“Parks and Recreation” star and author of the new memoir “Yes, Please,” Amy Poehler, was Howard Stern’s guest on his Sirius/XM show Monday. Among the topics they discussed was Poehler’s time in Chicago.
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Here’s a bit of what the former ImprovOlympic (now iO Theater) player and Second City touring company member had to say:
Why she moved to Chicago early on instead of New York or L.A.
I started doing improv at Boston College and started getting into that and loved improvising. And so I heard about Second City and this place called ImprovOlympic, which ended up being very instrumental. It was the place where [Chris] Farley started and Mike Myers, and Del Close ran the joint…I knew their work. Chris Farley was kind of the senior. He was was leaving [for SNL] when I was getting there. Years later I found out that we rented the same apartment…He was amazing and he had this really heartbreaking thing about him, which is he could never quite see how funny he was being. Like, he would kill and then he would go backstage and just kick the wall.”
How she teamed up with Tina Fey
We were put together by this woman, Charna Halpern, who runs [iO]…and she just introduced us and we were fast friends. We were on improv team together so we would improvise together. Once you do that with someone and you don’t fail miserably, you love them. Because anytime someone doesn’t bail on you in front of an audience, you love them.
Why she did very little standup in Chicago and elsewhere
I didn’t hate it. I needed to work at it and it’s so much work. I got more satisfaction out of doing stuff in an ensemble with other people.
