mnartists: Recent Episodes
mnartists
Mn Artists is a joint project of the McKnight Foundation and the Walker Art Center. Our new podcast, "What's So Funny?" is a monthly show hosted by writer and performer Levi Weinhagen about the craft of comedy and improv.
“Once you find a passion, it feels like a waste of time to not go for it.”
Stand up comic Elizabeth Ess talks with host Levi Weinhagen about working clean versus working dirty, one-liners versus storytelling comedy, and trying to fit in with non-comedians.
Ess talks about getting started at the Monday Night Comedy Show and how finding stand up made her, without really realizing it, give up prose writing to become a comic.
Ess also talks about doing live readings of her Bad Boys 3 script and it failing to get what she thinks it deserves, her Last Comic Standing LA callback and not wanting to date comics but not really wanting to be sucked into some regular world relationship.
“It’s hard to find happiness and not see it as a trap.” http://elizabethess.com/
“In the first five minutes of most shows, I know what you’re doing.” Phillip Andrew Bennett Low has toured at least a half-dozen one-man shows across the country and one to Australia, been nominated for numerous awards, produced one reasonably bona-fide hit—Descendant of Dragons—and co-founded the Rockstar Storytellers, serving as its Chair for the two years that position existed. He was also playwright and producer of a local theatre company, Maximum Verbosity, from 2003-2011.
http://maximumverbosityonline.org/index.php
“To be a stand up comedian, I think it takes so much work. It’s the kind of thing you have to do a few times a week, you have to be constantly trying out new material.”
Chris Knutson is a Minneapolis based comedian and writer. In 2006, he began contributing at The Monday Night Comedy Show as a writer and performer. Chris started developing his stand up routine shortly after in 2009 and, in 2010, won Acme Comedy Club's Funniest Person Contest. He is best known for being one half of the critically acclaimed musical comedy group Valley Meadows. In 2012, laughspin.com nominated Valley Meadows for The Readers Choice Award for Best Musical Comedy Act, sharing this distinction with acts such as Weird Al Yankovic and Tenacious D. He is also a founding member of the sketch group The Turkeys. Chris performs at comedy clubs and festivals across the country. http://www.chrisknutsoncomedy.com/