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Kristina Martinez, 2019 FIST champion, is on WIT ensemble Uncle Gorgeous. She has toured the country with her duo with Neil Baron, Goodison. She was a former artistic director of Atlas Improv Company in Madison, Wisconsin. She is now a coach of many teams in DC. She’s an influencer, you could say, in the improv community.

Kristina sat down with Puss and Kooch to talk about running an improv theater in the Midwest, doing what she likes doing, and giving herself permission to have fun.

Kristina Martinez on Heavy Flo with Puss and Kooch

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. To hear everything Kristina has to say, listen to her podcast episode.

Getting comfortable in your craft

When I started doing improv, I always wondered, “Oh jeez, what’s everybody going to think when I say, ‘I do improv,’ or, ‘I own an improv theater.'” But I forgot that nobody really thinks about that. And when I get on stage, for whatever reason, I then give myself permission to not think about what everybody thinks. 

I think I did that out of survival when I first started doing improv. I just had to turn that part of my brain off and not think about what other people are seeing while I’m improvising. But then the more I did improv, the more I realized no one cares at all what this looks like or if I do improv or what that means to them. And if they do, it doesn’t matter. 

Improv is just fun. It’s what I’m choosing to do all the time. But it took a long time for me to figure that out.

Was there something that made that idea click for you?

When I started at Atlas, it was a boys’ club. I love all those boys, but it was a boys’ club, and it was also very white. I tried really hard to play like everybody else. I tried really hard to play like this 6’2″, mega-strong, physical player. I thought if I made choices like him, I’d get all these laughs because he was killing it. And it just didn’t make sense. That’s not me, and that’s not my vibe. I can’t manufacture his vibe. 

Kristina Martinez flexing like a 6’2″ dude-proviser

Especially when theater leadership started stepping down and I was put in charge of the company, that’s when I realized I had to do me. Otherwise, I was going to get exhausted.  

We’ll be really sad for a second. I used to have such a hard time running the theater. We would do shows and then do notes, and then I’d get in my car and just drive around Lake Mendota and cry. I was trying so hard to be the perfect artistic director and the perfect improviser and the perfect scene partner.  But I was doing it all under what I thought was supposed to work without letting myself listen to me.