“The Set” With Kevin Allison
[photo by Gene Silvers]
You might know Kevin Allison as a member of MTV’s legendary comedy troupe, “The State”. After a few years of soul-searching, Allison has now found his niche. He’s now selling out theaters and winning awards with his Live Show and Podcast, “Risk!. ” The podcast features Allison and his guests telling stories they never thought they’d dare to share in public, and it’s the number 1 live podcast in NY. It’s loved by critics everywhere and 11 million downloads prove that listeners are crazy about Risk!. RJ Waldron got to talk with Kevin about “The State” and “Risk!” for “The Set” our series of conversations with great comedians.
RJW: In your early twenties you joined up with some amazingly hilarious fellow NYU students: Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, Ken Marino to name a few, and The State was born. How did you guys find each other and what was that like?
I decided I’m not stalking that boy anymore because I think he likes girls, but I AM going to start stalking that comedy group because I want in!
RJW: You guys pretty much wrote, performed, directed, and edited all of your work on your own, at such a young age. How did that impact the comedy?
Kevin Allison: You know, we considered the chemistry between the eleven of us very, very precious. So, half of us were acting students and half were film making students at NYU, so we adopted this “do it yourself attitude” from the beginning. When we got to MTV, we said, “No, no, no, no, no we want to be the people literally sitting there editing the sketches because we know that even 1/24th of a second might make a joke funnier depending on how it is edited. And, since we’ve be doing that stuff at school we know how to direct because we’ve been taking directing classes and making our own projects. And we know how to find the costumes and…” We wanted our hands on absolutely everything. Now the only problem was that MTV didn’t really want to pay us to do all of those jobs, but we said “Whatever. We’ll take low pay, but still be the folks that are doing the directing, the editing, the acting, the writing, everything.” That sort of organic all-in-the-family approach meant that we were kind of living and breathing the show 24/7. It really gave the show an extremely distinct sensibility. You could really feel our personalities. The kind of joking around that we would do, the inside jokes just between us, were coming out in the show. I think that to this day, people still react to that. When people see the DVDs of the show they say, “Yeah, this does have a different energy than any other sketch comedy that was being done at that time. It’s very young, and creative, and smart, and absurdist and particularly kind of American.” To this day, we’re all still very, very proud of The State.
RJW: It’s so genuine, too. When you’re saying your inside jokes made it to the air, that’s what made it all so funny, so real.
Kevin Allison: Yeah, for example a sketch like “Barry and Levon: $240 Worth of Pudding” that came out of the fact that MTV gave us this huge catalog of all of their music videos that we could just press a button and access. At one point we just got addicted to watching everything that Barry White had ever done. We were just loving Barry White, just obsessed. Especially Tom [Lennon] and Michael [Ian] Black who began talking like him one day at the office until they just knew they had to write some of this down. It’s that sort of joking around together that really solidified the sketches that ended up on TV.
RJW: So, tell me about your podcast and live show, RISK!
I was also dealing with a tremendous amount of stage fright and social anxiety.
It was Michael Black who had always suggested to me that I start sharing my own true stories on stage. We used to do these “check-ins” in the morning at MTV. It was the first half-hour of the day, where we would all say how we were feeling about our lives. It was a half hour that we could be genuine and emotional because we spent the rest of the day kind of roasting each other and mean-spiritedly competing with one another. Everyone always said that I had the best check-ins because the group would hang out 24/7. They would hang out at night after work. But, since I was the only gay one, I’d be out “adventuring.” I’d be checking out sex clubs and stuff like that. Just getting myself into all kinds of crazy trouble. So they loved my stories and Michael would always say that I should just tell those on stage. I always thought that seemed way too risky. In 2008, I did another show of characters and at that point I was 39, and I thought ‘I don’t want to turn forty and not have found the next thing after The State’. Everyone else has found their next thing and here I was out in the wilderness. After that show at the San Francisco Sketch Fest, and afterwards Michael said to me, “I still think, after all of these years, that you should drop the act and start telling your own stories.” And I said to him, “Michael, there are too many parts to me that aren’t what Hollywood would get or like. They don’t add up to a nice palatable, accessible guy. I’m too raunchy and kinky. But at the same time, I’m too Mid-Western and friendly and polite. And then at the same time, too absurdist. And then at the same time…” And I finally just said, “It’s too risky.” And he said, “Kevin, that’s the word. If it feels risky, then you are probably opening up and the audience will open up to you.”
I told my prostitution story. And she was right, the audience lit up.
RJW: So, I know that you do storytelling coaching with The Story Studio. I’ve always been told that I tell horrible stories. Do you have a quick tip for me?
Kevin Allison: There are a lot of common problems that people have when they are new to storytelling. What I suggest is that before you start telling the story, you quickly say to yourself, “What is the main event? What is the incident, the bit of drama that will make me arrive somewhere slightly different in the end?” For example: the moment of achieving success, or the moment of facing failure, or your eureka moment when you realize I’ve been doing the wrong thing all along. Think of that climactic event and then make sure that everything you are saying as you walk toward that event is setting your audience up so they know emotionally and logistically more and more why that happened the way that it did. Thinking of where you are going to arrive will help you stay focused on building in the most relevant and the funniest moments.
Catch up on Kevin Allison! Here’s How:
- Listen to Kevin and his guests tell their darkest secrets in past episodes of RISK
- Subscribe to RISK on iTunes
- Get tickets to see RISK on tour in LA, NY, Pittsburgh, Boston and Washington DC
- Take Classes with Kevin to learn Storytelling!
Read more original interviews. And visit our home page for the latest comedy news, interviews, and more.
Read more ‘Short Set’ interviews with Greg Fitzsimmons, Jimmy Shubert, Marina Franklin and more.
Latest posts by RJ Waldron (see all)
- Trevor Moore from ‘Whitest Kids U’ Know’ Talks About His New Comedy Special With Dancing Girls, a Band, Special Guests and….. Cats? - March 4, 2015
- The Set: Scotland’s Daniel Sloss: Why M.U.F.F. is Better Than C**T, His First Super Bowl, and Other Funny Things - February 24, 2015
- Talking with Kurt Metzger About His Emmy Nomination - August 21, 2014