Rising Stars: Meet Becky Poole

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Becky Poole.

Hi Becky, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was born and raised in a small town in southern MN called Mankato (it has a horrible yet should-know history, Dakota 38 + 2, google it).

I spent 18 years coddled safely in the same bedroom, then moved to NYC, where people made fun of me for making their Subway sandwiches with too much care. I studied acting at NYU (predictably) and stayed doing experimental theatre and different forms of comedy, and I generally got schooled for a decade.

In NYC, I performed voraciously with the all-female sketch comedy group MEAT. We were fierce and political and, dare I say, ahead of our time. I dare! I also met and started performing with my best friend (yes, I’m an adult) and writing partner, Noelle Romano, in a comedy/music duo called Becky & Noelle.

We all toured the country, making art from cardboard, sweat, and tears. I met so many amazing humans doing sketch festivals in the early to mid-aughts. It was this beautiful moment before everything was online when people traveled to various cities to share live shows, ideas, and dreams. So many of us stayed in touch. We know it happened, even if you can’t find it on YouTube.

After a decade in NYC, I moved to Seattle to focus on experimental performance and good-smelling air. I worked at the Pike Place Market selling lavender and had no internet or TV, so I wrote a solo play about neuroplasticity, Landau-Kleffner Syndrome, and Batman, which I toured on the Fringe. That city was special because it did not give a grunge about genre, “blend away!” it said. Put your peanut butter in my chocolate! I moved to Chicago and enjoyed working with the Chicago Children’s Theatre, Old Town School of Folk Music, Second City, The Adler Planetarium, and a touring immersive live-band version of “The Pirates of Penzance.” But it still felt like the Midwest, a place I had already decided to leave.

I moved to Los Angeles to be closer to friends and the animation voiceover industry and get into on-camera work. I’ve been lucky enough to engage with all that to varying degrees. In this vast desert city of unending rent hikes, I’ve performed with Couerage Ensemble, on TV with fake tats in “Girlboss,” as part of Gina Young’s salon Sorority, written and performed for various immersive and themed entertainment projects, been cartoon voices, and won a car on TV.

Los Angeles can feel pretty decentralized, but it has been so rewarding getting to play in its theatrical, musical, comedy, activist, queer, and performance communities. There is always something to look forward to. I also got my first real tattoo here at Supersweet Tattoos and Coffee. It’s a musical saw, ‘natch.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Creating a life out of performance is hard. Understatement of the forever. I come from a privileged position and am very lucky… yet it’s still hard. It’s made me question, “Who really am I?” at every transition. If I’m not acting/singing/producing/being funny/making sandwiches – am I really an actor/singer/producer/funny person/sandwich artist?

Creative folks must take all kinds of gigs to bring together a living. But as long as I can look over my life with a kind perspective, it’s also how I have culled together a life. That I mostly love! The flip side is that many thumbs in many pies can make me feel like maybe I should have stuck my whole hand in just one pie at some point. But there are so many flavors to lick!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe you can tell us more about your work next?
I started playing the musical saw in New York in 2001.

I’m not sure I knew this then, but I’d lost confidence in singing, and this was a way to find a new melodic voice. I took a lesson from the incomparable performance artist Cynthia Hopkins and, with a dynamite saw-playing co-worker at Blue’s Clues, Bob Charde. Bob let me borrow his son’s saw until we ordered one for me – from Mussehl & Westphal in WI – that one is still my favorite saw to play.

If I ever wake up with alcohol-induced anxiety (not so much anymore), I clutch my chest and think, “Sara! I’ve left her somewhere”. Her name is Sara. I’ve had incredible opportunities spring out of this niche musical skill.

From playing Central Stage with a UCBNY-based cover band, Stickerbook, to recording with rock, jazz, folk, and punk bands, to party performances at Dynasty Typewriter, with Rogue Artist Ensemble puppet shows, friends’ weddings, acting and playing in St Vincent and Carrie Brownstein’s “The Nowhere Inn,” to playing the voice of an old coffee can in the new narrative podcast “Hobo Code.” I also teach lessons (wink). And I want to do some large group saw stuff. DM me if you play!

Playing the saw also led me to write and perform feminist murder ballads. For me, that means contemporary stories of female/femme violence told in a traditional folk ballad format, with the female/femme point of view as the subject.

I love using my voice, and I’ve been a voice actor for over 20 years. Right before the strike, I was working in a new position I adored, voice directing for the animated series “Strange Planet” on Apple TV. I started as a script coordinator and records coordinator. By a stroke of luck and a showrunner who trusted me, that progressed into voice directing work. I enjoy voice coaching and directing because there is this intimate container to do big, deep work. Guiding exploration with actors to find new ways to use their voices and tell stories is collaborative magic. And you get multiple takes!

One of my first jobs in Los Angeles was a truly transformative experience. I was a teaching artist with the Unusual Suspects, an organization facilitating theatre workshops for incarcerated youth. Social justice and political activism have always been important to me, and being part of projects with that at their core is the ideal.

Some of the early work I did in LA that I’m proud of was producing live events for Shout Your Abortion, WRRAP, and Homeward LA. During the pandemic, I started a madeleine baking and delivery business called Becky’s MADeleines to raise funds for mutual aid groups. There were lots of angry puns. Defund the Figgies Pudding, Orange You Glad It’s Almondst Over, F*cking Relaxing Lavender Lemon – Ok, that last one is just a swear, not even wordplay, really.

A critic once wrote that I’m “a bizarre blend of perkiness and rage.” It still tracks. But I’d like to think the edges have softened and that my tools for The Rage have matured.

Any big plans?
I’m working on an album of new murder ballads and Americana songs with producer and friend Abby Posner. This album will be released in conjunction with a podcast about the entangled stories of Andrea Yates and Dena Schlosser, two women who killed their children in the early 2000s.

The album and podcast are called “The Ballad of Dena & Andrea” and will come out this Summer! It started as a theatre piece I put up at Highways in Santa Monica. I’m excited to share this iteration of the project, the songs, and the lush conversations that I was able to have with friends and colleagues about our broken health and justice systems, toxic religion, motherhood, postpartum psychosis, and empathy.

There is a short film premiering at Cannes this year titled “Unmasking” that I was in. It’s written by and starring Audrey Dundee Hannah and directed by Aubree Bernier-Clarke about masking autism and masking with masculinity. It’s terrific, and I got to play a crotchety yet curious waitress named Oona.

I’ll be playing King Lear in an upcoming production by Backroom Shakespeare, LA. This event is always a trip. No director, one rehearsal, at a bar, hilarity ensues. You can check it out on Instagram @backroomshakesla.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beckydpoole, https://www.instagram.com/i_saw_becky
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beckydpoole
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/beckydpoole/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckypoole
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BeckyPoole

Image Credits
Annie Lesser, Maureen Janson Heintz, @davidleesprague, Arin Sang-urai, Aviv Rubinstien, Logan Futej and David Baum