a conversation with… Breastmilk!

By Isabella Mansfield

Chicago Improv troupe Breastmilk likes to start each performance the same way they all came into the world, screaming at the top of their lungs. “It makes it so our scene starts in the middle of something. We don’t have to waste time finding out where we are, since we’re all catapulted right into the thick of it,” explains Morgan Csejtey, eyelids fluttering minutely as falsies are applied, her red hair in a wave of stiff curls behind her. It’s an overcast June day, and the shoot so far has a feel of a getting-ready-for-prom-party that starts at the crack of dawn; with the girls waiting to get into glam, sitting cross legged on the bed in their PJ’s, coffees in their lap. Bonnie Davis’ hair is in rollers like a dark halo around her head, Sarah Heierholzer’s left wispy, with mini braids tucked behind her ears. But they don’t seem to need to prepare much for their close up. As seasoned stars of Chicago’s improv community for almost ten years, the proximity of spotlight doesn’t faze them. 

They tell me they met in college, but none of them has a memory of the fateful first encounter. “I know we met at improv club, then we formed an indie improv team with a bunch of our other friends,” Morgan informs me. “Eventually we split off and started performing just us and our friend Laina.” Improv club and a Broad City jean jacket are all that remains in their collective mind’s eye. As Bonnie puts it, “That Broad City jean jacket was huge for me.”

Although Laina lives in LA now, she performs with Breastmilk whenever the gals all find themselves in the same city. Laina is not only a key member of the girl-group but the creator of their name. Laina recounts via voice note, “I was in the dorm room being really kooky. I took my boob out and sat there and everyone was like what the fuck? And I was like, wow. Would you be laughing if I was breastfeeding?” Thus Breastmilk was born.

“We were like, we should name ourselves this so a man on stage has to say the word Breastmilk,” adds Sarah. 

Birth, motherhood, and daughterhood are just some of the themes that unite Breastmilk, anchoring their performances despite their differing styles. 

B: There are things within the cultural zeitgeist that we’re all obsessed with. Like BBL’s.

S: We love to play mothers and young girls.

B: We’re obsessed with womanhood and our own personal experiences growing up as women, our relationships with our moms and other women in our lives.

M: We’ve gone through so much together and helped process so much together. Obviously we didn’t go through childhood together but it’s something we’re able to connect on.

S: No two performances are the same, even if we’re playing the same type of character. Although we have each given birth on stage at least three or four times.

B: A different one gives birth, or we all do.

 According to the girls, performing together just feels like gabbing. Morgan tells me, “We all have different senses of humor but a shared point of view. We have an internal language just from our bond having lived together and since we’ve been performing together for so long, having met each other at such a formative time in our lives.” 

Each Breastmilker brings a different function to their scenes together, taking turns grounding and challenging each other.

M: I’m a problem solver, I try to always justify what we’re doing in some way. I’m like, this needs to be about something. Which I don’t even genuinely believe.

S: Yeah, you’re more functional.

B: I hate to say it, but I’m perhaps random. Quirked up.

S: Inventive.

B: I’m always trying to make the situation crazier. 

M: Wild Card.

S: Bonnie Agent-of-Chaos Davis.

B: We were just reminiscing, I used to get on the floor a lot. Try and be a dog. (pictured)

M: Levels.

S: Not all of our sets are plot based, and all of them are mono scenes, so I think I have a tendency to try to connect the dots.

M: You’re also the first to establish that you have a character, like you’ll put on a character voice and Bonnie and I will follow.

S: We’re often playing characters not much different than ourselves.

B: Sarah always brings a gun.

S: I find a lot of our sets have a confession moment, where we share something and we pull from real life. Just recently during a set Morgan brought up a washing machine that a family built from scratch which is something that her sister really did.

The fact that truth is stranger than fiction is something that they all can agree on, and how they have the most fun during their sets. Fun is their priority as performers, but it didn’t start out that way.

M: I would say, all of us went to get a higher education in improv. We spent so much time obsessing over this and really thinking that this was going to be our career. I think that the way things are right now is we realized how much more important it is to us to just make art with our friends. I think that realization wouldn’t have been possible without this group.

This possibility of expression is not only unique to performing with a group of trusted friends, but because the city of Chicago makes it possible.

M: A comedy community like this does not exist in any other part of the world just because there’s constant change, people moving in and out. Let the record show, we don’t get paid for improv, no one does. But we don’t have to pay to do it. And there are places where there is a threshold where you don’t get to perform unless you pay for it or unless you’re in the in-crowd. Here, if you want to make art you can. You just need to put the work in.

B: It’s much more inclusive. When we first came to Chicago to do comedy, I thought improv was so cool and so fun and then there was a shift where it was like, this shit’s cringe.

S: Yeah like, you need to be making youtube videos, actually.

B: Or front facing fuckin POV TikToks. But for us, it is fun and it is cool, people like it. So at that point it’s like, “I am cringe, but I am free”

M: There are certainly rooms in the city where we’re not everybody’s cup of tea. There are times when the audience is not receptive but we’re making each other laugh and that’s all that matters

S: What I like about improv is that it’s just playing. You’re just playing pretend. I’m just happy that as we’ve gotten older we haven’t lost that sense of whimsy. That would be so sad.

B: That was my favorite thing as a kid. I could see us all playing house together as kids. Getting very intense. Very sexual. Violent.

M: So many people don’t get to play. I had to unlearn so much coming from High School theater going into college theater. There's this idea that you’re the best person in the world, the most talented person ever, and you deserve success and everything’s a competition. I think improv, at its core, is about collaboration and fun. It’s very antithetical for it to be competitive or judgmental. I don’t feel how I used to feel at all when we perform, we’re all just human. I don’t compare.

S: We don’t ever compare ourselves to each other. I feel that we’re all on the same page.

B: And we make each other look better.

You can follow them on Instagram at @breastmilkcomedy where they post their show schedule every week or catch them at Logan Square Improv, where they perform regularly.