind of the base of that. So it's like most of our scenes, you know, in our running order, we want to be saying something about ourselves, the world, you know, the government, relationships. We want to be saying something. So I did a lot of work as a teacher to help students be able to say back, which we can talk about. I made up like all these exercises in a Mad Lib and all these things to be like to say back to me, what is the thing that you want to do with this scene?

29:41John August:So students are coming in there. They're putting up the scene. and you're taking a look at it and then you're offering suggestions, what are the common knobs you find yourself adjusting with what they're doing? Is it about like, okay, you have too much here. I didn't understand. They all have too much. They always have too much. Everyone always thinks like a joke is funnier if you put more words in it. Like it never is. Yeah. One thing I noticed in sketches is that you have this blessing in the first few seconds to establish like, this is the place, this is the concept. The stuff that would normally be like the set, you're sort of creating that.

30:15John August:So you have to sort of like, thank you for coming into my office. This should only take a few minutes. That's, it's fine. Great. We've done that. Great. But if you didn't, if a sketch didn't have something to establish where we are, what we are, we're floundering for those first few moments. We don't know what we're actually seeing. And I'm sure a common complaint is like, I don't know who this person is. I don't know what I'm supposed to think of this person at the start. And so I'm listening, but I'm not fully taking it in because I don't get why I'm supposed to be engaging with them. I'll see sketches from students and it's like, I'll tell them, I'll go, okay, you have five pages for your sketch.

30:54You have about five minutes. I go, we should know who the people are, where are they? By the middle of the first page, the most, the bottom of the first page. if we are explaining like who what where beyond that it's either either this is like we're creating like a new like we're aliens or something and I really got to get on board for it but then it's also like is this a sketch or is this a short play is this like our show bible like how many pages do we need to explain what the aliens are in the sketch show and I want to get to the thing that you want to do in this sketch the thing you want to do in the sketch is not explain who everybody is at this dinner party.

31:39The thing you want to get to is that somebody brought their girlfriend and their girlfriend went to the rival college. And now we're going to all have a freak out because she went to one school and everybody else went to the other. Like we want to get to the thing that is the most fun. And then I want, So that's like the first thing. And then it's like, let's make everybody, give everyone something to do that everybody can have fun and make sure that like everything we're doing builds up to the point of view that the student wants to get across. That's right. So if there's something in here, it's like, this isn't paying into this.

32:18We can like pull that out. Or I had a student, they brought me a scene. They were all flamingos. Great. And they were doing really amazing flamingo work.

32:32John August:The physical comedy, the embodiment. The physical embodiment. All their heads were going. They were moving around like on the stage and calling out like flamingo specifics. And at the end, I was like, cool. Like, what were we trying to do? What was that scene about? And they were like, oh, that was about climate change. And I was like, what? it's like we didn't say anything about climate change well so but i think that's a great opportunity because you see students in front of you who are like that thing you're doing is clever and funny like the physical comedy that i can i can visualize it which is great yeah and what is the thing what is the actual like in a point of view like once you've established this thing it has to go someplace it has to build to another thing it could just be a physical thing without words.

33:18John August:Yeah, totally. It's them fighting over a fish. And that could be hilarious, but it has to build. It's not just an impersonation. I remember this from when I was a student at Second City. Someone brought me a sketch. One of my ensemble members brought me a sketch. And he was a robot. And it was this very complicated, like, allegory for racism that, like, people were... And he was like... And then, you know, that there were... it was the guy who was like the basketball team owner that said like all the nappy headed hoes or whatever. He was like, Oh, that the, that he owns a basketball team of all robots.

33:55And it was just like, and I was his human girlfriend. Um, and I was like, what is this? And like, it, he was like, well, there's all this like racism in the news. And I finally like had a meeting with our director, our director slash teacher. And I was like, I'm not going to do that. Like, this is entry level stuff about racism. And like, this doesn't have any of like my point of view in it. And I'm like a black person in America, like, you know, and then the teacher was like, okay, take it back to this guy. She was like, bring me the version, like, you know, the version that you want to do. And he brought back a scene where it was just a silent scene where he was a robot, had no racism in it.

