INTERVIEW: Julia Mattison, Joel Waggoner are ‘Wig Mediums’ on Broadstream
Image courtesy of Broadstream / Provided by Matt Ross PR with permission.
Broadstream, the new streaming platform that offers arts content for free, recently launched a hilarious new show starring the accomplished songwriting team of Julia Mattison and Joel Waggoner. Wig Mediums finds the two actors hosting a talk show and talking about their psychic powers while wearing fabulous wigs. Yes, it’s definitely a comedy and never meant to be taken too seriously.
Mattison, who appeared in Broadway’s Godspell and on TV’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, has been writing songs with Waggoner, who recently wrapped Classic Stage Company’s A Man of No Importance, for several years. They previously would get together around the holidays and write original tunes for the festive season (their output is placed on Instagram, where they have more than 22,000 followers), and then Broadstream came knocking and wanted to use their comedic and songwriting abilities on a different medium.
“We started collaborating and writing comedy songs together for a holiday party we did back in 2018, and that became Advent Carolndar, which is a series we do online where we do a new original song every day in December, kind of make up new silly Christmas carols,” Mattison said in a recent phone interview. “And so we were doing that for a couple years, and then Broadstreet reached out to us and was interested in seeing if we had other ideas or to create something new. It was really anchored in us finding another medium where we could make up new songs and just explore and go dive into our wildest imaginations.”
Mattison, who has appeared as a comedic on Comedy Central, remembers that Waggoner was saying something about wigs because as professional actors they have used them to transform into a variety of characters, and that initial idea eventually developed into Wig Mediums.
“What if we had this psychic power that the wigs communicate through us,” Mattison said with a laugh. “We just did a trust fall into the idea, and it got more absurd by the day. But we were so free to lean into the idea and just do what we do that it happened very quickly, and we leaned into the silly and what was making us laugh. We have found thats’s a pretty good barometer in general. If we’re making each other laugh, we’re having a good time.”
Most of the show is improvised. The two will have a concept sketched out, and they know there will be wigs and singing. Other than that, the team hits the record button and sees what transpires. Audiences can now check out the finished product on Broadstream, where episode #1 is currently airing.
For Waggoner, who appeared on Broadway in School of Rock and Be More Chill, working with his friend Mattison has been a joy.
“It’s a masterclass,” he said. “It’s a hangout. It’s a wild ride. It’s an electric improvisational back and forth. I like to think of it as iron sharpens iron, so her brain works as fast or faster than mine, and it sharpens my brain and makes me smarter. I feel like I simultaneously become smarter and sillier and dumber when we work together, so things can happen pretty quickly. We’re also both kind of really picky, so we’ll both simultaneously let stuff sort of splat out of our brains without thinking. And then we can sort of be like, well, what’s the funny part of this and sort of nitpick it. We have this weird ability to hit the piñata and let all the candy fly out and then go through and pick out all the Werther’s Originals.”
For Waggoner, if Mattison laughs at one of his jokes, he knows that audience members will laugh as well. For example, in episode #1, there’s a hilarious line about the TV series Felicity that sprung from this improvisational back and forth.
“You have to do what you think is funny, and then if it works, it works,” said Waggoner, who is also a musical director and arranger. “The other thing too is editing a lot of stuff. We have a lot of footage on the cutting room floor, and sometimes they pick the right line that works for the tone. … I kind of say what comes to my mind, and Julia can attest to this. Some stuff I say really doesn’t land, and then some stuff really does. You just have to go with the flow.”
Mattison added: “There is a quantity-over-quality element at first where we are throwing so much extra out on the table. The beauty of improvising on camera is that it can be edited down to the kernels that really work and that really land. … A lot of the most absurd things we say does come out of truth somewhere or some version of the truth or something that’s already been stewing in our brains. The more we get vulnerable and honest in the absurdity is also something that let’s the most insane things get filmed.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Wig Mediums, starring Julia Mattison and Joel Waggoner, is now streaming on Broadstream. Click here for more information.
