ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: HAILEY TOLLESON
STEVE: Thank you for doing this artist interview. I’ve admired your hilarious mind for years now and have been very fortunate to do a lot of different things with you when I was in Blackout Theatre. I’ve always been curious as to how you got your start doing live performance?
HAILEY: Well first off thanks, that’s very nice of you to say. I've kinda flirted with performing for a while and felt like I had a hard finding my place. It wasn’t till i took improv CNM that I really fell in love with it. That introduced me to not only how wonderfully goofy everything can be but also insanely intelligent, funny, and creative people. And they also think I'm those things! And I’m so grateful!
STEVE: That’s great that improv could unlock those feelings and opportunities for you. Now, we’ve done a few sketch shows together as well. What differences do you see between how you create while performing improv and how you create sketch comedy?
HAILEY: So I thought about this a lot, maybe too much? Generally speaking, I see improv as making the basics of storytelling habitual and a lot of the comedy comes from the weird ways you fill in the gaps and awareness at just how weird they are. When it comes to sketch comedy, there’s so many directions things can go. I usually go on walks or research the theme, if there is one, and from there it’s kinda like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. If your collaborators start riffing, you're probably on the right track. I love feedback, even the stuff isn't directly applicable or comes from a misunderstanding is super helpful. In my experience, the things you have the most fun writing are things people most enjoy watching.
STEVE: You mentioned going on walks and doing research as parts of your writing process. Are there any other things that you do to get the creativity flowing in any of your artistic pursuits?
HAILEY: Sure! I also enjoy listening to music while I work or sometimes looking up inspiration pictures. Although you have to be careful not to get too lost in finding the right things that you don’t actually write. I’m a part of a few writing groups, some provide writing prompts. Even if you have an idea sometimes they can add a little depth or an approach you may not have considered. And if I’m being completely honest, I daydream at work quite a bit and a lot of times, as you go a bout your day, little answers or ideas will pop up. I think a lot goes back to just being open.
STEVE: That’s so intriguing. I like how you have so many random things that can just strike you and inspire you. I feel like if we were to look in your notes app on your phone, we would see a million things that sound wild out of context, but make perfect sense to you. Am I close to how you keep track of all your ideas or do you just try your best to remember the random thoughts you have throughout the day?
HAILEY: I do have very chaotic notes app notes but it’s bold of you to assume they make perfect sense to me. I have a bad habit of not like naming the notes so sometimes I’m just sifting through untitleds. I’m also a big fan of just write things by hand. Unfortunately, my notebooks also end up a bit disorganized. Sometimes i just try to remember things, but I've lost some probably good stuff that way.
STEVE: Thank you for letting me pick your brain about your art. Before we go, I would just like to touch on a recent reading of a full-length play you wrote. Could you tell us a little about what that experience was like both in the writing process and hearing it performed?
HAILEY: Of course! Writing kinda got off to a little bit of a rocky start, but it got a bit easier once I gave myself a little space to figure out what the story was. I shared it with a few friends. One of them, who happened to be a part of Blackout [Theatre Company], was excited about it so we opened it to up to a public reading. I was definitely nervous, but felt the script was in good hands. The audience seemed to have a lot of fun with it and it’s also interesting to see [what] stuck out to them. I mostly had fun and only felt a tiny bit sick.
STEVE: Well, I'm glad you had a good first reading for your play! Hailey, thank you so much for letting me take your photos and do this interview with you. It truly was a lot of fun. I wish you the best on all of your future artistic endeavors! Do you have anything you’d like to promote?
HAILEY: Thank you so much for including me. I hope your creative endeavors go well. I guess go checkout Blackout Theatre! We have a 247, a Nite School Episode, and a production of Santa Beva coming up this spring. Should be a lot fun!
