The Hamazons are an all-female comedy improv troupe from Ashland, Oregon founded in 1999. Originally a group of 7 women, they have performed consistently for over 2 decades. Today, the Hamazons consist of 3 women, Eve Smyth, Kyndra Laughery, and founding member Cil Stengel. The Hamazons typically perform long form improv, a format where entire stories, that have never before been told, are weaved together with plot lines, multiple characters, conflicts, twists and turns, an intermission and a resolution, much like a two-act play. The press has said the Hamazons “meet two of our greatest needs – the need to laugh and the need to live with each other in kindness and respect.” Heart, humor and laughter are practically guaranteed in a Hamazon show.
The Hamazons teach improv workshops and classes, and present shows regularly. They also perform for many different venues including conferences, private events, gatherings, and ceremonies. For more information and to purchase tickets to their shows, please visit their website: www.hamazons.com.
In this podcast, the Hamazons also perform a short scene!
I spoke with them in Ashland, Oregon in 2020.
Music by Manpreet Kaur. @manpreetkaurmusic
www.sacred-truths.com
The Hamazons are an all-female comedy improv troupe from Ashland, Oregon founded in 1999. Originally a group of 7 women, they have performed consistently for over 2 decades. Today, the Hamazons consist of 3 women, Eve Smyth, Kyndra Laughery, and founding member Cil Stengel. The Hamazons typically perform long form improv, a format where entire stories, that have never before been told, are weaved together with plot lines, multiple characters, conflicts, twists and turns, an intermission and a resolution, much like a two-act play. The press has said the Hamazons “meet two of our greatest needs – the need to laugh and the need to live with each other in kindness and respect.” Heart, humor and laughter are practically guaranteed in a Hamazon show.
The Hamazons teach improv workshops and classes, and present shows regularly. They also perform for many different venues including conferences, private events, gatherings, and ceremonies. For more information and to purchase tickets to their shows, please visit their website: www.hamazons.com.
In this podcast, the Hamazons also perform a short scene!
I spoke with them in Ashland, Oregon in 2020.
Music by Manpreet Kaur. @manpreetkaurmusic
www.sacred-truths.com
Cil: It’s literally jumping off a cliff, it’s like being on the high diving board and knowing that you signed up to do this, and knowing that you are going to do it, but it’s just that step of jumping and knowing you’re going to land in the water, there’s that space in between that’s just-
Eve: And it’s a leap of faith and trust and yeah, and it’s trust in each other and yourself that it’s going to land and it does! It does.
Kyndra: And what gets me every time at the end of every show people come up and thank us! Say to us: “Thank you, oh my goodness, I needed that, thank you!” And I’m thinking, “No, thank YOU! No, really, you’re the ones that showed up.”
My guests today are The Hamazons, an all-female comedy improv troupe from Ashland, Oregon founded in 1999. Originally a group of seven women, they have performed consistently for over 2 decades. Today, the Hamazons consist of three women, Eve Smyth, Kyndra Laughery, and founding member, Cil Stengel. The Hamazons typically perform long form improv, a format where entire stories, that have never before been told, are weaved together with plot lines, multiple characters, conflicts, twists and turns, an intermission and a resolution, much like a two-act play. The press has said the Hamazons,“meet two of our greatest needs – the need to laugh and the need to live with each other in kindness and respect. Heart, humor, and laughter are practically guaranteed in a Hamazons show.”
The Hamazons teach improv workshops and classes, and present shows regularly. They also perform for many different venues including conferences, private events, gatherings, and ceremonies. For more information and to purchase tickets to their shows, please visit their website: www.hamazons.com.
I spoke with them in Ashland, Oregon in 2020.
Emmy: Hello and welcome! Today I’m here with the Hamazons, thank you Hamazons for joining me today. I have here Cil Stengel:
Cil: Hello.
Emmy: and Eve Smyth.
Eve: Hi there!
Emmy: and Kyndra Laughery.
Kyndra: Hello!
Emmy: Welcome to you all, thank you so much. Let’s just get started from the beginning. What is improv and how does it differ from what we might call traditional American theater in the form of a play?
Eve: Hmmm. We all look at each other saying who’s going to run with that one?
Cil: Ok, so improv is spontaneously creating something, a scene, a scenario, a story without a script.
Eve: Yeah, and more traditional theater has a script written by a playwright and a director, and actors who’ve memorized their lines and lighting designers and set designers and costume designers. An improviser is all those things, so you’re writing as in making up your own script, you’re self-directing, you’re creating your own costume and lighting. Just as simple as me saying (Southern accent), “Oh, my goodness, the sun is so bright, and my dress is all wrinkled!” If I’m just wearing jeans and I’m in a theater, the audience will jump in and say ‘yes’ to that and see that.
Kyndra: And I would say to that, in traditional theater you’ve got, like the rehearsal process too, you’ve got that practice where you are can be like, “I’m going to try it this way this time,” or, “I’m going to emphasize this word here,” and in improv what the best you can do, I sort of liken it to a sport, is you’re like practicing skills together and then when you go on stage, you don’t know what’s going to happen, but you have this connection, this trust, these skills, these things that you know each of you can do and then you lean into that.
Emmy: Eve and Cil, you’ve both performed professionally, in professional theater as actors! You have degrees in theater, you’ve studied theater. And Cil, you were an actor here at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Is that right?
Cil: Yes.
Emmy: How has your training as an actor informed your work as an improviser or maybe it hasn’t?
Cil: Oh, it has, it has absolutely. When I am on stage improvising, I’ll harken back to those skills, or those lessons from acting class, like I’ll, I might be in a scene and I can check in with myself and think about objective: What does my character want? And that’s one of the major foundations in a lot of schools of acting is finding that objective or that goal of what that character wants and what are the obstacles. So, when I am in a scene, I often sink in and figure out what I want and go for it.
Emmy: Eve?
Eve: Yeah, well I think being a trained actor, as far as performing improv, sort of gives you that foundation, that performance foundation right away, like, I kind of know how to stage myself, right, to be onstage and to share with the audience, and to vocally be strong enough: just those sort of basic skills.
And I do remember finishing up college with that theater degree and having some friends who were doing improv and thinking, “Why would you ever walk out on stage and not know what you were going to do, that you would not know what you were going to say or what you’re going to do. Why would you ever consider doing something like tha: I think I’ll take a class and check it out. I was filled with fear and I’ve been doing it ever since. I’ve done both.
But there is something that is so exhilarating, about stepping into the unknown of not knowing what’s going to happen and fortunately, from the blessings of my life, I can do it with these two improvisers, Cil and Kyndra, because the circle of trust there is incredible. I’m never alone, it’s like we’re all strapped in together and jump out of the plane and when we land there’s a story. It’s the sum of the parts, you know what I mean?
Cil: Yeah.
Kyndra: I second that.
Emmy: Kyndra, I’d like to hear your comment as you don’t have a classic theater training, but would you tell us about your improv training and how your unique experience informs you as an improviser?
Kyndra: Sure, I will say I did a lot of theater in high school, and I took some theater classes in like, the community college after high school. So, I’ve always loved theater and performance and I was really a back stage person and would do, like, variety sketch shows.
I’ve always loved comedy and watching some of the great comedians, throughout….in my opinion…great comedians: Red Skeleton, John Ritter even from “Three’s Company” a very physical comedian, just whoever you think is awesome in comedy, that’s who I watched, Lucille Ball, there we go. For me, I loved improv in high school, I remember we’d do the theater warm up games.
For me, I’m sort of a non-traditional looking person when it comes to stage and screen. I would probably most be cast as like, a peasant in a play, which is fine, whatever, I’m good with it.
But, I think that I didn’t see myself in theater, I didn’t, like, see me as a theater person, I didn’t think it was a dream for me. So, I didn’t allow myself to entertain it, confidence or whatever.
So, improv, for me, allows me to be whatever character I want to be. It really puts us in control of who we play and as you know for women, in theater and media, there are not a lot of roles So we’re all improvising, each and every one of us, unless somebody get scripts in the morning, that would be great, if I can get on that list, too, I want to know what’s going to happen.
Eve: On this particular day.
Emmy: Let me ask you all: Why do improv? What does it fulfill in you personally? And in particular, what does it fulfill in you that traditional theater doesn’t?
Kyndra: We can get cast. We can get cast in our own roles.
Cil: (laughing)Exactly!
Kyndra: We are in control.
Cil: (laughing) We can play all the parts!
Cil: Just piggy backing off of what Kyndra said about being cast and seeing yourself in certain parts. I was not the ingenue type at all and when I was at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, I was in my early 20’s or my mid-20’s and it was an incredible experience to be working with such artists at such an incredibly high skill level and watching people work was amazing and being part of the production was amazing.
And for me as a young woman who was non-union, the parts that came to me were those ensemble parts. And I learned a lot with that. But I wasn’t castable. I didn’t see myself really having a career back in that day.
I think things have opened up quite a bit more now. I noticed at the time that every actor was always looking for the next job and the lifestyle had to be very transient. They had to move around a lot in order to get work.
And there were many factors why it wasn’t a good match for me but that was one of the reasons why I just felt I was a homebody.
When I discovered improv, a part of me became alive because it was fulfilling different parts of me as well. Tina Fey says improv is actor brain and writer brain coming together at the same time, and I will add coming together at the same time, in front of people.
So, it’s an incredible practice, it’s also a spiritual practice because the lessons that we learn in improv and the tools, the rules that we follow, or the concepts that we follow can be applied to real life.
So, when I’m on stage and I’m doing improv, one of the main concepts is that
you have to stay good natured. That’s one of the most elemental thing about being an improviser is staying good natured and that’s staying good natured with each other on stage and it’s also staying good natured with yourself.
And when I first started improvising, sometimes I’d have a really good show and sometimes I’d go home and oh, just relive things and judge myself and beat myself up, I mean it was just ridiculous because you can’t go back and undo things. But it is this practice of forgiving yourself or staying good natured with yourself and saying, “Oh well, you know, that didn’t go so well!” or whatever, maybe it went perfectly. So, improv is a very, it runs really parallel to how I live my life on a lot of different levels.
Eve: So, Cil was talking about, how, you know, how mistakes happen and I think, one of the things I love about improv too, is so often those ‘mistakes’ end up being the gifts. That certain things happen on stage or in rehearsal and instead of freaking out and going, “Oh, no, what just happened there!” leaning into it and seeing where that takes you and often it’s a surprise always (laughs) and there’s been times when the mistake has become the story, it has become the hook of the story, it has become the character thing, it has become, like I said, the gift.
