Angela Maldonado: Producer, Improv Performer

Spotted: at The Steeping Room, Austin TX

Occupation: Producer

What do you do when you get off work? 

I’m in an improv troupe so I do shows in the evenings or open mics—or I go home and watch Netflix.

What’s your improv style like? 

We are the only minority troupe in Austin, so we kind of do a Latino and minority take on improv.

Why do you feel it’s important to have a minority troupe in Texas?

Because there’s so many brown people here! People get their Latino experience, or they see Latinos, and there’s kind of mainstream filters. But it’s just normal people. It’s the person who maybe grew up eating breakfast tacos and doesn’t speak Spanish, but they have the culture all the same.

Tell me about your personal style. How do you get ready for the day? 

I think now that I’m an adult and I have to have an adult job, it’s not like T-shirts and jeans like when I worked in public radio on a school campus. But it does have to be functional, because I literally have to sometimes go from work to the stage within an hour.

What’s one item that you own that you can wear with anything? 

Probably my black cowboy boots.

What is it with Texans and their love of cowboy boots?

You never know where you’re going to be, and since it is Texas you can kind of get away with it. You see people wearing them with short shorts and you see them with a really fancy dress. I’ve had friends who’ve gotten married and their bridesmaids wore cowboy boots with their dresses. It’s the most versatile thing you can own. You can go from the field to a really nice cocktail hour; or for me, from the office to the stage.

If you were to be reincarnated as an animal, which one would you like to be?

I’d like to be a little bobcat, because they’re fierce and cute, and I like to think that I’m fierce and cute.

Okay, and which one would you actually be?

Probably Grumpy Cat. I’d be the big roiy-poly furry cat that just wants to lay there and watch.

If you were to look at the top five moments of your life, what would number three be?

Probably doing my first improv festival [in 2013]. When I did the festival, that performance meant that I’d performed at all improv theatres in town, and I was with a troupe. It was what I set out to do, it’s what I wanted to do. I’d only been doing it for about a year, and that was pretty awesome to be with a group in a festival. It went from just taking a class to, “Oh, now I’m actually doing something.”