Sasha Ellen is a comedian, writer, actor, and professional Dungeons and Dragons Gamemaster. Her play Signal Failure transferred from the Fringe to New York after its run in 2014, and she has performed five stand-up shows since 2017. Her 2022 show ‘Creeps and Geeks’ was nominated for best new show at the Leicester Comedy Awards. This year she brings her new show ‘When Life Gives You Ellens, Make Ellenade’ and her D&D based gameshow ‘Character Building Experience’. We spoke to Sasha about her two shows, amicable break-ups, and insane Fringe show formats.
Can you tell us about ‘When Life Gives You Ellens, Make Ellenade’?
I guess, technically, you’d call it a break-up stand-up show but, in truth, the show isn’t actually about the break up. It’s about all the fun stages you go through after a break up: finding somewhere to live, trying to order a human being online like a pizza, going to the murdery houses of strangers from the internet, etc. You know, the coconuts stuff we are meant to be weirdly cool with for no reason.
It’s fairly common to base a show around a break up, but in this case it’s an unusually amicable one. How difficult is it finding the humour in a positive experience, compared to mining misery for laughs?
Ah, you underestimate my ability to find misery in a positive experience. Rookie error, my friend. Finding humour in the negative is a lot easier but sometimes an experience can just be balls-out weird and that’s enough. In the show, I talk about the break-up day we planned, with food and presents, like weird little break-up Christmas. It was nice, but it was also one of the oddest days of my life.
You’re also bringing your skills as a professional D&D dungeon master to the Fringe with ‘Character Building Experience’. Can you tell us about that?
Character Building Experience is a joyful, quirky show that’s kinda like Dungeons and Dragons, but super simple version played for laughs. It’s pretty much comedians playing silly characters going on an adventure, occasionally making some questionable choices… constantly making questionable choices.
What for you are the best and worst things about the Fringe?
Best things: getting to see people you don’t get to see for the rest of the year, getting to perform several times a day, Mac and cheese pies. Worst bits: intense pressure-cooker environment, huge financial investment, having a daily existential crisis. So it kinda balances out…
Beside the two shows, can we expect to see you performing elsewhere during August?
Sure thing, I’ll be around, guesting on other people’s weird and wonderful shows. That is one of the other things I love about the Fringe: it’s a place where new formats for shows tend to thrive. It’s the only place where you can walk up to someone in the street and pitch a show where random comics recite Chaucer while doing an obstacle course tethered to a rabid guinea pig and they’d be like: “Of course, I’ll watch that show.”
‘When Life Gives You Ellens Make Ellenade‘ runs from Thu 3 to Thu 24 Aug 2023 at Laughing Horse @ The Counting House at 16:15
‘Character Building Experience‘ runs from Thu 3 to Sun 27 Aug 2023 (except Tues 8, 15, and 22) at Laughing Horse @ The Counting House at 20:45