Amber Autry: Turning Acting Improv into Stand-Up Magic | MCP #145

Morse Code Podcast with Korby Lenker

I speak with a rising star in the comedy world, the hilarious and genuine Amber Autry. The before we taped I was in the audience at a sold-out set for Amber’s Summer/Fall residency at Zanie’s in Nashville. Her bits were so seamlessly interwoven with her improvised crowd work that the stitches were invisible — I couldn’t tell where the rehearsed part ended and the improv began. Randa and I laughed our asses off and I left with a feeling that I had just seen someone special.

On this wide-ranging conversation with our first comedian on the podcast, Amber and I get into her origin story, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, begins in Chicago. She went through the Second City conservatory in improv and acting, but it was a chance encounter with a street musician that threw her into standup. Suddenly found herself at an open mic. Her very first try went well, likely because, as Amber puts it, “I was the only funny person in a lineup of sadboy singer-songwriters.”

Comparisons between comedy and music aren’t always obvious, but as someone who has played a thousand shows, I have strong opinions about how to put one on. We talk about the similarities and differences between a comedian’s set and the between-song banter of the performing songwriter. In my playbook, every moment onstage counts, and in someways the time between songs is even more important than the songs themselves, because it’s in those moments that you really connect with an audience, or don’t.

I ask how she got so good at crowd work. Unsurprisingly the answer is, practice. Or as Amber puts it, “a willingness to embarrass yourself over and over as you get more comfortable with just having real conversation with audience members and trusting the funny will come.”

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She talks about the value of watching bad comedy, how it can be as instructive as its excellent counterpart. I relate to this in terms of movies and books: how when you watch something that’s boring or sad ordull or off the mark in some way, it gives you an opportunity to reflect on why that is. There’s a connection here to that old saying, “everyone is a teacher.”

Somewhere toward the end we figure out we were both raised in the church, and talk about the good and bad of that experience. From there its a short leap to the subject of therapy, and here Amber shares her surprisingly beautiful strategy for maintaining sanity in an extremely difficult industry. It has something to do with treating yourself like a someone whose well-being you’re in charge of… but you should listen to Amber share the unique, practical application of that slippery approach.

By way of comparison I share a little of my own background and spiritual journey. There was a long stretch of my life where I was sitting with a buddhist lineage, an experience which culminated with an extended session at a silent retreat at a Vippasana Center in rural Washington. I tell a little about that experience, the hilarity of it and the breakthrough that happened, the

gift that resulted, which has helped me ever since.

This conversation is a good representation of why I do this podcast. Amber is a bright light in the world. Getting to talk with her had the effect of cracking open my own heart, seeing what was inside — the soft the squishy the scared, and somewhere down in there, the funny.

Go see Amber, she’s touring constantly!

Find Amber Autry:

Website https://www.amberautrycomedy.com/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/amberautrycomedy/

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