#ucbconvo

This week, Dan Lippert is the guest on the UCB Long-Form Conversations Podcast. (Listen/subscribe here.) Dan is a member of the incredibly silly and talented UCBTLA house team Winslow! Winslow is made up of Dan Lippert, Echo Kellum, Jon Mackey, Justin Michael, Gilli Nissim, Mary Sasson, Drew Tarver, and Mano Agapion (who will also be appearing on UCB Long-Form Conversations later this month).

They started out as a Harold Team in 2011, and moved to their current weekend slot in 2015. You can see Winslow every Friday at 9:30pm in “F*ck, Marry, Kill” at UCB Franklin. (Get tickets here.)

We chatted with some of the members of Winslow about the origins of their team, their unique style, how they’ve changed over time, improv advice for students, people who’ve inspired them, and more. Here’s what they had to say.

Had any of you worked together previous to Winslow?

Gilli Nissim: I met Dan and Justin when I was a UCSB college improvisor at a festival their school (USC) put on called Fracas. It felt very magical to meet them. They were doing long form when I was still kissing short form improv’s ass.

Mano Agapion: Mary and I met in college doing improv at Dirty South Comedy Theater, often referred to as DSI. Before getting on Harold Night, I was on indie teams with every single member of Winslow...except Echo. I had my callback with Echo and we had a blast together. So I was particularly hooked up.

Dan Lippert: Jon and I were roommates and wrote together as members of the sketch group Big Grande, and Drew, Jon, Justin, and I performed together regularly as members of the indie improv team Guy 5. Nobody knew Echo. Justin Michael: I think a lot of us who met through Fracas ended up pushing each other to try UCB at the same time, so it really helped to have a group of buddies—at this point, old improv buddies do stuff on Winslow, Bangarang!, Boat, Big Grande, and various Harold & Maude teams. It’s kinda crazy to have known each other so long, but it made it easier to get on the same page.

What form do you typically use when you perform? Why?

Mary Sasson: We pull premises from an interview about people the audience would want to fuck, marry, or kill. There is no real form, but we try to make sure we have 2 or 3 slower two-person scenes up top so that we don’t get crazy too quickly.

Dan Lippert: We found this best serves our style of following crazy shit to its illogical conclusion and also satisfies the Friday night audiences, who are less improv-savvy.

Justin Michael: The most improv-nerdy moves that would kill at Harold Night can get crickets on a Friday, and the most “don’t indulge that” tendency will sometimes kill. It’s been a fun, strange transition. We’re still striving to do our best improv, but we’re also allowing ourselves to push our group voice.

How has your team evolved since you first began performing together?

Jon Mackey: I think when we started on Harold night, we were honestly bad. But I think every team is pretty bad when they start out; there’s a long process of finding what your voice as a team is, and even in those first few months our strength was very obvious. We were a team that would throw ourselves on the sword for each other, particularly in our group games. If we were going down, we were going down in a blaze of glory holding hands. This led to some of the most fun group games I’ve been involved in, to this day.

Mano Agapion: I think we started as the fun stupid big improv team on Harold Night. Which is both our strength and weakness. At our best, we are immediately into an idea no matter how stupid. At our worst, we let our excitement get the best of us and we’re in crazy town before we’ve earned it. Over the past 5 years, we have made a conscious effort to slow down scenes, ground base realities, and trust simple listening/reacting before we lose our damn minds and blow out the world.

Gilli Nissim: When we were being coached, people started telling us that we were doing things the “Winslow” way, which usually meant silly and maybe a little chaotic. It was cool to know that we had a style, even if it needed work. Since then I think we’ve honed that into a deliberate energy. Or at least I hope.

Justin Michael: I think when we started we fell into our traditional roles on the team—some people were more gamey and math-brained, while others swung wildly with jokes and huge characters. The longer we’ve done things, the more I think we’ve become comfortable with taking on other roles. Also, Drew’s gay now, which was initially tough because the team is very very very homophobic.

Who in the UCB community has inspired or influenced you?

Mary Sasson: Alex Fernie was our first coach and I think he really helped shape Winslow. He’s so smart but loves weird chaos, and I think that gave us confidence to be smart and very stupid at the same time.

Gilli Nissim: Alex Fernie and Eugene Cordero are the people I quote the most. They are superstar comedians and were so so nice to us when they coached us. If they stuck around after practice to chat, it made us feel like peers and it was fucking tight. With a lot of creative endeavors, it’s important to feel “worthy” and they definitely did that.

Dan Lippert: Bangarang! and JV/John Velvet set the bar for how patiently focused/silly a Harold could be. When I first started I was obsessed with Convoy’s ability to commit to and explore an idea in creative and surprising ways.

Justin Michael: Honestly, I’m still fucking blown away by our friends—half the time I’m doing a show with Winslow I can’t help but feel like an audience member because they just make me laugh. I’m constantly impressed by teams of buddies with strong and unique voices like Big Grande and JV and Bangarang! and The Dragons. I’m sure part of it is that you’re open to laughing more because they’re your pals, but they still impress and inspire me to do better in my own shows.

What advice do you have for a student who doesn’t understand game?

Dan Lippert: Do enough committed improv in practices and in front of audiences so that you can develop your voice and lock in on what you think is funny about an idea. It’s hard to find THE GAME; it’s less hard to show an audience what you like and why you like it, and the only way to get comfortable with that is through reps and failure. Don’t think about game until after the show. Try to ground your first unusual thing as a relatable behavior and then take it to crazy extremes.

Jon Mackey: I don’t really think a student who “doesn’t understand game” actually exists. I think we intrinsically understand game, but a lot of students are too distracted by the rules and lose track of their instincts. To me, game is what’s left in your brain after you clean up the mess of rules that you’ve filled your brain with while you’re learning how to do improv.

Gilli Nissim: If you start looking around, game can be something that occurs naturally in conversation or around your friends. If you’re ever thinking, “that’s SO like Connor”—that’s your friend Connor playing his game, his consistent pattern of behavior.

Mary Sasson: Ask yourself what you think is funny about what’s happening, and try to keep doing that funny thing. Game is just about what’s funny, so follow that funny!

Mano Agapion: Listen. React. Build Together. Game is just that simple.

Describe your team in three words.

Dan Lippert: Three Chinese standups.

Mano Agapion: Ass For Days.

Jon Mackey: Mostly decent looking.

Mary Sasson: Crazy, horny, and tall. Our average height is probably 6’2, and we’ve been accused of being the horniest Harold team.

Justin Michael: Horny Horny Homophobes.

Gilli Nissim: Horny.