Episode 155: Meet award-winning storyteller and improviser Kevin McGeehan. In our interview, Kevin shares his improv journey in a touching, funny, and very honest way. He speaks about his love for his mother and other family members and has a huge heart! He is also a 9-time Moth StorySlam winner and the winner of the 2019 New York Moth GrandSlam Championship. https://themoth.org/ He grew up in Florida and right after graduating with a degree in Theatre from the University of Florida, Kevin moved to Chicago. He arrived in Chicago with $1000 and a dream. He got a job in the box office at Second City and began taking classes there and at IO.<
He recalled that Jordan Peele was starting there at the same time and his job was a host seating people. One of his roommates in his early years at Second City was TJ Jagodowski. They often spent their free time reading “The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy”. This book is a great resource that helped them increase their knowledge on myriad subjects. They made up a game where they’d flip through the book stop at a random page and ask, “Now tell me everything you know about Gettysburg.”
He tells us about his memory of the legendary Joyce Sloane and said of her, “When you got good news in your life the two women you call are your mother and Joyce Sloane, but not necessarily in that order.” He eventually transcended the box office and was hired as an actor. He was part of the Touring Company, where he performed countless shows, spread out over the entire U.S. and parts of Europe and South America. He became part of the teaching staff and taught from 2004-2020.
He shares a memory of Tina Fey, the first woman to break the glass ceiling in comedy when she became the first woman head writer at SNL. Tina initially felt like she’d achieved her goal, but the next day thought ’Now what?”
He was a member of the cast of the first touring company on cruise ships and enjoyed that for four years. We chatted about teachers who had influenced him, and he mentioned Mick Napier and Kelly Leonard. He also learned from his fellow classmates including Jack McBrayer. He took a class with the legendary Del Close and in the first class, he gave a monologue for Armando. He received such positive feedback from Del he decided to not complete the six-week course as he thought, “It will never get better than this!”
Kevin travels around the country giving his gift to audiences. His stories elicit so many feelings and he is definitely one of the best. Enjoy this podcast.
You can learn more and connect with Andrew through the links below: YouTube Channel: youtube.com/user/TheKevinmcgeehan
The Moth Mainstage – “It Matters a Great Deal”: https://youtu.be/Y9LJqx2k9aI
The “Same Haircut” Story for Soul Pancake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlh3nr-dDSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iytsOv7S7G0
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Interviews podcast‘ is introduced by Susan L. Parker of yourinternationalvoice.com