From Chicago with Prov: An Interview with Joe Canale
By: Ames Doyle
In honor of his visit in November, Dad’s Garage sat down with Joe Canale, an alum of The Second City and, more recently, a member of Meadows, Walsh & Friends, to chat about all things improv.
DG: Tell me about your personal history with improv.
JOE: I moved to Chicago in August of 1994 on the advice of a classmate who said " you should work at The Second City.” I moved to Chicago with four other people, all of whom moved back to New York after a year. By then I was fully immersed in Second City classes and Improv Olympic. Jumping ahead I’ve ended up training, performing, and teaching at all of the Chicago improv theaters—Second City, iO, Annoyance, Playground. I spent about a year studying with Del Close and even took a workshop with Groundlings founder, Gary Austin. In 1999 I was hired to work at Boom Chicago. I spent a wonderful year in Amsterdam honing my skills in front of drunken tourists. I also had my first experience using improv to create scripted material. While I don’t think I was very good at it at that point, the lessons learned there were invaluable to what came next.
DG: What was your experience like at Second City? What effect has it had on your performance style and career?
JOE: Shortly after returning to Chicago in 2000 I was hired as an understudy for the Second City Touring Company, and after about a year I was added to a touring company—Blue Co. From 2000 until 2009, I worked in one way or another for Second City: touring, acting and directing BizCo shows, Cruise Ships and eventually in 2006 I was hired to the Second City Main Stage. My performance style was affected by Second City primarily through the satire. I embraced the concept of always punching up, and taking shots at authority. This was something inherent in me and The Second City really refined it and sharpened my edge, to the point that I would often clash with the producer at Second City when I thought they deserved to be criticized.
DG: Who has been your favorite creative collaborator so far?
JOE: It would be hard to pick one, some of my favorites are: Bob Kulhan, Scoop Skupien, Brad Morris, Tim Meadows, Matt Craig, Ike Barinholtz, Susan Messing, Molly Erdman, Emily Wilson, Dan Bakkedahl, Rob Janas, Dan Antonucci, and many, many others. That’s why I love improv. It’s completely collaborative.
DG: What’s your favorite part of improv?
JOE: The freedom, the rush of the unpredictability, and laughing at the hilarious people I get to play with.
DG: I see that you’ve had some on-camera experience. Can you tell me what you like about it versus live performance? A favorite role?
JOE: I prefer live performance to on-camera work 100 out of 100 times. Not to say that being on camera is all bad. I enjoyed my experience on The Mindy Project because I got to work with my friend Ike and the scene we shot was very loose and allowed for improvisation. I also had an enjoyable experience working on a show called Fair Game with Brock Everett. It was on a small network and it was a sports-themed Daily Show, and I was able to write and perform my own material. There are not many experiences like that in film and TV. There are so many voices involved in the film/TV industry that it prohibits real creativity and often leads to the safest, most predictable choice. Beyond that, the time you are actually performing when you are working on a set is minimal, compared to sitting around time. Having lived in Los Angeles for more than 15 years, I can say that my overall take on the industry here is negative. Agents and managers have undue influence and there is a truly open disdain for creatives from the executives, which creates a bad environment overall. Especially when the executives have the final say. I think the recent strikes and the rhetoric from the producers laid it all out plainly: they can not wait to replace actors and writers with AI, because as I recently read, artificial intelligence is designed to let those with money access skills while preventing those with skills from accessing the money. With live performance and improvisation in particular, there is no filter between me and the audience, and that’s how I prefer it. Cut out the middleman who is only in it for the money. Plus it is incredibly fun!
DG: What are you up to currently?
JOE: I’m improvising more than I have in years. Playing with Meadows, Walsh, and Morris as well as doing a couple of shows a month with Mr. Johnson (myself, Matt Craig, Rob Janas, Dan Antonucci, and Dan Bakkedahl.) Mr. Johnson has also been doing podcasts, the first one “Mr Johnson’s Time Machine.” The podcast is mostly improvised and then edited. I also am constantly trying to pair comedy with sports content; right now I write a daily social media segment for Betworthy, where my Co-host and I tell topical jokes about sports. Ideally, I’d be able to pivot to improvising full-time. Hopefully, as it becomes more mainstream those opportunities will become more frequent.
Don’t miss Joe’s hilarious improv performances at Dad’s Garage on November 7
at 7 p.m. and at 9:30 p.m. with Tim Meadows, Matt Walsh & Friends!
