Made Up Talk Show scheduling snafu due to holidays and traveling slowed down our release schedule, so instead we’re highlighting a real and delightful podcast, Page by Paige by Paige Heimark! You can subscribe to Page by Paige on any major podcast platform, or by visiting letshearit.network
This week the wonderful Amanda Rothman joins Ellen and Dennis to talk drama therapy, our need to take care of others (including, sometimes, our therapists), and how shame is a driving force behind perfectionism. They also go off on a tangent about The Matrix for … way? … too long? Is this officially a kung fu movie review podcast now? Maybe!
Nikita Burdein bunkers down with us and the podcast “Celebrating Oprah..People Gotta Know About This Woman.” In the episode he brought us, we learn about Oprah’s many guests.
Nikita is a Musical Improviser and Comedian who performs at the Magnet Theater in NY, where he also is an instructor. He also performs Musical Improv with Baby Wants Candy and Shitzprobe! both at the Improv Asylum NYC. He's also a filmmaker/video guy.
Actor, improviser, and founder of Rubbish Comedy Collective Xave Padin joins the Perfectionists (Ellen and Dennis) to talk about the gift (and curse) of word-perfect script memorization and what it took to create a new comedy collective founded on equity, representation, and integrity. All that, plus Xave gives Ellen and Dennis the gift of a brand new podcast intro.
You can find out more about Xave and Rubbish Comedy Collective at rubbishcomedy.com.
Xavier (he/him) is an actor, improviser, teacher, character performer, and overall comedy loving producer born in the boogie-down Bronx. He has trained as an actor at USC and Mesiner studios in New York, as a comedian at The DC Improv, WITDC, Magnet, and UCB, and as a human being in Puerto Rico, Washington, DC, and South Carolina.
In NYC, Xavier has performed improv, characters, and sketch comedy regularly since 2016 for the UCB Theatre and the Magnet Theater. During the day he dons a tie (top button unbuttoned, of course) in Corporate Communications for the fed. But at night, the magic happens when he gets to work with brilliant teams of creatives — bringing cultural exploration and comedic ideas to life in a classroom and in front of an audience.
Xavier began his pursuit of passion in comedy while in SC in 2009 and, later in DC, he became a house performer and popular teacher with the Washington Improv Theater. He’s since gone on to teach and coach thousands of amateur and professional performers in classes or corporate settings up and down the east coast. Xavier has produced shows and festivals in DC, Jersey and New York since 2010 and loves the absurd and authentic life moments that comedy creates for audiences, students and performers alike.
Xave genuinely loves the people he gets to perform with like family. They include his Latinx improv team CHUCHO, his sketch comedy mates in The Executives (at Magnet) and The Bonus Features (at UCB) and his silly pals in the Chicago-created, NYC-refined storytelling/improv show “The Armando Diaz Experience,” on Saturday’s at the Magnet Theater. It goes without saying, but he’ll say it anyway, Xave loves Rubbish Comedy.
Xavier is also really into pro and amateur wrestling, BJJ, and movies — watching them, analyzing them in an academic sense, and even performing in them! He is currently represented by CESD.
Stephanie IsComedy peeps her way into our ears with the podcast she brought, “The People Watcher.” In this episode she brought us, we finally hear the Our Father.
Stephanie IsComedy is a comedian, actress and writer. She has both studied and performed at UCB on teams such as Woodson and Characters Welcome. She has been performing stand up since 2009 and has performed in venues all across the world. Stephanie likes fried bologna sandwiches and pickles.
The Perfectionists (Ellen and Dennis) get their very first live-in-the-studio guest, and what a get she is! Robyn Chapman is the editor of American Cult, a comics anthology about religious cults in America. She talks with Dennis and Ellen about the importance of self-compassion and how Kristin Neff’s book Self-Compassion helped her get through a particularly hard time. Then they discuss cults throughout American history and determine once and for all whether or not improv counts as a cult. (The answer may surprise you!)
Robyn runs a micropress called Paper Rocket. Find it online at paperrocketcomics.com.
Robyn Chapman is an editor, a publisher, and (sometimes) a cartoonist. She is the proprietor of Paper Rocket Minicomics and has had many different jobs in comics. She spent five years at The Center for Cartoon Studies, initially as their first fellow and later as a faculty member. For a time, she worked at Brooklyn’s best comic shop, Desert Island. She is the editor of the nonfiction comics anthology American Cult, which she co-published with Silver Sprocket in 2021. Currently, she is an editor at First Second.
Jillian Courtney is a dialect, speech and communications coach, an actor and all around human. She sometimes pickles things and has a number of real friends. https://jilliancourtney.com/
Abby Russell is a content producer in the video game industry. The perfectionists (Ellen and Dennis, natch) have a delightful chat with Abby about Twitch streaming, comedy writing, and the high stakes (low stakes) world of improv.
You can find Find Abby on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram. Her handle is @ybbaaabby on all the things.
Denise Costa diagnoses us with a good time with this podcast, “The Real House Calls Doctor Detective.” In the episode she brought us, Fauci missed time with his family for some BS.
Made Up Talk Show theme by Dan Reitz www.danreitz.com
Family nurse practitioner and nursing educator. Denise works in public health and primary care and has a masters from Georgetown University and a doctorate from the University of Cincinnati. Prior to studying nursing and working in health care, she was a theater major.
This week the Perfectionists (I’ve decided that’s what Ellen and Dennis are called–it’s canon now) welcome motion graphics designer and storyteller Jenny Bee to the studio to talk about mental health in art. We get into how school and work cultures wrongly glorify sacrificing our bodies to get ahead.
