Arielle LaGuette Is Notably Excited

Nes­tled in the cozy set­ting of Cos­mic Beer Gar­den, Valerie Lopez sits down this week with Arielle LaGuette, a mul­ti-tal­ent­ed per­former liv­ing at the inter­sec­tion of music and com­e­dy, weav­ing them into unique, delight­ful, stage experiences.

LaGuet­te’s love of com­e­dy start­ed in high school the­ater, drawn to the stage by the allure of extract­ing laugh­ter from the audi­ence. Though her heart soon turned to music in col­lege, mov­ing (back) to Austin and get­ting involved in the improv sketch scene has enabled her to keep a healthy bal­ance between the two pas­sions. ​“Get­ting back into improv real­ly re-ignit­ed my love of the­ater,” she says, ​“and one of my favorite parts of my live music shows now is the ban­ter I get to do between songs”. That for­tu­itous wed­ding of improv and music real­ly has com­bined to make her rela­tion­ship with both art forms that much stronger.

LaGuet­te’s musi­cal con­duit of choice is the ukelele, that often unas­sum­ing instru­ment that tru­ly tal­ent­ed per­form­ers can coax into amaz­ing, unique art forms. She picked it up in col­lege, along­side the gui­tar, in her sopho­more year at UNT (Uni­ver­si­ty of North Texas). Short­ly after, she start­ed craft­ing her own songs. Con­fi­dence in her music did­n’t come quick­ly, and once again the impor­tance of improv in her life makes an appear­ance: her lat­er train­ing gave her the secrets to bring back her stage per­sona and real­ly quell her inter­nal doubts.

​“I made some of my best friends in my improv class­es,” LaGuette says. As she tells Valerie, the train­ing and per­form­ing reg­i­men real­ly enhances any kind of stage or com­mu­ni­ca­tion expe­ri­ences you may run into. Among her first improv expe­ri­ences was Dis­pos­able Income Freak Show (which has gone on to be host­ed at the renowned Sec­ond City Chica­go), and she was a reg­u­lar in the pop­u­lar Austin Mega­phone Show. One of her cur­rent shows, Shit-Faced Shake­speare is an impres­sive­ly hilar­i­ous mashup of seri­ous Shake­speare­an stage per­for­mance, with the wild­card that at each per­for­mance one of the actors becomes, in the Bard’s words, a malt-worm (source: Hen­ry IV). For those not well-versed in Shake­speare­an Eng­lish, that means one lucky cast mem­ber gets suf­fi­cient­ly drunk before the action starts. I believe the Bard him­self would approve of ​“spir­its” becom­ing its own char­ac­ter. It’s a dar­ing bal­ance that requires all the tal­ents of a Shake­speare­an per­for­mance with the unpre­dictable nature of just-in-time impro­vi­sa­tion.

LaGuet­te’s sec­ond musi­cal EP release, Case of the Times, dropped in Feb­ru­ary 2018, after what she calls her ​“Texas tour”, and she per­forms reg­u­lar­ly as she con­tin­ues to dri­ve towards mak­ing music her pri­ma­ry focus. In the inter­view, she gives Valerie a peek into how her mind works when craft­ing the sto­ries in her songs, and what the jour­ney means to her.

Whether you see her in a comedic role, or at a musi­cal per­for­mance strum­ming her ukelele backed by a live band, Arielle Laguette is some­one you don’t want to miss. Catch LaGuette select Fri­day and Sat­ur­day nights in Shit-Faced Shake­speare (cur­rent­ly run­ning Romeo and Juli­et) and at her musi­cal per­for­mances com­ing up:

• March 17^th for Acousti­Can­vas @ Alamo Draft­house Lakeline 
• April 13^th @ Texas Beer Co. in Tay­lor, TX

Stay up to date with more shows, and find out how to con­nect with LaGuette on social media, at Ariel​le​Laguette​.com