Ironically, improv is all about being present in the moment, being spontaneous and in my actual life, I don’t have a lot of that. If you looked at my color coded I-Cal, you would see that my life is pretty planned, and I also, when those plans change, there are a lot of times where I have to shift and grind through a bunch of gears to get back on track.
It’s hard for me to be spontaneous in my actual life. So, I think it’s no mistake or surprise that I love improv so much because it gives me a space where I can let all of that go.
Emmy: Kyndra, do you have anything to add there?
Kyndra: I just can’t imagine not doing improv now that it is something that I do, and have done for years and I think for all the reasons that have been said is, I do not have a color coded I-Cal though, I aspire to that level of organization and hope to one day to be there.
Eve: It’s a blessing and a curse.
Kyndra: I actually am probably more of a sort of improvised life. I’ve always sort of lived this, for many reasons, just sort of, like, I don’t know what is next and just sort of, like, following the next brick that gets laid before me and the general idea of where I’m going.
So, improv gave me a reason to exist a place where I feel like I belong, and also, I feel like I’m home when I’m there, when I’m on stage, when I’m with my people and we’re improvising.
My happy place is being in a circle of people who are eager to learn an improv game.
I also do Violence Prevention Education, my day job, and I love bringing Improv into those conversations, and using, you know, what’s called Applied Improv.
I really do believe Improv can save the world. I really 100% believe it. And I’m just am so happy to be given this gift and to be able to do at all. I’m just….why do it? Because it’s my life sustaining energy.
Cil: I would like to add a little something to that: it’s fun! And it gives me joy!
Kyndra: That, too!
Cil: It’s a blast! It is just such a blast! And working with these two, and doing our shows, it’s, like, it’s a wild ride! We’re back stage-
Eve: Every time!
Cil: Every time. Every time. We’re back stage looking at each other and you know, we’re watching the lights go down and pretty soon they’re going to go up and that’s our cue to walk on. And we just are looking at each other “what’s going to happen?”
Eve: Should we leave?
Kyndra: Why are we doing this? These people have paid money!
Cil: It’s literally jumping off a cliff, it’s like being on the high diving board and knowing that you signed up to do this, and knowing that you are going to do it but it’s just that step of jumping and knowing you’re going to land in the water, there’s that space in between that is just-
Eve: And it’s a leap of faith and trust and yeah, and it is trust in each other and yourself that it’s going to land and it does! It does.
Kyndra: And what gets me every time at the end of every show people come up and thank us! Say to us: “Thank you, oh my goodness I needed that, thank you!”
And I’m thinking, “No, thank YOU! No, really, you’re the ones that showed up.”
Eve: Kyndra has this really cool story. Kyndra, it’s that story of the person you met in the grocery store.
Kyndra (sings) We had a mind meld, we had a mind meld.
Cil: I was right there too!
Kyndra: This is the improv mind, we’re all thinking the same thing. I was in the store once and a person came up to me and say that she recognized me, “Why do I know you from,” and I said, “I don’t know!” I recognized her too; it’s a small town, it happens a lot. And I was trying to think, what sort of committees have we been on, what have we done?
I don’t always bust out the Hamazons’ card, I don’t want to be pretentious. And so, I did say, “Well I do perform improv: and she goes, “AHHHH! That’s it! You’re a Hamazon! I knew that we had done something together!”
And I went, “wow, for her to word it that way. It wasn’t ‘I watched you, I saw you onstage, it was we had an experience together, we did something together.’
To me, that is exactly what an improv show is, a Hamazons show, we’re doing this together, we’re the channels.
Emmy: That’s beautiful.
Kyndra: Yeah, it was, it gave me chills.
Emmy: Let’s talk about the Hamazons Comedy Improv Troupe. Formed in Ashland, Oregon in 1999 and originally consisted of seven women.
The first show I read was held at the Ashland Town Hall to a standing room only crowd and Cil you were a founding member of the Hamazons. Can you speak to the impetus behind forming this troupe and particularly why an all women group?
Cil: Yes. One of the members, Judy Dolmatch, lives in Ashland and she was in California at a Theater Camp and she took a workshop that was “Women in Comedy” and it was just women and it was the first time she had that experience. She thought, ‘Why don’t I come back home and recreate that here.’
There was a bit of a process. At some point seven of us were together and that was how it came to be. There was Carolyn Myers, Bobbi Kidder, Judy Dolmatch, Sierra Faith, Joanie McGowen, myself, and Deborah Elliott.
It was crazy because our first show was actually an invited audience of like maybe10-15 people. Judy rented the yoga room of the Racquetball Club which she was a member of and so she was like, “Let me just reserve the yoga room,” and she got maybe 10 people were there and so it was really the first time I had done anything like improv in front of an audience.
And I was so nervous and then it happened, things came alive and people were laughing, and we looked at these people, and we were, like, “Do you think this could be a thing”? and they were like, yes, I think so. So, we had this first show, we booked the date and we scheduled a venue, and we were like, okay, let’s print out the tickets so we know how many we’ve sold and everything, and in doing that we had the tickets run off, end cut, it was like $5 I think we charged.