34:35It was just like, he just wanted to be a robot, which like, I'm fine with. But so it's that sort of thing of like, we have to identify, what is the thing that you really want to do in this scene? And there's no wrong answer. Whatever you say, I can turn that dial up. If we just want to be flamingos, then we're going to think of 10 things flamingos can do on the stage. And we're going to give everybody a flamingo name. And maybe there's a song we could do. But if we want to talk about climate change, then the flamingos have to talk about climate change. Or something has to happen about climate change.

35:08Absolutely.

35:10John August:So as an instructor, Ultimately, these classes will lead up to some sort of showcase, some sort of performance where everyone has to do those things. And it's your job to then figure out how to order this in a way that makes sense, that's going to play for an audience. Can you talk about that? Oh, yeah. So again, that's another thing of like, so talking about Second City, when I was there in those student classes, the main objective is everyone has to have one scene where they're the star. So maybe you have 12 students in a class. We have to have 12 scenes where somebody's the star. It's probably about a 50-minute show, maybe a 40-minute show for some of those student showcases.

35:54So then you start looking like, okay, how do we get everybody in there? So that's its own process, figuring out, teaching people how to make themselves the stars. That's its own process. The other part is you do have to sort of structure and protect things. and there is a little bit of, we call it like running order math. You want to open with something where the opener, ideally you want to see every cast member. You want to hint at the theme of the show if there is one. And you're usually teaching the audience how the show's going to go, how they're going to watch the show. Then you're probably putting in a two-person relationship scene, which is like a specialty of Second City, not a lot of other sketch comedy theaters.

36:39really do that to a person. So it's like a grounded...

36:42John August:Give me an example of what that kind of scene would be. SNL doesn't really do them. Key and Peele doesn't really do them. It would be like... They look like a scene out of a movie or a TV show. So it might be two people that have gone on a first date and they're standing outside the door. One person's really nervous to kiss the other person. So this is like a silly version that you could do. You would write today and be like, someone's going to use chat GPT to help them make the move. Yeah. So they're talking to each other and then going and typing in chat and coming back. So that would be sort of that.

37:16It would be that type of scene. A grounded two-person relatable scene.

37:19John August:In Harry Met Sally, like the restaurant scene where like, you know, the faking the orgasm scene, would that be? That's a two-person relationship scene. That could be a good two-person relationship scene. The first time they have the conversation, who have you had great sex with? I don't believe I don't believe Sheldon. That's where you learn a little bit about each character. You get an insight into who they are. You maybe learn a little something about how the writer thinks about relationships or the theme maybe we're going to explore. And from then on, we're trying to get variety. We're trying to move fast.

37:52And then we want to hit a point where we're going to put the funniest scene in the show about two-thirds of the way down. And then you want to, as quickly as you can, get to the closer from that point. And again, the closer, we're going to see everybody. We're going to wrap up any themes. If our opener asked a question, it'll be answered by the closer. And yeah, and then in the middle, there's variety. There's a song. There's a silent scene. There's another relationship scene. There's a group scene. Someone might have built an improv game. So you're just building variety in between those kind of bookends.

38:28John August:Can you talk about Blackout and sort of that as a tool? Yeah. Yeah, so a blackout is a very short scene. Typically, some of the best blackouts, you're under 20, 30 seconds. 30 seconds is a lot for a blackout. And it is one joke executed on stage where the punchline is some sort of reveal or twist and then the lights black out immediately afterward. and they are used to subvert audiences' expectations because they expect a full scene, like they've been watching for a little bit, and they're like, oh, there's another scene. And then it ends after maybe three to five lines. It also changes the pace of the show.

39:12They're easily swapped in and outable, so they could be really good to put in something topical. A blackout, they have sort of two sort of constructions. One is inappropriate response. so it would be you think you know how this scene will go and someone says something that is unexpected so one, a classic one at Second City, a guy's driving his car, a carjacker comes up he goes, get out of the car, get out of the car the guy's like, oh my god, don't hurt me the carjacker gets in the car and he goes, oh shit, it's a stick shift get back in the car, get back in the car get back in the car, blackout so we think we know how a carjacking or a carjacking scene would go and then you blackout The second type is called clash of context.

