Today we’d like to introduce you to Kali and Janée Marie Meadows.
Hi Kali and Janée, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
We’re sisters, and people used to call us “the girls.” Growing up, we didn’t have any experience in theater. However, our family got a camcorder in the 90s, and we spent a year or two filming sketches. We created a real gem about an awkward teenager who visits her fashionable, chain-smoking, street-smart auntie and gets a makeover set to Mulan’s “I’ll Make a Man Out of You.” Looking back now, that was definitely the precursor to what would become Hot Metal Playground.
After that, we took a fifteen-year-ish hiatus — no biggie, we were going through puberty, but in between, a few more factors led us to join forces later as Hot Metal Playground. Janée was a big fan of The Monkees and learned about improv from reading Micky Dolenz’s biography. Kali was a big fan of sketch and comedy in general. Janée went to Columbia College Chicago, and when that happened, Kali would visit, and we’d watch a bunch of improv shows at iO West. Eventually, we moved to LA in the mid-2000s, and we’d like to say we instantly dove into comedy. Still, we took another decade-ish hiatus — no biggie, we were going through arrested development.
It wasn’t until 2014 that Kali finally decided she wanted to take a class at The Groundlings, but then freaked and left until she returned a year later. To sweeten the pot, Janée decided she wanted to try too, so we auditioned together. It has to be said to audition for the Groundlings, one must have a headshot, and with no theater or acting background, we shat our pants. So we nervously took each other’s headshots and just went for it. We honestly should’ve relaxed just a bit, but we had no idea what we were doing or how far we could get in the program. But we vowed to see how far we could go until someone stopped us; luckily, nobody has yet! We eventually graduated from their improv program; the pandemic hit, and then we returned to our hometown in Northern Michigan. It’s there that we had nothing better to do than throw ourselves all into Hot Metal Playground and found that humor and creativity helped us get through those tough times. Now we’re back and forth between LA and Michigan.
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?
On record, let it be known, Hot Metal Playground is made with tears. Tears of laughter? Yes. Tears of immense and crippling stress tears? A hundred percent. A typical day was balling our eyes out before and after improv classes. We both have strong and unique visions and strong and unique insecurities. So when it comes to Hot Metal Playground, figuring out how to execute and collaborate together leads to some juicy fights! Sometimes they happen in public at the Whole Foods cafe in Chatsworth; for which we’re sorry. So yeah, It’s been dealing with shame, self-acceptance, and embracing failures. The stuff of life that we wouldn’t trade for the world. And we both agree that we have magic together — we’ve even tried reading each other’s minds via telepathy, and it worked, and now we’re frightened.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We’d like to defer to our official bio on this one, “Hot Metal Playground is a hilarious sketch comedy team devised by two sisters, known for their character-driven sketches; Kali Meadows and Janée Marie Meadows. This duo has a knack for creating memorable and absurd characters that never fail to make audiences laugh. Whether they’re poking fun at the absurdities of everyday life or tackling more serious issues with a healthy dose of satire, Hot Metal Playground always manages to find the humor in any situation. With their clever writing and exceptional performances, Kali and Janée create sketch comedy like you’ve never seen.”
Also worth noting is that people describe us as having a “Weird midwest vibe.” While we don’t intentionally try to be weird, it just comes naturally. We created Hot Metal Playground to allow ourselves to experiment, mix and try new things, so our sketches can be fully scripted or entirely improvised, and often it ends up being a bit of both. Our process constantly evolves, but at the moment, we like to start with a loose idea and some key points we want to hit; from there, we just improvise and figure out the rest in the editing process, which often leads to discovering unexpected gems — and juicy fights!
One thing that sets us apart is that we do much of our own production. Others might emphasize the quality of filming and or sound. Although we recognize those areas are essential, we really like to put our efforts into makeup, props, costumes, and editing. For example, we did a sketch set in a RadioShack and made a bunch of employee bulletin board documents with jokes on them that no one would probably even read, but they’re there, and that’s what we call The Hot Metal Playground Extra Mile™! One document was from a manager notifying employees that their paychecks would be docked accordingly to the number of breakroom creamers they used in their morning coffee.
We love what we do and are unapologetically proud of our work, as all creatives should be. One highlight was writing a comedic commercial that aired on the It’s Always Sunny podcast. Hearing Charlie Day read our joke was surreal. We also recently did a live show with Andrew Dost from the band Fun, where we wrote a three-act play complete with original music numbers for our characters Gran & Boy. It was really fun, and we got to work with Andrew and the other amazing musicians, Al and Mike; it was a collaborative effort between us all. It was really special. And we’re also proud of our sketch “Asparagus,” a fan favorite we never expected to be. We just thought it would be a dumb bit about asparagus being phallic, but it became so much more — a grower, not a show’er.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
As children, we just liked to rial up the adults in our lives. Anything to ruffle their feathers. We’d puppeteer crotches of pants at the mall, making them talk, which really ticked off our mom. For some reason, Grandma hated when we’d refer to the bathroom as “the Vaja-John.” Probably because it sounded too close to the vagina and purposefully so, anyway, we did that A LOT. And then there was the time when Grandma’s friend offered Kali a Moist Meaty dog treat that resembled a raw ground beef patty. When Kali declined, the friend gladly ate it herself — honestly, we can just end the interview here because it explains everything.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hotmetalplayground.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hotmetalplayground/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hotmetalplayground/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@hotmetalplayground
Image Credits
All photos are self-taken (or taken by parent).
