15
EZthe washington post.
friday, february 21, 2020On the Town
on the booming comedy podcast
scene, appearing regularly as un-
hinged and loopy characters on
Scott Aukerman’s “Comedy Bang!
Bang!” podcast. (She’d l ater co-star
alongside Zach Galifianakis in
Netflix’s Aukerman-directed “Be-
tween Two Ferns” movie, released
last year.)
Lapkus has a big year ahead:
She just launched a new weekly
podcast co-hosted with Nicole
Byer (“Nailed It!”) called “New-
comers” where the two are work-
ing their way through the Star
Wars franchise for the first time.
(“It’s kind of crazy to feel like I
actually get some of this after all
these years of actively ignoring
it,” Lapkus says.) She’s also star-
ring alongside David Spade in the
upcoming Netflix movie “The
Wrong Missy” and is picking upregular voice-over work.
Lapkus has built a career in
which she splits time between
being herself (like on “Newcom-
ers” or her regular Instagram
Story posts about her favorite
reality series, “The Bachelor”)
and playing characters, many of
which she makes up on the spot.
It’s a balance that works for her,
though she does have a prefer-
ence.
“Talking as myself is more tax-
ing than doing improv,” Lapkus
says. “When I’m doing an improv
podcast, I’m like, okay, I don’t
really have to think about any-
thing. But talking as yourself, you
want to make sure your opinions
aren’t going to get people mad. I
have more of a filter as myself
than I do in improv.”
[email protected]BY RUDI GREENBERGWhen Lauren Lapkus was in-
vited to bring an improv comedy
group to the female-centric come-
dy festival All Jane in Portland,
Ore., in 2013, she recruited three
of her friends — all of whom were
in the same book club — and
waited to see what would happen.
“I wanted to go to the festival
and travel with friends so I put
this team together thinking it
would just be a fun trip,” Lapkus
says. “It ended up being so much
fun that we made it into a regular
show that we do all the time.”
Just like that, Wild Horses was
born, with Lapkus making it all
up as she went, alongside fellow
actresses and comedians Stepha-
nie Allynne (“The L Word”), Mary
Holland (“Veep”) and Erin White-
head (“Comedy Bang! Bang!”).
“We realized looking back that
we’d actually hung out a few
times just the four of us,” Lapkus
recalls. “We went to see Beyoncé
and we had a craft night, but we
hadn’t really thought of ourselves
as a group.”
Wild Horses is now a regular
show in Los Angeles, an occasion-
al podcast and a project the four
performers take on the road. The
group made their D.C. debut at
the Kennedy Center in 2014 dur-
ing the Bentzen Ball and will
return to the performing arts
center this weekend for a pair of
shows as part of a series of improv
comedy shows at the Club at
Studio K. (Holland has to skip
these shows so “The Mindy Proj-
ect’s” Zoe Jarman will take her
place.)
Unlike most improv shows,
Wild Horses performances typi-
cally begin with an hour-long
conversation with a guest (such
as Conan O’Brien, Natasha Ly-
onne or Nick Kroll) that can
quickly spiral out of control.
“We like to create a dinner
party vibe in our show,” Lapkus
says. “It’s really a loose conversa-
tion that can go anywhere. We’re
drinking wine onstage. It’s girls
getting loose and sharing.”
It’s not, however, the typical
celebrity interview you might see
on a late-night talk show.
“We all have questions for
them but they’re usually really
random, like, do you believe in
magic? Or have you ever seen a
ghost? We usually don’t talk
about their job,” Lapkus says.
“We’ll talk about their weird ex-
periences in their life or just
anything they want to share. And
we encourage our guests to inter-
rupt us and to ask us questions
and turn it on us.”
That leads into a 30-minute
improv scene inspired by the con-
versation, which is where the four
performers get a chance to shine
(and get silly).
“We definitely have a short-
hand with each other,” Lapkus
says. “But we continue to surprise
each other. We s hare a lot of really
personal stuff and a lot of improv
shows don’t allow for that.”
Growing up in Chicago, Lap-
kus, 34, was a big Chris Farley fan
and wanted to become a comedi-
an. She tried out for school plays
in high school but couldn’t crack
the casts, though she did perform
in some variety s hows. Her senior
year, a teacher suggested she take
improv classes at the city’s famed
iO Theater.
“It ended up being so life-
changing,” Lapkus says. “I really
didn’t know how it would lead to
a career. Especially in Chicago
where it’s r eally all about the craft
of it. That you are doing it for the
sake of doing it and not really
thinking about the bigger pic-
ture.”
She moved to New York and
enrolled in classes at the Upright
Citizens Brigade, the bi-costal
i mprov theater chain/school co-
founded by Amy Poehler. After
taking enough classes, she moved
to Los Angeles and tried out for a
UCB Harold team, the best way to
break into regularly performing
at the theater.
“It was so, so important for
me,” Lapkus says. “It helped me
get representation, which led to
getting commercials and TV
shows.”
Her big break came in 2013
when she was cast as a prison
guard on Netflix’s “Orange Is the
New Black.” Around the same
time, she was becoming a fixtureGroup serves up
comedy with a
‘dinner party vibe’
Robyn Von SwankThe Wild Horses improv
team includes, from left,
Erin Whitehead, Lauren
Lapkus (seated),
Stephanie Allynne and
Mary Holland. The book
club turned comedy
group i s coming to the
Kennedy Center this
weekend.If you go
Wild Horses
Saturday at 7:30 and 9:30
p.m. at the Club at Studio k
at the kennedy Center,
2700 F St. nw.
kennedy-center.org. Sold out.UPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws