Today we’d like to introduce you to Corrbette Pasko.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’m a Chicago native who hates the cold and is trying to make a living in the arts. So I’m partially a masochist and partially delusional. Lemme back up a bit, though.
I did all of the prerequisite Performing for Parents In the Living Room When They Didn’t Ask You throughout my childhood. I then broke into the writing and publishing scene with my first book, “Kinkiness Is Happiness, Vol I” with my best friend in middle school. We printed up some copies on my mom’s Epson and handed them out to our friends. We had no idea what the hell we were writing about, having hardly even kissed anyone by that point, but I wasn’t gonna let a little thing like empirical knowledge or experience stop me from sharing my vision with my fellow seventh graders.
I was fortunate enough to attend The Chicago Academy for the Arts for my last two years of high school, and it was a transformative experience that I still see as one of the most influential on the person I’ve become (despite the fact that it was approximately 97 years ago). I had to choose a path when I auditioned, having been accepted into the Music department for clarinet and voice, and the Theater department for acting. I chose acting because…see first paragraph.
The Academy was still relatively new, and this was the 90s, so there is no internet evidence of any of our stupidity, and we were very much in the moment as teens. The result was a kind of beautiful anarchy, with kids performing “Marat/Sade” in the parking lot, smoking with the teachers, and constantly auditioning because those were excused absences. On top of that, the school sent us out for gigs to bring in money, so we just thought a career in the arts meant constantly working and getting paid. I booked my first TV gig at 16, so I thought I had this in the bag. Plus, my first field trip was an NEA rally, so fighting for arts to be funded was also a gimme (I thought). Listen, I was living with my mom and her super strange old-man boyfriend at the time, so the craziness of the school kind of balanced me out. He’s the one who helped pay for the school and gave me tons of fodder for both writing and therapy later on.
I chose not to run away to NYU for college out of pure fear. I stayed close to home at Millikin University but looked for ways to study abroad to get more distance. I also looked for a way to do that without spending any extra money, since I didn’t have any. I found that Millikin had a program that I never heard of where my financial aid would transfer, and I signed up immediately to go to London. Turns out, I never heard about it because there was no theater program. I found that out as I was getting ready to leave, so there was nothing to be done but make a program when I got there. A group of 5 theater students from across the country wrote a play together in London and shopped it around – not a bad program. We brought some instructors back to Millikin with us to tell our teachers about it, and the program continued to expand. The Institute of European Studies London still has a theater program, but I imagine it’s a bit more robust now.
Shortly after that, I did what every idiot did in the 90s upon graduating with a BFA, and I started a theater company. Will Act For Food took nonperishable food donations from audience members and gave them a discounted ticket in exchange. We then donated that food to a pantry or shelter in Chicago, pairing up with The Lakeview Pantry for the last few years of our existence. We lasted 12 years total before I decided I didn’t want to run things anymore, and then it turned out that no one did.
By that time, I had made my way into The Factory Theater, having performed in three shows before they asked me to be a member. I had already fallen in love with their brand of smartly stupid original work, so I was all in. This is where Sara Sevigny and I started writing plays together, including “The League of Awesome” and “Zombie Broads.” We’ve written 6 plays and are now working on two web series, “Corri and Sara Are Famous” and “Do I Like This?” We also have a YouTube channel, “Corri and Sara,” with our other series, “Get In the Car.” We’re essentially your middle-aged drunken aunts, talking to you about things like periods, peeing in public, underwire, and religion.
As I started writing more, I managed to bug Ian Belknap enough to let me do Write Club. Bugging Ian does not typically work as a strategy, so I’m not sure how I slipped past his defenses. He was likely asleep. I did well enough that I was invited back, and then I wound up winning a bunch (I’m currently 11-2), and am now helping to produce the show. It’s literature as blood sport, and I am working to get the new and vital voices of this city on stage there. It’s incredible to watch, and I hope it continues as our voices evolve. I’ve met some of the best writer=performers doing that show, and I love it. Samantha Irby, Megan Stielstra, Lily Be, Janna Sobel…all amazing people I met through this enterprise, and I’m proud to be a part of it.
Recently, I made my first foray into dramaturgy, working with Ike Holter on “The Light Fantastic” with Jackalope Theater. That solidified my love for original work, for storytelling, for Chicago storefront theater, for paying opportunity forward, and for the band Wings. True story.
I jumped out of the well-funded airplane of a law firm day job at the end of 2015. I now write everything from web content to marketing copy, and I started a business writing monologues for actors. I take acting gigs where I can, doing commercials and storefront shows, but writing seems to be the thing that pays my bills. Sometimes. When the check comes. Once I’ve invoiced. And asked a few times. And obsessively checked the mailbox. And apologized to my family for the life I’ve chosen. And scoured Indeed for an office job to return to. Right about then…I get paid.