And about, I don’t know, 10 minutes til the show time, they’re like, “We’re out of chairs, we’re running out of chairs!” and we were like, “That’s impossible, we know how many tickets!” and I looked at one of the members and said, “Did we number the tickets?” (laughs)
So we actually oversold the house because of a math mistake, I guess, so we oversold the house and yeah, it was standing room only and it was an instant phenomena, it was instant. We were well loved by this community instantly and it was an incredible experience.
Emmy: That is wonderful and the Hamazons have been performing consistently since then.
Cil: Yes.
Emmy: And Eve, you joined the group in 2003?
Eve: Yes, it was December 2003 where I had my Hamazon coronation, and I became a Warrior Princess of improv, yes.
Emmy: (laughs) And then, Kyndra, you joined in 2006?
Kyndra: Yes, also had my coronation in December, became a Hamazon.
Emmy: And now the three of you do what is called “long form”. Would you briefly describe what ‘long form’ is?
Eve: Long form improv is one long improvised story. We usually work in genre, so we might get a style of genre like film noir, Western, or Science Fiction, or whatever, and we’ll get a title and we’ll go. We’ll do one long story, usually, it’s an hour and half, two-hour show including intermission. Yeah, That’s kind of it.
Emmy: It’s kind of like a full-length play, wouldn’t you say, you have scenes, you have a whole bunch of characters, you’re all playing several characters, you have an intermission, you have a climax, and you have a resolution.
Cil: It’s exactly like that.
Kyndra: It’s seamless.
Eve: Emmy said it best. Thanks, Emmy. Technically long form, I think is any scene that goes 10 or 15 minutes you know what I mean, and we take the ‘long’ in long form seriously.
Cil: The other element to long form is that it’s story based rather than game based. A lot of times, short form improv can look like a game or some kind of a hoop someone has to jump through and or a guessing situation and things like that and the scenes last 3 to 7 minutes and then they’re done.
But long form is elongated and connects to other scenes, stories.
Emmy: It’s amazing that when intermission comes, I just think, who are they, what are they.… Who? What?
Eve: We think the very same thing.
Kyndra: That is what we’re doing backstage. What has just happened?
Emmy: And you’re playing three or four characters; it’s unbelievable and sometimes they’re all up there at once (laughs)
Cil: There is really a writer’s element to this. That part of the brain is really working. So, the part of me and Kyndra and Eve that are the story tellers.
We’re really in sync and really well matched in that and our sense of humor and our experience in watching and knowing good stories and what the story needs and who the villains are and what the obstacles are and who the protagonist is and I think we’re pretty well matched that way and it’s such a joy to work with them.
Emmy: Yeah, and it shows. Humor is definitely a big part of your work and you’ve coined the phrase, “HamaZONE” which is wonderful. The HamaZONE where laughter is guaranteed. And I just want to read a little bit about what the press said, “The Hamazons reveal the hilarious truths of the human condition and that they work from a creed that holds humor to be sacred.” I believe humor is sacred and I’d love to hear your thoughts, why is humor so important
Kyndra: Well, I think that humor is important. I think it’s important when you’re thinking of the kind of humor and I think that’s what our creed is about, the idea of
humor at no one’s expense. I think it’s important to recognize that humor can be used as a weapon; it can be used to harm people. But it can also be used to relieve stress. It can also be used to connect people.
I do, like I said, I do Bullying and Anti-violence Prevention work and I’ve never seen a group bond more quickly than groups that do improv together.
If you get a group of people up and you do a simple game of Whoosh, Boing,Pow, sending energy around and if you promise to be the biggest goofball in the room and make the first mistakes, eventually that group of people are laughing and having fun together, and they have a shared bonding experience.
Even being in an audience of someone who is making your laugh, that’s a bonding experience and I think that humor, like improv, is going to change the world.
Cil: I think a lot of humor is inherent in improv. It’s often times not necessarily what we say or what we’re doing, but the mistakes that are made or just the nature of us being on stage and creating something, it delights people.
It delights people when I as a character, I might say, “Could you repeat what you just said, because I’m not sure I understand?” (giggles)
And the audience just delights in that because if I’m not understanding, chances are they’re not understanding either and they get clarity.
Emmy: Especially if it’s, “You’re my mother, is that right?” (laughs)
Cil: Exactly. Exactly. So, audiences coming to an improv show, they have different expectations than when they go to a scripted theater. They’re not expecting slick productions, they’re not expecting people to be perfect on their lines. They’re with you because they’re like, this is what we’re going to see, we’re going to be seeing three people up there risking it all to tell us a story, and there’s going to be mistakes and I hope there are mistakes.
Emmy: Right, because the mistakes are really fun!
Cil: Yeah, totally.
Eve: Yes, yes, that! And also, I feel like, for me, when I am watching stand up, the ones that I enjoy the most are the ones that are commenting on the human condition. Basically, we’re like, yeah, that’s funny because it’s true.
Emmy: It’s true, it’s universal. It’s true for all of us.
Eve: Yeah, I feel like that is another piece that happens with us even just making mistakes, I mean everyone makes mistakes and not only are we making mistakes, and not apologizing for it, but we’re celebrating it and we’re seeing what gifts are in that and I think people are again, so delighted with that. Or again, the universal truth they recognize that is such a human bonding place.
