Meet Carla Cackowski | Improviser, Writer, and Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Carla Cackowski and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Carla, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
I’ve discovered over the years that it’s vital for me to have a creative practice that I’m not trying to monetize. Because I’m constantly putting effort into making money as a performer and writer and director, I also need to create things that have no value to anyone but me. There was a run of years when I was younger where all the art that I did was an attempt to “level up” in my career. It burnt me out and I didn’t want to do anything but sleep. Then I taught myself how to play guitar and suddenly I had the energy and inspiration to put back into the creative career I wanted to build. I still play guitar five or six days a week for about an hour. It’s time that I carve out for myself where I can be bad and fail and make something that nobody else needs to see or hear if I don’t want them to see or hear it. It’s a meditative practice that allows me to focus on the process and not be concerned by the outcome. It’s a small thing but vital thing I do for myself to stay balanced.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I studied acting in college in Chicago but when I moved to LA, I quickly realized that I would have a hard time waiting around for someone to decide if I was right (or not) for a project. I started taking improv classes at Second City LA and that’s where I discovered a new way of getting my work out there. I didn’t have to wait around for someone to cast me, I could cast myself!

Improv gave me the confidence to share my own ideas and comedic voice and I began writing and directing the kind of stories I wanted to tell. Los Angeles can be a lonely town but becoming enmeshed in the LA improv scene (Second City, iO West, and UCB) gave me a community to call home. It also led to a career as an improv teacher and performer. My husband and I are in a two-person improv show called “Orange Tuxedo” and we are lucky to tour the world performing and teaching improv as a career.

My biggest challenge as a creative is that I constantly struggle with the idea of “success” in Los Angeles. Am I doing the “right” stuff to get me where I want to be? Do people want to watch what I’m doing? Am I doing enough?! I mean, there’s a lot of neuroses at play. And honestly, I don’t have answers to any of those questions. I only know that I’m compelled to keep going because I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else.

I’ve been fortunate to find some incredible collaborators in the LA improv community. This year I released a season of a podcast that I wrote and produced called, “Episodical: The Search for Bebe Kimball”. I took a real storyline from “Days of Our Lives” and created a true crime parody meets daytime soap opera fan fic based in that world. I wouldn’t have been able to complete it without my improv friends lending their hilarious voices to the project (including former SHOUTOUT LA participant, Amanda Blake Davis!) And then, this January I’m releasing a new podcast with my longtime improv friend and collaborator, Robyn Norris. It’s called “The Bravo Bubble”, and it’s a chat show where she, a Bravo expert, teaches me, a “Real Housewives” neophyte, all about the ins and outs of that cultural phenomenon.

I love collaborating with others to create things for audiences to enjoy and, hopefully, find some sort of kinship in. We’re all in this together, so let’s find the good in each other and make some fun stuff out of the nonsense of our day to day lives!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’m originally from Kentucky and whenever anyone from home asks me how I can live in such a big city with so much traffic, I always tell them there are amazing, unique places to visit in each little section of LA! A friend recently came to visit, and we drove from Culver City (where I live) to Eagle Rock so that we could grab pastrami sandwiches at Oinkster before heading down the street to catch a screening of a classic film at Vidiots. Even just walking around the old school video/DVD rental store in Vidiots is a fun activity! We got our pictures taken in their photo booth and browsed the DVD aisle, reminiscing about how fun it used to be to rent videos together on weekends when we were in high school. Another thing that I love taking visitors to is the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City. It’s this unique little place filled with oddities from the past (that may or may not be factual). Ricky Jay’s decaying dice collection is a highlight, and you can’t leave before going to the rooftop garden for tea and dove watching. And then, for a completely different vibe, I like to take friends to Venice, grab Fairfax sandwiches from Eggslut, and walk over to the Venice Beach Skate Park just off the boardwalk to watch some of the greatest skateboarders in the world do skate tricks with the ocean in the background.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d like to give a shout out to the good folks that are building a new theater in Highland Park called, “Outside In Theatre”. Daniel Blinkoff and Tamlyn Tomita founded the theater company and I’ve been performing there for the past six months. I’ll be teaching an improv class there in the new year. Matthew Pitner, Paul Hungerford, Jessica Hanna, and Arlo Sanders are some of the creatives working hard behind the scenes. They’ve been been pouring lots of love into creating community for this new space. The shows have been working out of a black box space on York Street for the past year and once the main theater next door completes construction in 2025, they will have a state-of-the-art performance space featuring new plays from diverse playwrights. I’m really excited for them and hope your readers will go check out and support this non-profit theater. www.outsideintheatre.org

Website: www.carlacackowski.com, www.orangetuxedoimprov.com

Instagram: @carlacackowski, @thebravobubble

Image Credits
Brian Parillo
Ian Zandi
Amanda Blake Davis
Andy Batt Photography