How Severance actor Zach Cherry spends his Sundays

Zach Cherry warns that his Sundays are pretty boring, noting that boring, for him, means a wild 90-minute improv comedy extravaganza of corny jokes.

The fun part is standing there while other people play and laugh really hard, said Mr. Cherry, a 36-year-old actor and comedian who performs most Sunday nights in the all-improvised comedy show. Raaaatscraps at Caveat on the Lower East Side. The show features a rotating cast of performers that also includes Jeff Hiller from the HBO comedy Somebody Somewhere and Connor Ratliff from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Mr. Cherry is best known for his role as sarcastic overachiever Dylan in the Apple TV+ workplace dystopian thriller series Severance. On Thursday, Amazon Prime Video is set to release its latest project, Fallout, a post-apocalyptic series based on the popular role-playing video game franchise. Mr. Cherry, a self-identified gamer, said he had played several of the franchise's nine games.

“But I often get overwhelmed and don't finish them because they're so huge and there's so much going on,” he said.

Mr. Cherry, born in Trenton, New Jersey, lives in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn with his wife of nearly two years, Anabella Cherry, 30, who teaches English as a second language at Hunter College, and their new adopted 2 year old daughter. -old rescue dog, Shrek.

A SUMMON FROM NARNIA I set the Bedtime feature on my iPhone to wake me at 7 a.m., but almost every day I click Change for just one day and move it to later. I actually wake up around 9am. I use the generic Early Riser tone. I've never changed it, which starts soft then gradually gets stronger. This sounds like something you would wake up to very slowly in Narnia.

WALK IN THE PARK Shrek is a pretty scary looking cat that we just bought her in December and she is still adjusting to city life. We take him first thing in the morning to a park not too far from our apartment. We take it down in a small carrying bag. When we get to the park we need to look at her and see how busy she is and if she can handle that level of stimulation. You often have to try to calm her down because certain noises put her on alert.

FRIENDLY AFFACE After returning from the park, my wife and I play video games or watch TV together. Today we are going for Overcooked 2, which is a cooperative cooking simulation game where you are these little chefs running a kitchen. But it's more difficult than it seems; your kitchen is also on two separate platforms and a helicopter moves them away from each other, so you can't always access the stoves! Another one of our favorites is Baldurs Gate. We also like to play various word games together, like Wordle and Connections.

SHREK huddles Shrek is very sweet and loves cuddles and being held like a baby. Her favorite way to go out is to be cradled in one of our arms. We have a family hug with her; she likes it. And U.S. too !

NACHOS AND NOSTALGIA Some of my high school and college friends are in town, so my wife and I are meeting them for brunch at Randolph Beer on Prospect Street. This is a momentous occasion for us: it's the first time we've left the house together since we had Shrek. Normally we wouldn't be able to leave her alone, but Anabella's mother is in town and has agreed to watch her. I get the Kitchen Sink Nachos sour cream, guacamole, pepper jack cheese, black beans and jalapeos and Anabella gets the Big Ass Pretzel, so I get some of that too.

ME, ME AND A MORNING It's hard for me to want to leave the house when my first wake-up call isn't until 7 p.m., so to get out, I often see a movie in the afternoon before performing in my show at Caveat. I love watching movies alone in the cinema. I take the L then the M to the Regal Essex Crossing on the Lower East Side, which is a short walk from the theater. I will literally see anything; I work backwards from the length of the movie and the time I have to go out to get to the improv show on time. Anything that airs around 4 p.m. is usually prime viewing for me. Today I'm seeing Dune: Part Two, and I'm so glad I saw it in the theater. The visuals, the scale, the scope were all so impressive that I wish I had seen the first one in a theater as well.

QUICK MOUTH I grab something quick for dinner a few blocks from the theater, often Dan Dan Noodles with Beyond Meat at Spicy Moon or the green cabbage sandwich at Superiority Burger, when it's on the menu. I've been vegetarian for about four years, since early 2020. Today I'm getting a falafel sandwich from Lava Shawarma.

THE BEST IMPROV SHOW IN THE WORLD The show starts at 7:30 p.m. and I try to be at the theater by 7 a.m. It's a group of people, many of whom performed in another Sunday night improv show, Asssscat, at the Upright Citizens Brigade before it closed in 2020 during the pandemic. We've been doing the show for a little over two years now and I love it. There are usually around 120 people in the audience.

There is a rotating cast of 20 improvisers, with eight to ten people in the show each week. And then we have a special guest monologue, often an actor, writer or comedian, who comes in to tell stories. They receive a suggestion from the audience, then they take inspiration from it and tell stories from their lives. Then we do a completely improvised show with characters and scenes based on the stories they tell.

Our special guest monologue tonight is Josh Sharp, who co-wrote and starred in Dicks: The Musical. He is an old friend of mine and to all of us at the show. It's always fun when the monologue is someone we know, because they know what we need and we can be a little looser.

TV TIME I get home around 10:30 and usually watch an episode of True Detective with my wife. I really enjoyed this season with Jodie Foster, the atmosphere, the setting, all the actors. I actually haven't watched season 3, so I'm not a completist, but this season something clicked in me and I really dug it.

STILL IN PROCESSING There are two types of evenings: either the show went great and I'm too excited to sleep, or it went bad and I'm stressed. Sometimes even an hour of True Detective isn't enough for me to relax. Then I'll watch a comfort food show like Monk or Curb Your Enthusiasm. I'm also a big fan of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Or I'll continue to play a video game like Final Fantasy XVI.

FINALLY FALL ASLEEP I often go to bed later than I want to, regret it on Monday morning and pay for it all week. It can be as late as 2 or 2:30 a.m., depending on what I need to process.