Join hosts Ellen Matthews and Dennis Pacheco, two NYC improvisers, as they interview artists, authors, scientists, gamers, actors, therapists, and loads of other fascinating people on their journey toward perfection.
We’re back, baby!!! Join us as we kick off Season 2 with our friends Jessica and Richard, hosts of our sister podcast “Made Up Talk Show” (also on the Let’s Hear It Network). We discuss the journey of starting a podcast from scratch and how to deal with the successes and failures along the way. We also talk ADHD and rejection-sensitive dysphoria. Let’s get into it!
Richard is an internationally trained improviser, comedian, and professional development expert. His creative projects are focused around building community and rejuvenating outdated modes of creation. Most recently he founded the Let’s Hear It Network, an independent artist-owned podcast network (the network Pursuit of Perfectness is part of!). You can find out more about him at rjk.nyc.
Hold on to your hats, folks—it’s a crossover! This week, as a special BONUS, the PoP Pod crew is thrilled to present this episode of Made Up Talk Show, guest starring our very own Ellen Matthews and Dennis Pacheco!
Made Up Talk Show is a comedy improv podcast on the Let’s Hear It Network (the very network Pursuit of Perfectness is a part of!) in which guests bring in little known (i.e., completely fictional) podcasts. This week Ellen and Dennis bring in an obscure (again, completely made up) talk show about unconventional couples called How Did These Get Met?
The Perfectionists had a blast improvising wild characters and situations with the hilarious Jessica Coyle and Richard Krysztoforski. We hope you enjoy it! And hey, check out Made Up Talk Show!
Richard is an internationally trained improviser, comedian, and professional development expert. His creative projects are focused around building community and rejuvenating outdated modes of creation. Most recently he founded the Let’s Hear It Network, an independent artist-owned podcast network (the network Pursuit of Perfectness is part of!). You can find out more about him at rjk.nyc.
What was it all about? Dennis and Ellen take a fond look back at Season 1 episode by episode and prepare to come roaring back in just three little weeks for an even bigger Season 2. Join us, won’t you?
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Health writer and wonderful human Hannah Chase gabs with the perfectionists (aka Ellen and Dennis) about being a perfect patient, advocating for yourself, and people pleasing–and we learn what a mustache does for your resting neutral face.
Check out our Instagram for more fun with mustaches and wigs! @pursuitofperfectness
You can find Hannah’s writing at hannahchase.medium.com where she mostly writes about chronic illness.
Ellen and Dennis have their first guest, and it’s–spoiler alert–Ellen’s brother! Greg Matthews is a data scientist and visual artist, an improviser, a fledgling standup, and a father. He talks about which of these things fill him with anxiety and how he copes, plus he shares some cool data art. You can find Greg’s art at statsinthewild.com and on our instagram @pursuitofperfectness.
