Alec Brown on Happy Accidents, Creativity, Trust, and Pumpkin Bread

This week's episode features Alec Brown.

Alec Brown is a content creator, writer, improviser, stand-up, and musical comedy entertainer. His latest project is the viral TikTok series “Challah At Ya Goy!”A play on words celebrating delicious bread and a Yiddish term for gentiles, “CAYG!” takes viewers on double entendre-laden two-minute riotous recipe revues that climax in tasty test fests: oy vey! 

In pre-Covid times, he co-wrote and co-starred in the musical comedy show Peter, Paul and Carly which played a dozen sellouts at NYC’s Duplex Theatre.  Alec has performed stand-up at venues like The Broadway Comedy Club and was invited to join Upright Citizens Brigade’s prestigious Academy. He appeared monthly in 2019 at the Peoples Improv Theater and has since become an Associate Producer at Story Pirates, specializing in children’s improv and writing. His voiceover work is featured on several episodes of their iHeart Radio Award-winning podcast; his sung vocals can be heard on their song “Cheese Quest.” He’s currently in the Writing Lab at The Groundlings.

Alec’s writing has been featured on numerous online platforms, most notably on theatre satire site The Broadway Beat (recently acquired by Coil with Reductress and The Hard Times). Articles include “Man Disappointed Nothing Spooky Happened After Seeing Beetlejuice A Third Time” and “Gazillion Bubble Show Faces Controversy After 6-Year Old Counts.”

During this episode we discuss…

• The ACTs and SATS
• Alec’s improv origin story
• The moment he realized improv was improving his life offstage 
• The benefits of improvising on focus and receptivity
• Paying attention
• If this is true what else is true
• Letting your guard down
• How improvising influenced his friendships 
• Alec’s go-to baked good to make for friends 
• Creativity 
• Happy accidents
• Performance blacking out
• Trusting other people while improvising versus trusting people in real life
• How improv has helped him with anger 
• Everything can be taken less seriously
• “Comedy brings joy and there’s nothing we need more in this world than joy”

From Alec, when asked how improv has improved his life offstage, “It's really trained me to listen to what others say in a broader spectrum (i.e.-tone, word choice, timing, and intention)”

Connect with Alec on Instagram and TikTok @challahatyagoy

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