39:57Sometimes you hear them called like a reframe, but we believe we're looking at one thing and then it turns that last line, reveals it to be something else. The one that I always talk about when teaching is there's one, there are two women and they're standing and like they're kind of popping their gum and they're kind of rubbing their hands like this. And so they're like, he's going to tell me I got to be professional at work. I'm going to take a break when I want to take a break. Clear. He did. And so, like, amazing, amazing blackout. And so we think from the visual and the way they're behaving, there are two ladies outside maybe on a smoke break.

40:42Maybe they're like, you know, they work at a store or something and they're kind of hiding from their boss to, like, file their nails, but they're charging up a defibrillator.

40:51John August:Yeah. And then they're dead. So blackouts typically work the best if they're one of those things. But you see in each situation that it's a setup. And the setup is that, hi, thank you for coming into my office. But then the reveal is either the clash of contacts, the inappropriate response. And then it gets big laugh. We're out of it. And we go on to the next thing. It's a classic joke, but just an embodied joke, really. because the classic joke is like, you know, where does the general keep his armies in his sleevies? Again, you have the wrong context for sort of what the framing is. This is a delight.

41:31John August:And of course, we could go on for hours about this. I want some practical advice for our listeners who are thinking like, okay, well, Ali's convinced me I probably should take one of these classes. It's geographically based. So you should go to wherever's in your area. Second City in Chicago is, of course, iconic and classic. and there's classes all the time. Los Angeles has Groundlings and UCB. There's other groups that do things. There's obviously New York and other markets too. How does a person know that it's a good one? Do you just, do you look up reviews? Do you go to a show? How will you know that these people know what they're talking about?

42:06Yeah, I would definitely go to a show if they have like a professional resident sort of component to be like, let me go look at that. And it's like, if that's fun and making you laugh, like they probably know something. You know, they probably know what they're doing. Talk to people that have taken those classes. And you want to have a sense that they can offer you something, whether it's like a show at the end, but they're not, you shouldn't have to pay to play. right like if you're paying to take the class you probably shouldn't be paying to do the show at the end you know the student workshop or something um they should probably have some version of something free that you can you know a drop-in class a student jam you know a show that maybe at the end of the show there's a free improv set or something like that where you can get a look at sort of what's going on there yeah i would say those are probably a good bet and so obviously

43:02John August:So you're building skills, but the other potential benefit here is you're meeting people who are doing the kinds of things you want to do. And especially if you're new in a city, you're new in a place, or you've been in a city, but you don't know anybody who works in this space, it's a chance to meet some people who you might want to hang out with, work with, collaborate with. There's a reason why they're very good schools, but also it's a bunch of really smart people who are all under the same roof who then rose up and did great things together. So that's another good argument for at least giving it a shot, Even if you don't think of yourself as a comedy person, a comedy writer, it's a good experience for you.

43:37Yeah. And I just know like the people that I was going through classes with, that I was watching on stage when I was a student, that I have taught as a teacher, like they are making cool things. They're performing, they're writing, they're getting stuff produced and written. And the way that you sort of do that networking is you just be like a cool person and be a cool friend. If someone needs a skill and you have that skill, like go help them out. If someone wants you to read something for them and you're both like broke students, it's like read that thing for them. Because when it comes time, if that person pops off and ends up in a writer's room somewhere and they get a chance to recommend people for the next season or for the next time they staff up, they're probably going to remember the person that was like helpful and nice and took a genuine interest in them rather than the funniest person in the class.

44:32You know, I say you can be like 10 out of 10 funny, but if you're 10 out of 10 asshole, nobody's going to hire you. But if you're seven out of 10 funny and zero out of 10 asshole, like someone's going to remember that you were really nice to counteract that. And they want to be in a room with you for eight hours a day. They want to be on Slack or Zoom with you for hours at a time. It's going to be that person that was nice and helpful and helped, you know, use their office copier to make programs for their show.