Emmy: It sounds like it doesn’t exclude people.
Kyndra: It’s a universal language and can be humorous. It’s humanity You might have language barriers, but you can find a smile between two people, you can find a laugh between, “oh gosh, we don’t understand each other, ha, ha, ha!”
It keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously.
Cil: That part of not excluding people that’s really important. There are some styles of humor that do exclude people, that the joke is about somebody else or a group of people or something.
Victor Borge said it best, where he said, “The shortest distance between two people is laughter.” So, we’ve been working with this idea of humor at no one’s expense for a long time.
Emmy: You have a creed which I love your creed: “to avoid profanity, graphic sexuality, gratuitous violence and the degradation of humankind”, which creates a circle of trust, and perhaps you don’t go for the easy, crude, de-moralizing jokes. Your humor maybe is well, as we’ve been talking about, it’s more universal, more tasteful.
Tell me about this creed and how does it create trust between performers or between performers and audience members.
Cil: Well, I was around in the early days when this creed was created and it was important to be said. I remember the discussion and the writing out of things because we were doing something that hadn’t been done before and I think, for us, as women on stage, we perhaps experienced different situations where women are at risk or women are put down.
Emmy: They’re the butt of the joke.
Cil: Or they’re the butt of the joke. We might be in front of an audience in those early days and say, “Could I have an occupation, please,” and they’d say, “Stripper!” or “Prostitute”. They would see a woman on stage and go, okay, what could she play?
And that was the short list. And there it is. So, we’ve come so far. But it was important to us as performers with each other that we weren’t going to put each other in a situation that made us feel uncomfortable or made us put down or made us go to places where, it was like, this is not my idea of a good time.
Kyndra: And that creed allows us, that if we get a suggestion, you know, oh, that’s not part…we don’t have to take the first thing that comes if it’s not part of the creed. That’s our culture, that’s cultural humor tends to lean into more degrading sort of humor, if you just watch sitcoms, it’s them putting people down. It’s one sarcastic comment after another. So, I think it is really people get into the idea that that’s what it’s about.
So, for the most part our audiences tend to just be on the same page with us.
Eve: I’m thinking now that there have been times right before the show, we kind of circle up and talk about our intentions for the performance, and I believe it’s often Kyndra who says that, “People are here because they need this, they need to laugh, they need a safe place to do that, they need a story, they need a little vacation from sort of, a lot of stuff that’s up right now.
There have been times when we’ve asked for suggestions and we’ve gotten political ones and we also, even though I don’t think that’s explicit in the creed, we’ll usually just take a pass on those, like, we’re actually not going there either, we don’t want to go anywhere that’s divisive.
And so, we just say, “Thank you and, (laughs) could I have another suggestion, please?”
Cil: Or we might say, “thank you” and work it into the story in a way that’s not the obvious…
Eve: Right, that’s not the main thrust of the story. Maybe just a little like (snaps fingers) “There you go.”
Kyndra: The genres we do, it’s a lot the genre work we do is based on genres from in the past, where a lot of social norms have changed, we might lean into making comments on social norms through our humor, like “I don’t know, Women just can’t do that, I guess.” Or something like that we’ll play along with, if we’re doing a film noir troupe, or something like that.
But other than that we don’t get blatantly political.
Eve: No, I think that’s true, that’s part of that cool universal is that if, if we’re doing Noir, Western, these are, have conventions were established years ago, things have changed and we tend to sort of comment on it in the story. And we always bring the Hamazone sensibility to it, and love will be found, typically speaking even if things are going terribly awry and perhaps if the genre convention is to have it go down in flames. Yeah, but we’re in the Hamazone!
Cil: Love will be found.
Kyndra: Positive outcomes will happen.
Emmy: You kind of spoof it, or sometimes you turn it on its head.
Kyndra: Well, I mean, also the fact that lot of the genres we’re playing are predominantly male focused genres too, so just because of history and media and the way that things have been represented so it’s fun to play those parts as women and to turn it on its head from the get go.
Emmy: Yes, exactly you get to be the male detective or…the boss!
Eve: Who is changed by that powerful woman…how it could be!
Cil: Or be the female detective which we don’t see in those 1940’s movies, but we can recreate it now.
Kyndra: At the end of the day, we want people leaving happy and lighter than when they came in.
Cil: I’m thinking back at my time in my earlier years as a professional actress and one of the things that bothered me a lot was the ratio of women’s roles to men’s roles, it was like 1/3 to 2/3’s and there wasn’t a lot of movement in theaters towards gender blind casting and so for women the opportunities to be onstage were cut significantly compared to the life of a male actor, and so in what we’re doing now, the three of us have opportunities to play so many different parts, so many different ages, different genders, animals, inanimate objects, so we have a wide range of things that we can do. So as a woman to have such an opportunity to perform so much and to play so many different parts as an actor and to have this opportunity to stretch myself in all these different ways is such a gift.
Eve: The three of us actually took a workshop from “That’s Improv” which is where I did my original training and it’s a format that Lisa Roland created called the Bechdel test.
And it is a format where the main characters are women and you’re looking at different aspects of these women’s life and characters that they interact with and just having the focus on that. The Bechdel test came from a comic strip written by
Cil: Alison Bechdel…
Eve: Thank you, where one of the characters said, “Hey, do you want to go to a movie?” and the other character said, “I only want to go to a movie if there is at least one scene where two women are talking to each other: not about a man, at least one scene.” and that became the Bechdel test.
