Today we’d like to introduce you to Courtney Pong.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
The journey from being deeply entrenched in the Silicon Valley tech scene to being an owner of an improv company – the path was not a linear one. I suppose most things aren’t obvious until you back. But it was my time working with countless startups and communications agencies that cobbled together the tools and foundation that would arm me to pursue an owner’s venture. I’ve been a performer and educator with CSz Worldwide since 2001, which kicked off what would be 15 years at CSz San Jose, one of CSz World wide’s longest-running operating locations with over 6000 performances. This year is actually San Jose’s 30th anniversary.
In 2001, my college theater teacher heavily hinted at me that maybe acting wasn’t my thing, but that I might like improv comedy. I had never done improv before, and he brought in a workshop teacher to do a beginner workshop. I was curious, but didn’t continue to seek it out…until that curiosity intersected with the opportunity to audition for a beginner training class with CSz San Jose. I went to the audition and was cast. In addition to basic improv training, they taught us ComedySportz, a show (called a Match) that plays improv comedy as a sport, with teams and points and a referee to keep things moving quickly. I fell in love with ComedySportz – not just the show itself, but the people. ComedySportz was so people-first focused. Every audience member, every Player – everything was geared toward simply bringing joy to people.
As part of CSz San Jose, I started to uncover the history of CSz – that there were hundreds of ComedySportz Players around the (then) U.S. 22+ cities. Each owned and operated individually. That audience interaction, fun competition, and fast-paced energy ComedySportz Players have at our core – it scratched this itch I had, to play. I was curious where this path would take me if I kept choosing it.
The 15 years that followed were spent facing my feet in the direction I wanted to go – with CSz. I dug my heels in and didn’t look back. I continued to work in tech, using my public relations degree. I was at a couple of different health technology start-ups. I learned how to hit Go on things, and sharpened my instincts. One advantage of working in startups is the agility and insight gained from working with lean teams – you see a lot of decisions made and are privy to experience that can be harder to attain in a large company.
I kept improv as a foundation in everything I did – using my experience in team building, collaboration and applied improv to build fun, communicative and connected teams. The best companies I worked with saw it as a Strength and used it to their advantage. The worst saw it as a Threat or competition for my attention. Through it all, I was always coming back to asking myself the same question: Am I making an impact?
I continued to perform and coach. I continued to observe what made CSz special, understand why I cared about it so much, and – most importantly – uncover the type of impact I wanted to have. I kept visiting various CSz cities and getting to know the people.
Discovering the opportunity to become the new owner of the Boston team was simply opportunity meets preparedness.
CSz Boston had been on the ground for two years and the original owner was looking to transition the licensing so he could focus on his other current ventures. My first reaction was curiosity – it’s easy to great things with fear and aversion to change, but the fact that my first reactions were positive ones made me think this was something I had to at least explore. Now that I look back, it makes perfect sense – I had prepared myself for 15 years to start the next chapter, and the opportunity was presenting itself – so of course I went for it.
Looking back, as I continued to dig myself deeper into the world of improv and CSz, I can recognize that it was never a question of If, but When – it was the next natural step to go from being a ComedySportz Player to a CSz city owner/manager. Then I could build for others what had been built for me those past 15 years: A place where people feel valued, where they’re excited about the work they’re doing and see the impact they’re having.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
My ComedySportz Player jersey number is 6 for a reason. As timing would have it, while I was smack in the middle of considering pursuing CSz Boston, one of the largest unexpected struggles happened: I tripped and fell while on a run with friends. Because the fall was so hard, it caused a portion of my intestines to flip. (It’s called your cecum! Look it up – it’s apparently rare in humans, but common in dogs…). I was at the ComedySportz World Championship (an annual CSz event, going on 30+ years now) when this happened. I was in Quad Cities, Iowa, very far from home.
When I started feeling stomach pain, I was surrounded by 250+ ComedySportz Players. That night, so many people worked together to get me to the hospital, stayed with me to help the ER doctor discover what the problem was, were there when I woke up out of surgery, stayed with me in the hospital for a week in shifts, and then through the subsequent weeks of recovery. There was no piece left unattended – the CSz family crowdfunded my medical bills, and surrounded me with positive presence, words and support, in addition to support from friends and family back home in California.
