Rising Stars: Meet James Mastraieni of Los Feliz/East Hollywood

Today we’d like to introduce you to James Mastraieni.

Hi James , we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
The Covid pandemic had obviously devastated live comedy in Los Angeles. I had gone from performing multiple nights and teaching 25 – 30 hours a week to being stuck in my one bedroom apartment wondering if live comedy would ever exist again.

I found myself really missing that connection to the students and the material so in January of 2021, once it was safe to crawl out of our bunkers I began to teach weekend drop in improv classes in Glendale at a tiny dance studio. After a while my drop in classes began to grow as more and more improvisers wanted to get back into the art form. At first it was just a way of getting back into comedy shape for when our usual home “The Upright Citizen’s Brigade” opened back up.

But things really changed for many of us when private equity sank its poisonous little fangs into UCB, just like it had with most other comedy institutions. I didn’t feel like there was a place for me and many like me at a theater that prioritized profit motives, exploitation and expansion. Let’s keep those things where they belong like in health care, housing and education. Leave comedy alone! After spending fifteen years at UCB, I decided I wanted to be a part of a new place. I started The Shared Experience Studio with the help of three of my former students and now peers (P.J. McCormick, Dayna LoBosco and Karen Baughn) in January of 2023.

The goal as a theater would be to center the comedic performers and their needs and allow them to have a voice at the theater. As a school we didn’t want it to become a stale assembly line that preyed on young performers’ dreams. It was to be an affordable and accessible comedy “think tank” that welcomed diverse perspectives on comedy as well establishing a true culture of mentorship for the younger generation of performers.

“The Shared Experience” has multiple meanings and is why we chose the name. Within our approach to comedy whether it’s improv, sketch, characters, etc, our guiding principle is “The Shared Experience” which is simply the abstract connective tissue between the performers onstage producing the comedy and the audience consuming it. We believe that because the purpose of comedy is to “get laughs” that it benefits the performers to consider the audience, what they’re experiencing and what they’re expecting based on the performer’s choices onstage. In order to communicate what is funny means you must understand how it’s being perceived and consumed.

“The Shared Experience” is also a phrase that describes the community and the collaborative process that is involved. From day one it was important to us that comedy, collaboration and community be the outward facing pillars of our studio. To be together and to create together is just as important as the outcome of the comedy we are producing.

Early on we produced a weekly Wednesday night show at Lyric/Hyperion. We had some really exciting and unique moments like Sir Patrick Stewart reading from his autobiography as a way to inspire improv scenes for the group “PAPER.” After a while we ended up moving our show to “The Yard”, a non profit theater on Melrose. Over the next couple of years we taught a bunch of classes and produced many shows. We did an outdoor show called “Sunset Social” that took advantage of LA’s beautiful weather as well as a Sunday night student show that allows any student to get onstage and cut their teeth in front of an audience.

Unfortunately, our home the last two years at “The Yard” is coming to an end. The non profit theater is unable to keep their doors open and our small but growing community is looking for a space of our own to continue. We are still a small operation with not a lot of capital. I personally took out a couple of loans to acquire a space but couldn’t get enough money to build it out. So we’ve started a GoFundMe to raise 25k to give us enough money to secure a space and turn it into a modest but exciting live venue and comedy school. Once we get it we will be able to produce shows most nights of the week and jump into our base curriculum as well as advanced classes. This will be a new chapter for The Shared Experience to have it’s own space born right here in Los Angeles.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I don’t know that any road is smooth in Los Angeles. Fix the potholes!
Like any venture in life it has had it’s ups and downs. The hardest part has been having a consistent place to perform and teach. We’ve spent the last two and a half years taking a more guerilla style approach to classes and shows. Finding and booking affordable venues that have openings has been tedious. Once we had our deal with The Yard it felt like we had some stability but now that The Yard has to close we are looking for a place to call our own. No surprise here but capital is also always an issue. Putting together shows that end up losing money can be frustrating. But that’s life in the arts. Money in the arts is spent a lot easier than it is acquired. It’s all worth it every time you get to be a part of a cool show with a comedy legend or watch a student who has been working hard in the classroom, crush it onstage in front of an audience. Those moments make any kind of adversity worth it.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in live comedy, specifically improvisation and sketch. I’ve been performing live comedy in Los Angeles for the last 21 years. I was a regular performer and teacher and coach at three of the big institutions “The Upright Citizen’s Brigade” “Second City” and “iOWest”. I was also a talent evaluator and show room manager at The Improv on Melrose for a while and taught some comedy acting at The Beverly Hills Playhouse where I also studied.

As a teacher and coach because of my experience at different institutions, I believe I have a well rounded and pragmatic approach. I’ve taught and coached over 20,000 hours and feel like there’s no style I can’t comprehend. Want to be truthful? Want to be silly? Want to do satire? Need help on the writing side? Need help on the acting or performance side? I feel competent to help with it all. Actually, I take that back. I can’t help with musical comedy, impersonations or anything involving flips or acrobatics. Maybe I’m not as competent as I thought.

I’m probably most proud of nurturing an environment where the performers and students want to show up for both themselves and each other. Words only go so far and through our actions we are trying to build trust and to show our community of performers that we truly are trying to create something special. As a result people keep showing up, doing funny shows and pushing themselves in our classes to get better. That means on some level our actions are working and I’m proud of that. Once upon a time, I was a part of a really cool comedy community here in Los Angeles. We performed, wrote, hung out a lot and supported each other. It was a third place for us and a lot of the younger generations of performers didn’t get to experience that. My hope is to be a part of something like that again.

What sets us apart from other theaters onstage is our philosophy of “The Shared Experience” as well as our focus on the traditional theories and structures of comedy. The beautiful thing about The Shared Experience is that as long as you are enveloping the audience into your show you are never limited to any one style of comedy. You can do grounded comedy, surrealist or absurdist comedy, game based comedy, relationship based comedy or something experimental. It’s all predicated on the idea of making sure the audience is in on the predictive process of expectations.

We also teach different theories of comedy, specifically incongruity theory and benign violation theory as a part of helping our students understand how comedic expression works and how to structurally approach it. We focus on the nuances of being a human being in a comedy scene. Comedy is made by humans, for humans and about humans. We try to help our students understand the complexity and benefit of tapping into the humanity of comedy and answer the question “What is so funny about being a person?”

Offstage what sets us apart is our culture of collaboration and community. Even without a space we have a “community committee” planning monthly events. Our goal is to not only foster community in our own space but to eventually someday offer community outreach across Los Angeles and set up events for others. Improvisers are experts in collaboration and community and we plan on having that be as much a part of our studio as comedy.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
The most important lesson I’ve learned along the way is that my many weaknesses are others’ strengths. We are all better when we drop our egos and allow others to step into their strengths. I can’t do this all by myself and absolutely don’t want to. I’m in constant awe of the various talents of the members of our community and I’d be foolish to think I always know best. Listening and considering what others are thinking and giving them agency is the path. I may have started “The Shared Experience” but over time as it grows and develops it will live up to its name because it is not about me, it is about all of us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thesharedexperiencestudio.com
• Instagram: @thesharedexperiencestudio
• Facebook: @thesharedexperiencestudio
• Other: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-build-our-comedy-studio-dream

Image Credits
Sonya Katarina
Luke Wink-Moran
Evan Perkins
Lehr Beidelschies