And there are many, many films that will not pass.
Emmy: So, you were trying to do that in improv.
Eve: So yeah, we took this workshop, and like I said, Lisa Roland developed this format, and there’s still men in the story, but they’re not who the story is about.
Kyndra: So rather than women being an accessory to a male protagonist story they are the center of the story, and then it’s looking at WHAT ELSE happens in a woman’s life besides marriage and getting a man.
Emmy: How was that experience for you?
Eve: It was great! Yeah! It was a really fun exploratory workshop as far as being in a different format where we were coming at things in a different way narratively, actually, sort of women aside, narratively it was sort of a different approach.
And it’s interesting, a lot of the times, often we playing both genders, we’re playing male characters and female characters, and we go back and forth and that’s a blast too, you know what I mean, and interesting when I teach sometimes, I see women going, a lot of the times, endowing themselves as man, I get it, but you don’t need to do it that often! Like why not play a woman character as opposed to defaulting to a man character so much. But that’s like the story that we’ve been raised on.
Emmy: Oh, I see, they’re playing the boss or they’re playing the whatever it may be that we typically see as a man.
Eve: Right, yeah, like a student will step into a scene, and say, “Yeah, that’s right, I’m Sam,” and I’m like, why not be ‘Darlene’. Like…But that said, it’s a weird double standard and now I’m getting into some other territory in a way because we play men characters all the time so I understand the appeal.
And I’m questioning that default all the time as to why does the newspaper editor always have to be a man, and I think we do that, I think we, as you said, like we turn it on its head sometimes and put a twist on that or at least have these moments of awakening and discovery.
Kyndra: But, I think the Bechdel test was eye-opening for what we have internalized that those default scenarios or dynamics that we do set up sometimes, so, like, I thought that was a great workshop to just really flesh out more of what makes a person a person regardless of gender, what are all the facets of a person.
Cil: We haven’t talked about the old belief about women that women aren’t funny.
Kyndra: Right.
Emmy: Let’s talk about that, are women funny? (laughs)
Cil: Yes! Women are hilarious. Women are hilarious! (Everyone laughs)
Kyndra: So, I grew up, loving comedy as I said, “Saturday Night Live”, variety shows, “The Muppet Show”, Jim Henson, I mean, anything that was variety, and so some of my icons from those times who have been quoted as saying things that “Women aren’t funny” or things like that and there has always been this idea if you watch any sort of comedy documentary that there is this mentality in the comedy world that it’s just impossible for women to be funny.
And I think we see that in all realms, we see that in every realm as women take more and more leadership roles, and so I think that that is one thing that I do love about being in the Hamazone, is we are directly challenging that, because we know we’re funny. I mean, obviously.
And it’s just fun to sort of have this validation with people.
Eve: The other thing too, is that so many women early on in stand-up would do self-depreciation comedy and I remember us, going to a comedy festival, we were invited to a comedy festival in Eugene and we were the only improvisers, everyone else was stand up, and we were backstage and it was act after act of self-depreciating humor.
And we were stunned. We were stunned!
Emmy: Was the audience laughing?
Kyndra: Oh yeah...I think in a general comedy piece, this was a Women in Comedy festival, and in a general piece you only have one female stand-up, so it probably didn’t stand out as much as when you have one after another.
H: Yeah, I forgot that, it was “Women in Comedy”. “Women in Comedy” and they were basically tearing women down, or… right?
Cil: Tearing themselves down, there’d be jokes about weight, jokes about bodies, jokes about menopause, jokes about stuff that made the experience of women seem terrible and full of hate.
Eve: We couldn’t figure it out and then we hit the stage in our ball gowns and our glam, our Ham Glam and blasted good nature and positivity and how you can have laughter at no one’s expense including your own.
Kyndra: I think that’s when we added that tag line “including our own”, we’re not going to make fun of ourselves.
Cil: We are coming from a history of male dominated culture and so in the world of comedy, which has always been dominated by men, of course they’re going to react and say “Women aren’t funny”, and “Women…”
Eve: They just don’t get the joke.
Cil: “They just don’t get the joke.” But we’re finding the power to find the funny within us.
Kyndra: And to note too that we’ve improvised with men and it’s not like, this is like a “VS” thing. It’s just more of a creating space for ourselves.
Emmy: And I see many men in the audience laughing.
Kyndra: Yes.
Cil: Absolutely.
Kyndra: Because we are hilarious.
Emmy: Tell me what it’s like to perform in a troupe and what traits and skills are needed to be successful at improv. How do you work with each other?
Kyndra: You need to have Cil and Eve. Period. (All laugh)
Eve: And Kyndra.
Kyndra: I gotta say working in a troupe is amazing. And I would say that there is a culture amongst improvisers that pretty much any improviser, I’m sure there are different schools of improv, and I’m sure improvisers in themselves are just awesome people because their mentality is all about being good natured, saying “yes, and”. They’re up there for “Yeah, here we go!” So, I just want to put that out there.