45:01John August:Sounds good. All right, let's answer some listener questions. First one here I see from is from Kate. I am writing my first big, broad comedy. And holy hell, if Craig isn't right, then it's the hardest thing I've ever written. A lot in the script is working really well, but in giving it to readers, I'm finding a lot of them turning into logic police when my mission is to have them along for a wild, madcap, super heightened ride. My instinct is that the issue is actually very early in the script. While the initial couple scenes are funny, something about them is signaling to people that this is a grounded world with grounded characters when that actually isn't the case.

45:37John August:So I wanted to ask, how do you think about the opening scenes of a comedy? Any tricks, insights, or thoughts on how to use them to teach people how to watch a movie? Yeah, this is the longer version of what we were just talking about. Yes, those initial scenes are so crucial to get people on board for the kind of movie you're trying to watch. And it's entirely possible you wrote some great scenes that are queuing people up for not the movie that they're expecting to see. And you got to go back and look at those scenes or could you lose those first scenes and start later? which may be the way into this, is to get going in the middle of something that's just a little bit more madcap.

46:17John August:Ally, what's your instinct? I would wonder how much of those early scenes are grounded. Like, I know that, like, okay, there's information we definitely have to get out, but I would want something fantastical or big and broad to happen even in the middle of those early scenes, like a little glimpse of it, like a tiny little nugget of the silliness that's to come. Because if those first scenes are grounded and then we get into that turn out of the first act and it suddenly becomes silly, we haven't taught our viewer that the world is silly and it's going to get sillier. Every scene in that first grounding bit it should have a touch of the silly, the fantastical, the broad, so that when that bigger turn happens, we're in the world.

47:16John August:Yeah, so you're probably not making a spoof. You're not making an airplane. I think you would have told us if you're making that, but maybe you're making a fish called Wanda or something that has some bigness to it. You're going to need to see that piano falling early, the equivalent kind of thing happening there to let us know this is a world in which this kind of thing can happen. And also, I want to say, give it to us on the page. Let us know as a reader, take a look at your voice in your early pages and are you queuing up the tone of where this is going to go? Because that could be a factor in it too.

47:49John August:We just had Haley Z. Boston on talking about her script for Something Very Bad is Going to Happen. And in those initial pages, they're really beautifully written, but they're also very clearly setting up big things are going to happen and we know it because she's telling us that these kinds of things are going to happen. which is giving us a sense like, this is what it feels like. And you may just need to be a little bit more explicit on the page there too. So the reader from the jump really gets a sense of like, this is this kind of movie. I would also, one more thought. Please. If folks are turning into logic police, I would look at what are the reactions of the characters to the wacky things happening?

48:28If they are always saying, oh my God, what? Or like, get out of here. This doesn't make sense. If the characters are rejecting the wacky stuff, then your audience is going to probably be trained that some level of that is what needs to happen here. So if you think about like a fish out of water sketch, there's a couple characters in a fish out of water sketch that are amenable to the fish's weird behavior. Even if they aren't familiar with it or they don't like accept it, they're like, okay, this is what this guy is. Or maybe they adopt a little bit of it by the end if you're thinking of like a fish out of water sketch.

49:09so look at how many characters and how stridently they are rejecting the funny thing and if their reaction to those silly funny things happening is oh my god what what are you talking about this doesn't make sense and i think that can probably be really attractive to get a quick hit out of a funny thing like a reaction of like say what but it's like if everyone's going say what the audience is going to start going, say what?

49:37John August:Yeah. Maybe I just have Rachel Mae Adams on the brain, but I'm thinking both to Game Night and Send Help. And both of those are broad comedies. And she's one of the crucial people in there who is like, in Send Help, her character is broad from the start. So even though we're in an office environment, we know like this is a movie that has the knobs turned up a little bit. And also in Game Night, like from the jump, this is heightened. This is not a grounded level approach to things. So those might be a good thing for you to take a look at, Kate. Hannah in New York writes, At what point do I stop taking assistant gigs?

