We recently connected with Lisa Vanarsdale and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lisa, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I currently have a one woman show called “Lisa Joins A Cult.” Not technically stand up, but definitely comedy. I love to visit cults and it’s been a hobby of mine for years. I love to do it because 1. I love people and I love crazy, and I love experiencing groups of people who are together because of a common interest or belief. (This could run the gamut from a religious group to attendees at a convention to a nudist group) and 2. I was raised very religious, so it’s a constant unpacking and comparing and contrasting of what they’ve been told versus what I was told in my own religious upbringing and looking for the good in that while also practicing critical thinking.
It won’t let me scroll up to see what I already wrote. Eek. Sorry if this gets redundant as a result. Anyway, a local producer was impressed by life choices and offered to produce a one woman show for me. In our first meeting I wouldn’t shut up about my Mormon underwear, so we decided the show would be about visiting cults. Oddly enough, this fulfilled a “prophecy” given to me by a “prophet” who spoke in tongues over me at a charismatic church in Jamaica years earlier who told me someday I’d have a show about all the religious communities I visit. So far only two of his prophecies have been fulfilled so I’m skeptical! haha
The show gets edited and evolves a bit each time I perform it, and so far every round of performance at a different venue has felt like a very separate and different experience. But in the show I talk about my experiences with ten or so different religious communities while going through a list of characteristics of cults, highlighting groups that, even if they’re not typically thought of as a cult, are shining examples of a particular characteristic. My visits with these groups are some of my most fulfilling and treasured memories, so it’s great to be able to tell those stories. I think they’re stories worth sharing.
I had WAY too much potential story/material for one show, and was struggling to decide what would make it into the show. So my podcast by the same name is a byproduct of that creative process. The podcast is bare-bones, scatter-brained, sloppy storytelling, the “shitty first drafts” Anne Lamott talks about. I get out alllllll the stories and anecdotes about a particular group in each episode, and that 1. gave a home to stories that seem worth sharing but didn’t make the cut for the live show script and 2. allowed me to sift through all of the everything to decide what should make it into the script.
Comedy is a hobby that occasionally pays, and not something I have full-time professional aspirations/delusions about. I’m a firm believer based off lived experience that it’s important to have creative outlets that are NOT about generating income. Visiting culty groups is also a hobby (which I love more than I could ever consider loving standup, I prefer connection over attention) and I think the closest I’ve ever come to wanting to take something in comedy seriously enough to make it generate income on an ongoing basis is the marriage of those two hobbies in the form of this show.
Lisa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
When I was in my twenties and living in New York, I was blessed to see a lot of live comedy for little to no money. I saw some of the greats on a regular basis, people who now have Netflix specials and are becoming household names. I also spent a lot of time with them, making not great decisions with them, and collecting traunatic experienceslike baseball cards. Being seen with them, people would often assume I was a comedian or question why I wasn’t a comedian. Like you’re not allowed to exist in the proximity of these people unless you’re trying to emulate them. I didn’t want to do something as vulnerable as trying something new on stage while near them, or near anyone who knew me via them, and I didn’t want to do anything that would place me in the same category “comedian” as them. It wasn’t until I took a job on a cruise ship in Australia that I felt enough away and safe enough to give standup a try. The Aussie comedians working the ships really held my hand and supported me thriugh those early standup opportunities, and several of them made me promise to keep pursuing it when I went home to the US. It was only to keep that promise to them that I started going to open mics in the States. Several years later, I still have no interest in a career specifically in standup, but “Lisa Joins A Cult” feels incredibly right. And the people who respond during Q and A after the show who seem to be experiencing catharsis because of trouble in their own religious upbringings/faith journies are exactly the people it’s for.
As for what I want people to know…it’s important to get to know people who do things differently than you. Who believe differently than you. You can see the humanity in a cult member and understand how they got to where they are while also not being okay with the problematic behaviors. If whatever you believe, whether you’re a fundamentalist Christian or a staunch atheist or something in between…if what you believe doesn’t make you more curious and willing to ask questions and try new things and look for the goodness in others and be more loving…it’s probably not a belief worth holding on to.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Stop pressuring everyone to monetize their creativity. In late stage capitalism, and in a world where billionaires are hoarding resources and most millennials and anyone younger don’t really have a prayer of owning a home, it’s understandable why we would want to turn anything we try into a side hustle. But that’s not what creativity is for. Adding the obligation of income and the accountability of quality to the freative process sucks the life force out of it. Create because you enjoy the process, because it gets something that’s inside of you to the outside where it needs to be. Not because you think other people will like it or give you awards or pay you for it. Most of what I’ve done creativity-wise will never be seen by another pair of humsn eyes, because I did for nobody but me. Let your art, if it’s fulfilling for you to make it, be bad/mediocre.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Self-fulfillment and making the world a better place along the way. I think any other goal would be a waste of creativity.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lisajoinsacult.com
Image Credits
friends took them for posterity, the logo i created myself