But I do want to say having a troupe, that trust is, I don’t think I can completely articulate what that is and what that feels like to just know I can be on stage and my back is to Cil and Eve and I’m doing something and I just, and I know no matter what I am going to do, it’s going to be okay. And believe me, I’ve put them through the ringer if you’ve seen some of the shows. (laughs)
“You’re bringing on more characters, Kyndra?”
“Yep!”
Eve: Yeah, there is definitely something that so deep about the connection especially since we’ve now worked together for so many years. Because I’ve worked with other troupes or coached other troupes and I see like, the longer they work together how they hone their skills to fit together and their communication.
Like I was saying earlier too, we are the sum of all the parts, so it’s the combination of all of our skills and sensibilities together become something greater that any of us could be on our own.
Emmy: Yes, and just basic things that I’ve learned in taking improv classes that I’ve taken is listening, looking, being present, responding from your gut on that. All those things, you’re very good at not talking over each other, for example which is so easy to do especially for a novice.
Cil: I think that talking over thing, it often comes from fear. When you first start to improvise there is a lot of, naturally, a lot of fear and nervousness and I think that comes with practice, not to. In time we learn not to do that.
It’s the skill of an improviser, to listen to you rather than…I’m going to listen to you rather than to push my own line out.
For me, being in a troupe is like being in a little family and we work together not only in improv, but also in the business aspect of what the Hamazons are. We’re business partners and we’re friends.
So often times when we come together for rehearsal it starts with a big long how are you, how are you, how are you, a big long check in, so it might be an hour later before we actually get down to business. (all laugh)
But for me, that transfers on stage. Our relationships are about lifting each other up. The most important person on the stage is the other person, it’s not yourself.
Eve: I come back to that trust piece too, like, trusting that you can have silence on stage and it won’t be boring but there are still things happening. Trusting that your partner on stage has it. Of course, they’re trusting that you have it, and it’s somewhere.
Instead of thinking I need to get out there and take control of this scene by telling everyone what’s happening, right? which I think what happens with beginning improvisers, because that’s how we tend to take control. I’ll tell you what’s happening.
Kyndra: And that piece of knowing that we’re going to make space for each other, too. Because I think another reason maybe sometimes people are like “I got to get in there” and maybe they’re worried they not going to have their moment. There’s room for all of us because there are only three of us and so many characters in each story.
Emmy: All of you have taught improv or have taught to adults, to teenagers, to children and you’ve touched on this a number of times how important improv is for everyone. Why is it important to bring improv skills first to young people, or for anyone?
What can we all gain from an improv class or an improv workshop?
Eve: There’s so many pieces to it that I am passion about and it’s important for kids and teens. Part of it is being seen and being heard. And part of it yeah, is making mistakes. Wow, you made a mistake and you’re okay. And it might actually even be a gift, why not just say, “Yeah, I made that mistake,” and moving on. Ah, if only we could do that with so many things in our life. But we can in improv or we can teach ourselves to give ourselves permission make mistakes.
We talk about, you can look or Google on the internet, quotes on making mistakes there are so many: Einstein, Mark Twain, like, all these people who are just saying, yeah, mistakes is how things happen, if we didn’t make mistakes, you wouldn’t dadda, dadda, dadda, but we don’t live that way and I feel like improv teaches us, gives us an experiential way to live that in a safe space.
Oh, you played this game where it’s guaranteed that every single one you is going to make a mistake. It’s a done deal and look, you’re okay and you’re laughing and you’re having a good time. See, now that’s in your body. So, when you make that mistake on the math test, or in that judgment call, you’re okay, you can move on. And it’s also a lot about listening and paying attention, working well with others. We live in a world with other humans; it would be cool if we could play well together.
Kyndra: Hear! Hear!
Cil: Yes.
Kyndra: And make space for each other and say, “Yes, and”, and make the other person look good.
Eve: Seriously, I mean, when we were talking earlier, like, if everyone who worked in the White House or who went into politics had a required improv workshop?
Cil: It would be a different world.
Kyndra: It would be a different world.
Eve: Can you imagine: make your partner look good.
Emmy: That’s your job.
Eve: That’s your job.
Cil: One of the major precepts of improv is to say, “Yes.” And it’s such an important, such an important skill.
“Yes” is when an offer is made by somebody; like if Kyndra made me an offer, in improvisation I would support that offer by saying “yes” to it and not denying the reality of things.
And when we learn “Yes”, we realize how often we have been in “No”. In real life, our default can often be “No” or “Yes, but”, but never a full on “Yes”.
And so that’s one of the things when you asked about how can improv benefit every human being, is understanding that piece, that when you’re in
resistance to everything that comes your way, try an improv class.
Kyndra: Right.
Eve: So, being spontaneous. We live in such a planned world. Harkening back to my color-coded iCal, we live in such a planned world. So, to have a space where you just come and be spontaneous, I think is a fantastic thing. And the other thing and this comes into play for kids, but a big time for adults is to have fun and to play!
Kyndra: Totally.
Eve: Oh, my gosh! Have a play date.
Kyndra: Yeah! I had someone ask what we do in our rehearsals and I said “we do scenes and we rehearse” and she said, “So, basically you’re three grown women who play make believe.” And I go, “Absolutely!” (all laugh)
Emmy: So, do we have a skit from The Hamazons; is there something you can do for audio?
Eve: We were thinking we’d get a genre from the audience, a suggestion from our audience, you Emmy, and then just see what happens.
