INTERVIEW: Off-Broadway improv show sends emails to strangers
Photo: Email Pro is created and performed by Ivan Anderson. Photo courtesy of The Tank / Provided by Matt Ross PR with permission.
Email Pro, a theatrical experience from New York City’s The Tank, features creator/performer Ivan Anderson writing and sending emails to strangers. The comedic results offer a biting commentary on the humor that can be found in digital communication. Some of these virtual missives include parodies of spam, parodies of self-help, absurd distortions of what it’s like to be a person, and frantic attempts to tell the truth and be helpful, according to press notes.
The only thing better than sending emails to strangers is watching Anderson do it via a webcam. Email Pro used to be presented in person at The Tank, and now it’s part of their virtual programming.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Anderson about his email performance art. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
Where did the idea for Email Pro come from?
I invented Email Pro without realizing it at first because I was just sending out a bunch of weird, random emails to my friends multiple times a day. This was a couple years ago. I was working full-time as a copyeditor and having an identity crisis, and the way I got through it was by sending short, vaguely hostile emails to my friends for no reason. It was just something they had to deal with, but they encouraged me to turn it into an email newsletter. I was resistant to that for a long time, but then I did it. And not long after we turned it into a live performance where I enroll people in the newsletter in front of an audience.
How has the show been adapted for a virtual audience?
Anyone watching can leave a comment or engage in the chat while the show is going, which ends up being a major source of material. I really love the way my chat audience has taken over the show. Since switching to livestreams I started bringing on special guests. I’ve been lucky to have comedians like Myq Kaplan, Liz Glazer, Zahid Dewji and Chris Duffy do the show, in addition to Jeff Manian, my recurring costar.
Is everything improvised? How do you think so fast on your feet?
Yes, the whole thing is improvised. In terms of thinking fast, I come from a music background, and the whole thing with improvising is to play what you hear in your head — not to play what you think is gonna be cool, just play what you already hear, somewhere in the back of your mind. So I try to do a version of that with the emails — I’m not trying to say stuff I think will be funny; I’m just saying the stuff that I’m already wondering in my head.
Do you generally like the ’email culture’ and ‘text culture’ we find ourselves living in?
I mean, I don’t ever think to myself, ‘Wow I love doing emails and texts. This culture is definitely good.’ But I can’t bring myself to say I’m against it. It rules my life. I’m powerless to oppose it.
How long will Email Pro run at The Tank, and do you hope to perform the show in front of a live audience again?
Email Pro runs indefinitely at The Tank. Our destinies are intertwined. As for live audiences, yes, I miss them with all my heart. I haven’t gotten a real laugh in a long time. Every time I finish a livestream alone in my apartment, I think, OK cool, I wonder if I bombed.
When did you first fall in love with theater and comedy?
My mom is a playwright, so I guess theater was there from day one. As for comedy, I think the first stand-up special I saw that made me realize you could make that into a bigger statement, a work of art or whatever, was Eddie Murphy’s Delirious.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Email Pro is now available through The Tank’s virtual programming. Click here for more information.