50:11John August:I have a manager, I have an agent, I have a script with good producers attached, but I've not made money as a writer yet. I'm about to go to work as a director's assistant on a show this summer. I love these jobs, but they take up all my time and energy. I force myself to write on the weekends, but it's hard. This job will be great connections, working with a production company that did a big movie about a famous plastic doll, but sometimes I wonder if that's worth it when I have so little time to write. What's your thoughts? Allie, what's your thought? I don't know. Again, this is like an area where I'm a little bit like, oh, this was not, that was not my path.

50:44So I don't know exactly what the advice.

50:48John August:Allie, what was your path? So you went to Wellesley and then how did you end up in Chicago? Like, and what were your jobs? Were you immediately working at Second City? So yeah, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. and so I did, I was actually like a theater kid. I did theater, I did spoken word, I did speech and debate. And so when I went to college is when I first sort of was like, well, I want to do theater, but I don't want to learn lines. I want to be too busy doing my homework. So I was like, oh, I'll do improv. And, you know, we sort of, you sort of get to a point and you're like, well, Second City is kind of in the distance for like, for improv.

51:24You know, you look up improv, it's like Second City. So I actually got a scholarship to Second City when I was a senior in college. So when I graduated, I went and did classes and I did fellowships at Second City. They had one for students of color. They had this scholarship and I was able to take classes for free or for much cheaper. And there was a period of time where I just was taking a lot of classes, performing and rehearsing five, six, seven nights a week. I always had a day job and I did not leave Nepo baby allegations start today, but I was able to work for my mom and I had, I worked as a temp.

52:03I was a bartender. I had, you know, I started teaching with Second City, but I did not quit any day job until I was a touring member of Second City because that's really hard to have like a day job at the same time, like a traditional nine to five day job. And so also I was writing recaps for Vulture. I was really in sort of that personal essay boom that time. So I was cobbling together a lot of different things and started teaching, started directing when I stopped touring. and so I got last week tonight because they reached out to me because they had been given my name when they were looking for people and so I did the submission, I did the packet the second round of the packet and got hired and so it really was like doing everything all the time and then moving into last week tonight but still, I still did my recaps essays, I wrote a book I still go back to Second City and teach.

53:11So that was sort of my path. And so until, right, it's like until someone really is going to pay you to do it. In my mind, it's very hard to leave a day job or to leave that like constellation of side gigs. And because having somewhere where you can have an output for your material, where you're putting it up or you're working. So like Sketch was really useful because you could put something different up every week. It was really easy to get a group of friends together, hire a theater, put some material up constantly. I got my first, I got my on-camera agent, Ashley Nicole Black, and some other great people in Chicago said, we all want agents.

53:50We're really good. We want agents. And put together a showcase and everyone wrote five minutes of solo material and put it up. So that, for me, that period of like constantly putting material up, trying it, taking all of that while having my recaps, which were an outlet for my work, like all of that was kind of going in tandem.

54:14John August:Yeah, I relate to Hannah's question so much because her experience was sort of my experience too, where I was working as an assistant to producers, but at the same time, I had landed an agent. I was starting to take meetings and it was hard for me to get my writing done and all this other stuff. And so it was weird for me to be answering phone calls for other people while I was trying to sort of set stuff up herself. And so I want to underline what Allie is saying. It's like, there's no curse to day jobs. Day jobs are good. They're keeping you employed. and at some point you may want to step back from jobs that are keeping you from writing.

54:48John August:So like, I mean, Allie had the opportunity to her day job was also getting her the experience and exposure and all these things. In Hannah, your case, you're saying you're working as a director's assistant on a show. That's great. It looks like it's not your first time doing this. At a certain point, you may need to sort of say like, I got to focus on my own stuff and take the job that requires less of your mental time and focus so you can really focus on your own stuff. Some of the most productive times I had writing was I was an intern at Universal and my job was just so mindless. I was just like filing physical files and papers.

55:24John August:And it's just like, I came home from work. It's like, I didn't use my brain at all. And I could write at night. And if you can't get writing done, you may need to pull back. And so this could be the time to pull back or you could say, after this job, this is my last of these. I'm going to spend six months really focused on my writing here. But you won't know until the next thing happens whether you made the right choice or not. It's the bummer here. But you're asking the right questions at least. Let's do our One Cool Things. Allie, what do you have for us? Okay, this is very silly and small. I have a self-inking stamp.