I had finally returned home to San Francisco, and not fewer than two weeks back, I was emergency hospitalized for a second abdominal surgery because of complications from the first – and the CSz family kept at it. Always supportive, relentlessly thoughtful. It was that unexpected emergency that asked me to pick my head up – why wouldn’t I do everything I could to pursue making this my life and then building that type of community and support for others? There were no more questions to ask. So I doubled down on my commitment to pursue CSz Boston with as much intention and sincere curiosity. We finished the agreement, purchase, and signed the licensing over to my business partner and I in April 2016 and now I’m a Bostonian.
Of course, if you’re going to pick up your life and move 3k miles, there are going to be some snags along the way – but I don’t know if I’d call them struggles. A central foundation of being an improviser is you examine and internalize challenges to reframe them as opportunities. Mistakes are gifts. Deviation from the expected is welcome and lauded. The only way improvisers can even create something out of nothing is if we embrace what comes at us 100% and make it our advantage; our friend. This is why my ComedySportz jersey number is 6 – it represents the six abdominal scars I have that ultimately took me to Boston. I have everything to thank for what caused those 6 scars.
CSz Boston – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
CSz Boston specializes in using improv to educate and entertain. In addition to entertaining audiences weekly with ComedySportz®, our most popular show, we deliver training, using Applied Improvisation skills and techniques. My experience in San Jose includes having provided entertainment and education programming for Fortune 500 companies such as Brocade, Cisco Systems, eBay, PayPal, Nike, Intel, HP and Adobe. I’m excited to bring that experience to Boston and the Greater Boston area. We believe in the power of the CSz values – collaboration, inspiration, gratitude and fun – and the potential impact it will have on work lives and process in areas ranging from leadership and communication, to design thinking, customer service, and sales.
I’m most proud of expanding on our services to launch training and experiences that reach outside of the scope of performance-based needs. We’re on a mission to make a positive impact in individuals, groups, and businesses in Boston. For instance, we just launched an Improv For Families class (ages 7-12 year olds) focused on using improv as a vehicle to create a supportive and fun environment while learning valuable communication, creative and relationship building skills. Because the foundation of improv boasts skills and tools that are applicable to anyone’s daily life, we are excited to offer more training that helps integrate improv for the purposes of personal development, team building, creativity, and even well-being.
What sets us apart? Our values. Collaboration, inspiration, gratitude and fun. Because our values are a deeply ingrained priority in everything we do, I believe we’re not only producing the quality entertainment and education we’re known for, but fostering the most supportive environment for our team. It’s the reason why the 25 cities prior to Boston have stayed in business, some in their 30th year. It’s the reason why we have a deep bench of over 600 CSz coaches and ComedySportz players, many of whom have been with CSz for 10, 20, 30 years now. We know who we are, and why we do what we do, and it makes all the difference to our clients, audience and Players.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success is: Doing the work and having gratitude.
Gratitude is more than saying Thanks when receiving something you like or wanted – that’s the easy part. Gratitude will see you through wherever the path takes you, and strengthen your resilience. It’s about believing that you can always learn something, and embracing the journey, no matter how much it zigs and zags. It’s about learning how to rock what you’re in, and refuse to view anything as Just Something – that took all my energy and grew to consume many of my waking thoughts, from San Jose, to San Francisco and eventually to Boston. To embrace meant to sharpen the skill of learning how to recognize opportunity, to build the tracks for the train that doesn’t exist yet – and that does take work. It’s a practice. So every day I give gratitude, and just keep doing more of the thing I came here to do. Build simply to build, and keep building.
Pricing:
- Tickets to a ComedySportz match: $15 ; $12 for seniors/military/students
Contact Info:
- Address: The Riot Theater
146A South st. - Website: cszboston.com
- Phone: (617) 231-7006
- Email: courtney@cszboston.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/CSzBoston
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cszboston
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/CSzBoston
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/comedysportz-boston-jamaica-plain
Image Credit:
Fama Films
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