Kristen Schaal, Comedian and Actress

You may have seen Kristen Schaal at The PIT or UCB, eating Starbursts on the beach, heard her voice on Freak Show, or read that she's playing Flight of the Conchord's only fan on their forthcoming HBO Show. "What's her secret?" you may wonder. It's because she grew up in Colorado. It's the altitude.

Where in Colorado did you grow up?
I grew up on a farm in Longmont, a small town fifteen minutes outside of Boulder.

What sort of activities did you have to keep yourself busy?
I had 4H, where I won Reserve Grand Champion for decorate your duds. That's where we took clothes and painted them. I made a skirt that I never wore and I learned how to make muffins. I also played intramural sports, but I wasn't very good at them. There wasn't any theater stuff until high school. I'd play with the cows. I would sing to them while they ate hay, like dinner theater. They had such miserable lives, so I thought I'd give them something. They were all seconds away from being slaughtered, which was tough since I named them. One time, one of them had to be put down early. Her name was Bella and she had a hoof disease. We had a big freezer in the basement and there was all of this unmarked meat in there because our parents decided we were going to eat one of our own cows for the winter, which was disgusting. It's not just eating your pet for one meal, but every night for a whole winter. We were like Indians; we used all of it.

Did you do a lot of different farm work?
I had to bail hay and I helped raise the sheep, but I was a pretty lazy kid. We had a lot of female cows and we'd rent a bull that would come in and have its way with all of them, they'd have baby cows, and then we'd raise the baby cows and sell them all to be slaughtered for a profit. There wasn't that much to do, or at least not much that I knew about since I was so lazy.

What was the school like that you went to?
It was a public school. My goal senor year was to get into the year book as much as I could, so I joined five different organizations and got my picture in there thirteen times. I really sound like a media whore.

What sort of creative outlets did you have?
In high school, I did this thing called Break the Cycle, which was a teen theater troupe put together by the community because Longmont was the target town for teenage pregnancies, so the state was alarmed. It was me and six other teens and we were trained as teen mediators and we'd do structured Improv that we'd perform at different schools. I met a teacher there that told me to be an actor, which was really nice. I did the plays and painted a mural. I thought that this was revolutionary: I would sidewalk chalk the female reproductive system at the entrance to the K-Mart, my high school, and just everywhere because I thought people should know. I did Forensics, where we'd perform drama and humor interpretation. That's where I really started doing comedy. We'd take a play and do all the parts in eight minutes and compete with it. I did that for four years in high school. That was the best because I got to do all of these different characters and find out that I was good at it. I was a national qualifier. I got to go to Tar Heel, North Carolina. It was dreamy.

Would you do characters to make your friends laugh?
I remember being really loud. I'd get written up by the bus driver all the time. I don't recall leaving everybody on the floor with laughter, but everybody wanted to be my friend, that's for sure! I never noticed that I was particularly funny until college. That's when I got into doing comedy and came into my own.

Where'd you go to college?
First I went to the University of Colorado for a year and then I transferred to Northwestern. I did Performance Studies, and there are only about two or three places in the country that do it because it's totally silly and not a good way to make money. It's performance art. I could adapt a novel to the stage if you wanted me to. One of the things I did was the tale of Oedipus in three minutes. I hid all of these light structures. I was in bed and all of these light structures were falling out of the covers. It was symbolic and totally gorgeous. Later, I weaseled my way into an acting class. They were only letting theater majors take it, so I staged a guerilla performance in the dean's office about why I should take an acting class. I sat in on one of them for three months until the teacher felt so sorry for me that she let me participate. I also did an Improv and sketch comedy show called Meow, which was awesome. College is funny because you can do a show like Meow, which was a big deal in college, and when you get out into the real world you're nobody all over again.

When you moved to New York, what were some of the first places that you went when you decided you wanted to start performing?
Surf Reality, which was on Allen Street. I went there almost every Sunday. I was so miserable when I first moved to New York, but I always had that to look forward to at the end of the week. I'd try to have something new and ready to put up at three in the morning for the same clique that hangs out there, but they're all really great people. Then my friends put on a mini theater festival, and that was when I did my first comedy show. It was twenty minutes of my stuff.

Was this about the time that you started the Striking Viking Story Pirates ?
That started about three years ago. We take stories that kids write, turn them into songs and sketches, and then we perform them back to the kids. We have hundreds of stories at this point. It's going stronger than ever before. We've expanded the company and are going to a lot more schools. We've started having a workshop for the kids on how to write a story. It's very empowering for the kids to see their stories come alive.

How'd you meet Kurt Braunohler and how did Hot Tub come to be?
I did Improv for long time, but I took a couple years off. When I decided to jump back into it, I met Kurt doing stuff at The PIT. I always wanted to do an open mic night where there'd be a theme. If the theme were water, everyone would have to write material about water. I pitched that idea and they said someone else wanted to do an open mic and it was Kurt. He asked me if I wanted to do it together. I didn't really know him that well, but there are some people that you're comfortable around from the moment you meet them, and Kurt's one of them. It turned out that we worked well together.

What will the Hot Tub at Comix be like?
It's going to be the same show, just seven dollars more.

What's the show you're going to be doing at The PIT?
Hot Tub is going to be at Comix only once a month. The reason we started Hot Tub is because we wanted a place where we'd be forced to produce new material every week. We're going to keep doing sketches at The PIT. It'll be nice to not have to book guests every week. Booking guests can sometimes be more work than anything involved in the show.

What do you like to do after a performance?
Unwind and drink beer. Sometimes whisky. After Hot Tub, we like to hang out with the guests.

Visit Kristen's Myspace to keep track of her many live appearances and check out Hottubvariety.com