56:04It's a star with a little smiley face. Like I am a child. And so when I was writing my book, it was a book that had a lot of sections and segments and sidebars. And I wanted something to keep me motivated and to be a little reward. And so it's a little—let me find a piece of paper and show you. You take your little stamp and it puts a little star with a smiley face on the paper.

56:33John August:It's like you're a teacher, but you're giving yourself a star. I've given myself a star, and it has a really satisfying—let me see if I can hold it up to the microphone. It has a really satisfying click-click. This was under$10 online, but if you are someone that really likes, you know, you need a little treat, a little gold star. Yeah, absolutely. And also like the visual progress of seeing, I would print out pages that had all the different segments that I had to do for each chapter. And as I would get a segment done, I would put a little star next to it. And so it really, you can have a little fun with your writing, find a way to make it fun and silly for you.

57:19And that was my little silly way.

57:21John August:Fantastic. But more importantly, this was helping you write your book, Reality TV for Snobs, which we'll put a link in the show notes too and everyone should pre-order immediately like we will. Yes, thank you. Because pre-orders are how books get sold. So pre-orders are super, super important. So I cannot wait to read it. I am currently reading Ann Libra's book, Funnier, and she is a teacher at Second City. It's really good. And so fundamentally talking about her theory of comedy, having taught comedy for a long time and seeing people from all different schools of comedy sort of coming through there and different ways of doing things from very physical people to the witty folks and very dark people and sort of how you find a blend and how do you sort of get each person to the best version of what they are there to do.

58:10John August:I'm really enjoying it. It feels like the scripted on this book, but very specifically about, you know, crafting comedy. And so I'd highly recommend that. And as a bonus, you can take a look at Ashley Padilla on Saturday Night Live. She's one of the breakout people on Saturday Night Live. She's the cast member who's getting like the most screen time there. She's so funny and her comic timing and her ability to draw out a moment and just like sit in a moment of pain and just let that, she just has this really neat gift. I'm going to link to an article by Jason Zideman writing for New York Times about her and sort of like going through some of her sketches and just like how she's able to pull out these moments that are just great.

58:54John August:And this is like a very strong cast they have right now with some superstar players, but she just has a different energy that is so fun and so exciting to see. Because it's not just she's like a master impressionist or anything else, but she's just... She's a really good sketch actress. It's a very specific style of timing and pacing and development of relatable characters and characters that are relatable with a twist. It is such an interesting, really fun thing to see someone who's a great, great sketch actress. Yeah. Actor on TV. It's great. It's great. And I don't have a sense of how much she's writing because everything on SNL is written by a bunch of people.

59:35John August:But like, it feels like there are sketches that are just like so in her zone and in her pocket that are, it's great. So it's just, you know, worth watching every week. but I'll put a link in the show notes to this article which has the clips out to some of her sketches from the last two seasons, which are so, so good. And that is our show this week. Script Notes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Cilelli. Our outro this week is by Matt Gillespie. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask at johnautics.com. That is the place where you can send questions like the ones we asked you today.

1:00:05John August:You'll find transcripts at johnautics.com along with a sign up for our weekly news that are called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. The Script Notes book is available wherever you buy books, including many university bookstores, apparently. You will find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube. Just search for Script Notes and give us a follow. You'll find us on Instagram at Script Notes Podcast. We have t-shirts and hoodies and drinkware. You'll find those at Cotton Bureau. You'll find show notes with links to all the things we talked about today in the email you get each week as a premium subscriber.

1:00:33John August:Thank you again to our premium subscribers. You make it possible for us to do this each and every week. You can sign up to become one at scriptnotes.net where you get all those back episodes and bonus segments. like the one we're about to record on Working in Chicago. And you'll get the full scoop of Chicago. Allie, an absolute pleasure. I'm so excited to get to see you again after these weeks and months leading up to this. An absolute delight. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks so much for having me. This was great.

1:01:15Thank you.