Emmy: So, a Jane Austen genre. I kind of like that.
Cil: I kind of like it too.
Eve: Cool. Alright. And then…
Emmy: So, this is, do you call it the Jane Austen Genre?
Cil: Yeah.
Kyndra: Jane Austen, with or without zombies.
Emmy: The Hamazons: live, unrehearsed, they’re going to do a scene from something. We don’t know what yet.
Eve: Emmy, can we get an object you might see in the time of Jane Austen.
Emmy: A book.
Eve: Thank you.
Cil: A book. Thank you.
Pause.
Henry: So, there you are, Eliza.
Eliza: Yes, here I am. I’ve been reading this book of sonnets.
Henry: Oh, sonnets, by Mr. Shakespeare.
Eliza: Yes, (giggles) by Mr. Shakespeare, they’re quite lovely, inspiring, really. Oh, oh, Henry.
Henry: Yes.
Eliza: I-I have something to confess.
Mrs. Jennings: Oh, there you two are! I’ve been looking all over for you and of course I would find you here in the garden, Henry and Eliza. Oh, I’m so very happy I found you two. What is wrong dear, you look all frazzled as though you were about to say something. I didn’t mean to interrupt, I’m so sorry.
Henry: No need for an apology, Mrs. Jennings.
Eliza: Yes mother, no need to apologize.
Mrs. Jennings: Well, I just wanted to come out here, I noticed you were not accompanied, and I wanted to let you both to know that lunch will be served shortly.
Henry: I would be most delighted to have lunch with you.
Eliza: I’m so happy, Henry that you are able to stay.
Frederic: Hey, now, what’s going on here in the garden. It’s me, old Mr. Parker, the gardener, you’re stepping on the daffodils, there, Mr. Henderson.
Henry: My apologies, sir, my apologies, please forgive me.
Mrs. Jennings: Oh, Frederic the gardener, I’m so happy to see you, I would like for you to, I would like for you to make sure that you have flowers on the table for lunch today.
Frederic: Well of course, Mrs. Jenkins, well of course Mrs. Jenkins, flowers on the table, always, always, and I must say, you’re looking quite fine today, Mrs. Jenkins, if you don’t mind my saying so.
Mrs. Jennings (giggles). Eliza!
Eliza: Yes, Mother.
Mrs. Jennings: Is that a book you’re reading?
Eliza: It is. The Sonnets.
Henry: By Mr. Shakespeare
Mrs. Jennings: Oh, I say, I don’t understand why you waste your mind on such trivial nonsense and, I haven’t seen you do your cross-hatching work.
Henry: Mrs. Jennings, if I may I be so bold, please forgive me, a woman reading the sonnets is just as valuable as a woman doing needlepoint.
Mrs. Jennings: (Giggles) Oh! Oh, Oh, you are, you are silly!
Henry: I’m from the city.
Mrs. Jennings: (laughs) These thoughts might do well in the city, but a girl in the country has different things to think about.
Eliza: Yes, well, a girl in the country does think about many things though, doesn’t she, Mother?
Mrs. Jennings: I wouldn’t know that. All I know is that I’d love you both to join me for lunch, please.
Eliza: We’ll be in directly, Mother, thank you.
Mrs. Jennings: Thank you.
Eliza: Henry. I’m terrible moved by what you’ve just said.
Henry: How I’ve defended your right to read?
Eliza: Yes, I find myself near to tears by those words for they make my confession so much easier.
Henry: What is it?
Eliza: Well, you’ll see here, slipped within the sonnets is actually a scientific journal. Oh, Henry, I find myself quite drawn to scientific thinking. I know it’s terrible inappropriate for a woman, but, but there it is.
Henry: I have never heard of such a thing.
Eliza: I don’t know if you care for me in the way that I think that perhaps you have been begun to care for me.
But I couldn’t continue with these secrets.
Henry: Eliza.
Eliza: Yes?
Henry: Science looks good on you.
Eliza: (gasps)
Henry: It is something within time I shall grow to become accustomed to and furthermore, enjoy. And when I say over time, I mean, that well, my, my heart is and ever shall be yours.
Eliza: Oh, oh, Henry! Why, even now, I’m thinking of the ventricles inside of your chest and how they’re pumping blood here and there and all the implications thereof and I-
Henry: I have a confession.
Eliza: Yes?
Henry: I knitted you this scarf.
Eliza: Oh, Henry. Oh, dear sweet, sweet Henry!
Henry: It’s something I learned from my mother, my dear mother who is no longer with us and I hold knitting in high esteem.
Eliza: Oh, Henry, you are the most spectacular gentlemen I have ever met. Shall we go into lunch?
Henry: After you.
Frederic: There they go, finally off the daffodils, (grumble grumble grumble)
Skit ends.
Emmy: (laughs!) Thank you so much Hamazons! Thank you so much, that was wonderful (All laugh) Thank you so much for joining me today!
Hamazons: Thank you! Thanks Emmy! Our pleasure!
This is Sacred Truths with Emmy Graham
Music by Manpreet Kar @manpreetkar.
My guests today were the Hamazons: Eve Smyth, Kendra Laughery, and Cil Stengel.
For more information, please go to www.hamazons.com
Please visit our website at www.sacredtruths.com.
Thank you for listening.