We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Matt Vita. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Matt below.
Matt, appreciate you joining us today. Do you have an agent or someone (or a team) that helps you secure opportunities and compensation for your creative work? How did you meet you, why did you decide to work with them, why do you think they decided to work with you?
A huge step in my creative journey was when I signed with Avanti Talent Management. Within the first several months of working together I booked two co-star rolls on major networks and their team has always been amazingly supportive and continue to provide great acting opportunities! It has been a dream working with them and getting to the next stage of my acting career, which is one piece of the multi-faceted creative life I have carved out for myself, which also includes comedy, helping to produce several festivals, film production (our feature film Killington has been winning a string of awards on the festival circuit!), music creation and several coaching ventures!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I have been a performer my entire life. Ever since I was 13 I have played in punk and ska bands and around the same time I got really into hip hop music and started rapping. By 14 I was performing live rap songs, usually with a humorous angle which eventually grew into what is now a full time career performing stand up comedy with a unique splash of hip hop added into the mix. When I was 7 years old I also grew fascinated with the media of film and storytelling, and started making very weird and bad horror movies with my Dad’s VHS camera at my friend Phil’s house. 30 years later I would assemble a team to create a slightly less weird, and objectively pretty good dark comedy horror film, Killington, which is currently doing a successful run on the festival circuit. I have always been tickled by bringing people together and making people laugh, but i have concurrently always had a good sense for business – at the age of 5 I was running lemonade stands, in college I started a party planning business Double Down Party Planning, and I currently co-own a production company, as well as a teaching/coaching business that provides entertainment focused educational classes for everybody from business people to people who just want to build a little self confidence while having some laughs. My flagship offerings include the Improv For Business Professionals workshop, the PartyProv Experience, as well as individual one-on-one sessions.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I always try to grow and learn and bounce back better than ever when I encounter failure. At some point or another we all face rejection, more so than most when you are a self-employed creative, so dealing with letdowns with grace and knowing how to grow and learn from all experiences is critical.
Many years ago I was a performer on the Improv House teams at The Pit in NYC, and after what was objectively a very successful and rewarding 6 month run our team was disbanded and I was not asked back for the next season. I was at the time devastated, something which makes me laugh now, thinking how upset I was, but at the time it was a huge blow. However, sometimes I think a big shake up can really open up new opportunities, so instead of staying sad and defeated I used the newly available time to sign up for a Sketch Writing course at UCB, something I had never done at a place i had never worked with, and I also focused much more intensely on my stand up.
While not a direct result in the immediate future, looking back now with several years of hindsight I can trace this pivot to many of the successes I have had in the last few years. Even though it was only a sketch writing course this was the first step that lead to me writing longer narrative pieces and began my journey into film production!
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
It sounds cliche, but life is short, and sometimes people take things too seriously so I always hope to inspire people to see the lighter side of things, and create environments where we can even laugh and grow from the darker sides of life.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mattvita.com
- Instagram: @BigDawgNY1
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MatthewJVita/videos
- Other: www.gnarbois.com www.vermontcomedyfestival.com www.vermontfilmfestival.com