I also sing in a couple of rock bands. In my spare time. Did I mention I have an amazing 6-year-old daughter and a husband who is a therapist and social worker? I hear they’re really nice. They live in my house, and I should try to see them sometime.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Oh. Oh my no, it hasn’t been smooth. That sounds boring. I’ve had a job since I was 15. While pursuing acting and writing full time, I worked in Intellectual Property law for 18 years. I was making great money, I was good at my job, and I was not so much burning the candle at both ends as routinely smashing it into bits and lighting the bits on fire to keep warm. I cried every morning before work. My husband, who had just left advertising after about 17 years to pursue social work, told me it was my turn. That I didn’t have to be miserable. Between that and the amazing network of friends and family we have here, I’ve felt very supported…
…and poor. Did I mention the part about how I used to make good money and now check my account and my mailbox like a dog watches the window for its owner? Cause. That’s my life now. Feast and famine, often within the same day.
Plus, scheduling is a huge challenge. I write, act, produce, sing, take side hustles, create my own work – anything I can. Because those all take different amounts of time, I never really know when I’m free and when I’m overbooked. My child has gotten very used to asking, “Who am I with tonight?” It’s hard. Fortunately, she’s the best kid in the universe, so I don’t have to worry about her too much. I expect my Parent of the Year mug to arrive any day now…along with that check for that last job I did.
Please tell us about Corri & Sara, The Factory Theater, and Write Club.
I work for a lot of different companies, and they each have their own wonderful attributes:
The Factory Theater produces all ensemble-written work; and has for 25 years. It is a family of wonderfully weird people, full of talent and drive and a desire to constantly do better for their members and the people who work with them. I love all of them like crazy.
Write Club puts writers to the test of live performance, which is different from the seemingly diary-opening practice of a lot of storytelling shows. It is visceral and hilarious and immediate in its satisfaction, despite having sweated about the 7-minute piece you wrote for three weeks in advance. Every piece I see makes me want to be a better writer, and every audience I face makes me want to win them over.
I also perform with “I Saw You,” a long-running hit show where we read actual personal ads from people in Chicago looking for love, hookups, or that jerk who hit their bike. It’s a beautiful freedom of whatthefuckery that only real source material can provide. Plus, it shows the wide range of humanity round these parts, and it’s a thing to behold.
My monologue business is a customized experience. I ask a series of questions to the actor, and I craft a monologue specifically for them to show what they want to whomever they want. I continue to tweak and edit the pieces at their request as we go through the process. I don’t stop until they’re happy.
Corri & Sara…now, see that right there? That’s me and my writing partner when we’re at our best. What sets me apart from everyone else is speed, My brain moves about a million miles a minute and lord knows where it’s going half the time, but I am thoughtful in how I decide which thing is going to make it out of my mouth or onto the page. My writing and my speaking tend to give people whiplash, but Sara is this great counterbalance to my crazy. She interprets me for other people, and I do the same for her. Her brain is also a scatterbox of lint and ideas like mine, but I can help sort it out for other people before they watch or listen too closely.
Every project we do together – whether it’s the tasting show “Do I Like This?” or our ridiculous escapades in “Corri and Sara Are Famous,” or plays like “The League of Awesome,” which you can purchase on Amazon RIGHT NOW – focuses on friendship. While we do fight really well, we aren’t fighting each other in these projects. We’re making a living as actors in our 40s, with friends who are all supportive as hell doing the same thing. We know some of the funniest and kindest motherfuckers around, and we want to do well so we can give them a platform, too. It’s an incredibly positive journey…while we’re probably singing Journey. Loudly. In Sara’s car.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
The sound of Junebugs. The smell of a cookout and the woods after it rains. Walking EVERYWHERE. Making up serial dramas at my friends’ houses by sitting in cars or pretending the bedrooms were hospital rooms. Having a pet duck. Getting another one. The quiet of living on top of a gravel hill.
Pricing:
- Write Club tickets – $12 in advance and $15 at the door
- Factory Theater tickets – $25 with special deals and pricing for seniors and students, plus industry rates
- Monologues – $50 for one customized piece, $90 for two
- I Saw You – 5 whole dollars
- The Fingerbangles at Martyr’s (8/22 and 10/12): $15
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.corrbette.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/corrbette/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/corrbette
- Other: ,http://thefactorytheater.com, http://www.youtube.com/c/CorriandSara, http://www.writeclubnation.com
Image Credit:
Evan Hanover, Joe Mazza
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