Credit: Act II Playhouse.
Michael Jastrotch joined Act II in 2024. As the founder of ColdTowne Theater and the Austin Sketch Comedy Festival, he played a crucial role in the explosive growth of the Austin, Texas, comedy scene from 2005 to 2020.
He has received numerous awards for his work, including “Best Comedy Group” in the Austin Chronicle Readers Poll and the B. Iden Payne Award for “Outstanding Improv Ensemble.” His projects have won Best of Fest at the Lone Star Sketch Festival and the Frontera Fringe Festival, and he has been featured in Splitsider and the Huffington Post.
He recently sat down for a Q&A about his experience working at the Ambler theater.
Describe what it is that you do as Director of External Relations
In a nutshell, I’m responsible for our fundraising efforts and community outreach, which means that some days, I’m reaching out to our incredible donors to thank them for their generous gifts, and other days, I’m attending Chamber of Commerce events, writing grants, or hunched over a spreadsheet with a lot of numbers on it. I’ve only been here less than a year, but I’m loving getting to know our patrons and community!
In addition, you also teach Improv at the Playhouse. Can you tell us a bit about your classes?
A lot of people assume that improv classes are high pressure affairs where you get put on the spot and shamed if you’re not funny or quick witted. The truth is that, when it comes to improv, trying to be funny can ironically actually get in the way of you being funny.
Here’s the way I look at it: improv is just playing pretend, the same way you did as a little kid. The problem is a lot of the tools we had as little kids that allowed us to connect in this way – a sense of wonder, merriment, and risk taking – get rusty as we age. The classes help us knock off that rust, and when we do we discover that when we play pretend as adults, with all our interesting grown up life experiences, the end results are funny – even without you even trying!
If you can have fun and use your imagination, you can be good at improv. Don’t believe me? I’m putting my money where my mouth is and teaching a free class April 28th at 7pm at the Playhouse.
What has been your favorite production you have seen at Act II Playhouse?
I’m still the new guy here, so my references don’t run too deep. That said, I’m a sucker for a good comedy and two productions stand out.
First off, watching Tony put together his An Act of God performance was a revelation. I loved watching Tony work night after night to tweak his performance, doing the work to get all the laughs every single time. Talent’s great, but that level of craftsmanship is infinitely more impressive to me. The Outsider was also an amazing production with a murderer’s row of talent. The whole cast crushed it, but Peter and Sabrina and John – those three did a great job of creating these thunderously large comedic characters that were somehow at the same time completely grounded.
But everything I’ve seen here so far has been wonderful. Which makes my job very easy!
