This post was written by Culture Editor Grace Gannon.

Comedian Marlena Rodriguez will open for Adam Devine at Lisner Auditorium Saturday, so you should get to know a little bit about her. Rodriguez got her start doing improv with Second City and is now a writer for the hit Netflix show “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” (you know, the one you watched all of in one day last spring break). She also co-wrote and starred in the popular web series “We Have to Move.” The Hatchet spoke to Rodriguez about finding her comedy roots, showing versus telling, and of course, which “Pinot Noir” lyric she identifies with the most. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Hatchet: How did you start in comedy and how did you get involved with Second City?

Rodriguez: Way back in high school I saw a show at the UCB theater in New York and it was an improv show that at the time was kind of a celebrity show where they would get writers from different TV shows and “SNL” and it was pretty cool and I watched, it was my first improv show, and I watched it and it was incredible. It truly blew me away so I think I started watching a lot of improv, started doing a lot of improv, continued to do improv in college and then found out about this program that Second City has called Comedy Studies, which is this semester program where instead of going abroad to like Italy or something you go to Second City and you study comedy all day.

And so I did that and that was really great and then I actually dropped out of school right after that semester because it was right during the crash and my finances were a mess.

So I dropped out of school and moved back to Connecticut with my parents which of course is a terrible, terrible thing to do in college and was sort of just trying to continue comedy. There was no improv or anything in Connecticut so what I did was I started doing stand-up and sort of got my life together and after two years moved back to Chicago where I had already kind of gotten my feet wet. I started getting back into [improv] classes there and studying and eventually got into doing reviews there and after a couple years of that did the touring company, so I was touring with Second City doing revues all around the country. But all at the same time I was doing stand-up and kind of progressing, learning and getting further involved.

Hatchet: Where did you get the idea for your web series? How did you get it to look so professional?

Rodriguez: I came up with the idea with my writing partner who’s currently in Chicago, his name is Daniel Shar. We wanted to make something that was different but also relatable but also silly and fun and we also really wanted to showcase all of our friends. You’ll notice me and Dan, although we’re in every episode we’re not the most featured and with the help of our producers we were able to find this amazing director John Shaw who is the reason why it looks so beautiful. We were very determined to make something that we would be proud of and could show the rest of the world “Hey this what we’re capable of, what do you think?”

Hatchet Were you a fan of season one of “Kimmy Schmidt” before you were hired?

Rodriguez: Oh yes – I loved Kimmy Schmidt. It came out and I watched it I think three times the whole thing because there’s so many jokes and every time I watched it was something new. So yeah getting to write for the show and finding out that it was going to happen is just, I was so extremely overjoyed.

Hatchet: What is it like to work on Kimmy Schmidt?

Rodriguez: It’s very collaborative. We do a lot of work together to figure out what is going to be happening, how is everyone going to be feeling and what are the emotional motivations. We work really hard to fully understand everything about the story before we really do anything else.

Hatchet: What inspires your stand-up? Where do you find comedy in life?

Rodriguez: I feel like I’m really inspired by the very serious reality sometimes of situations and I like playing those out so I really like instead of say, explaining a situation, I like just showing what the situation is. I’ve had a lot of awkward moments in my life so I enjoy sharing those through showing everybody as everyone will see. Also just I’m having an extremely hard time dating so I talk about that. So yeah I would say my thing is, I would rather show you than tell you.

Hatchet: Was there a breakthrough bit with standup that you realize you could incorporate showing rather than telling and you knew that was going to be your style?

Rodriguez: I have this bit that I do where I talk about what my name spelled backwards is, which is “Anel Ram”– you’re welcome for that – and so I kind of go ahead and act out the first time I found that out. I did not find that out alone, I found that out in a group of middle school children and that was kind of that time where I was like I was like “oh I showed them what happened” and we were able to have so much more fun because of it.

Hatchet: Which “Pinot Noir” lyric are you?

Rodriguez: Hold on, I have to pull [the lyrics] up. Okay I would definitely say “mid-sized car” oh wait, no, no I’m gonna re-pick, I’m gonna pick “revenge can be spec-tac-u-lar.”