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Welcome to the Comedic Pursuits podcast. I’m your host, Seth Payne.

A lot of the podcast episodes I’ve recorded thus far are timeless, in a way. They’re people’s backstories and advice, so it’s okay if the episodes don’t come out until later because they’re still going to be relevant.

But some of the episodes I’ve recorded do pertain to more current events. Case in point, for today’s episode, I actually got to sit down with the trendsetting, limit-pushing, provocative Sam Bonar, who is currently diving into some really cool political stuff in DC. I figured his story was very timely considering the midterm elections are upon us, and the political climate right now is pretty intense.

I wanted to get this episode out before the beginning of November, so that’s what we’re doing. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did because I loved it. Without further ado, the Sam Bonar interview.

Highlights from my interview with Sam Bonar

Sam is an improviser and political activist in DC. Some of the questions and answers from his interview have been edited for clarity, but you can find the full interview by listening to the podcast episode.

What’s your performance background?

I started doing lots of theater in high school, and I was very much an actor-y, theater nerd kind of guy. I was president of the drama club for two years. I had all my fingers in everything, and I was in every play. I was the only one who had done theater for four years in high school.

One of my most notable theater moments from high school was getting the lead in The Music Man. I’d never had a real lead, but in my final year, the final play, I finally got a lead.

Every musical we’d done before had been the junior version, which is the easier version. They’d shorten the songs so they were less complicated. But for that play, we did the full version of The Music Man, which is really hard to do because it’s got all these long monologue songs.

My girlfriend and all of my friend group were involved in it somehow. That was definitely a theater crowning achievement in my life.

How did you get into improv?

I started doing improv at the beginning of college at the University of Chicago. I was tired of the stress of drama and having to go to practice every day. In high school drama, I was in practice four days a week, and it would have been even more than that in college.

The improv group I was in, Occam’s Razor, struggled for a while. We were the lesser group on campus. I’d actually auditioned for the other group, Off-Off Campus. It was more prestigious at the time because they were more involved with the theater department, and they practiced like a theater group. I think they were better my first two years, but my last two years, they stopped being as good. I also think Occam’s Razor found its groove, and I think we got a little harder on the fact that people couldn’t just come to practice whenever they wanted. We focused more on long-form improv. They even started doing some sketch the year after I left.

How did you get into improv in DC?