For this episode, I delve into stand-up comedy, which seems like the loneliest of professions but actually thrives because of its strong community. And two amazing artists join me on the show — Ophira Eisenberg and Bethany Van Delft. Ophira was the host of the long-running NPR show “Ask Me Another” and just launched her new podcast, “Parenting is a Joke.” Bethany is a performer and a producer at the Boston Comedy and Women in Comedy Festivals and was named Boston’s Best Comedian several times. It’s a very funny and not to be missed episode.
Episode 9: There is Courage in Community.
For this episode, I delve into stand-up comedy, which seems like the loneliest of professions but actually thrives because of its strong community. And two amazing artists join me on the show — Ophira Eisenberg and Bethany Van Delft. Ophira was the host of the long-running NPR show “Ask Me Another” and just launched her new podcast, “Parenting is a Joke.” Bethany is a performer and a producer at the Boston Comedy and Women in Comedy Festivals and was named Boston’s Best Comedian several times. It’s a very funny and not to be missed episode.
Ophira Eisenberg
Watch her comedy special: Plant-Based Jokes
Listen to her podcast: Parenting is a Joke
Visit her website: ophiraeisenberg.com
Follow her on social media: @ophirae
Bethany Van Delft
Listen to her debut album on Spotify: I am Not a Llama
Visit her website: https://www.bethanyvandelft.com
And follow her on instagram @BethanyVanDelft
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody. It's so great to see you. Hi, Ophira, Hi, Bethany. [00:00:05][5.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:00:05] Hi. [00:00:05][0.0]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:00:06] Hello. [00:00:06][0.0]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:00:07] What I try to do in this podcast is really help people who are wanting to step into their creative selves, give them some encouragement to do that. Ophira, did I make this up? Were you in IT ahead of time and then became a standup? [00:00:23][16.3]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:00:24] It was, I mean, when I became a standup is an interesting phrasing. When do you become a standup, exactly? When do you count from, when you make a living at? Your first paid gig? When you decide mentally that you're pursuing it? What is it? [00:00:43][18.9]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:00:44] When ten years in, you're sitting in a musty skanky basement waiting to go up and tell jokes. That's when you're like, Oh, I'm a standup. [00:00:53][8.8]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:00:55] Yeah. Right. Because there are it's so funny because I remember overhearing two, it was like what, people in their twenties that were interns at a show. Just they were audience members. And I just overheard them at intermission and one said to the other, Well, I'm not a writer, but I say, I'm a writer because that's how you manifest it. And I was like, No, no, no. You don't do that at all. Do not silence writers who have worked their asses off. Okay? Do it and then you can call yourself something, but don't start... like, can you imagine if I walked around being like, I'm an architect? People would be like, What have you done? I'm like, Nothing. But soon, one day soon. And I would say, and then there's some people -- I'm sure you do this, Bethany, all the time -- where people are like, Oh, my friend does stand up. And you're like, Oh, yeah, where? They're like, Oh, you know, in New York at the clubs. You're like, really? What's their name? And they say their name and you go, They don't do standup. [00:01:46][51.2]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:01:47] All the time. All the time. Oh, you're Boston, my friend does standup. You probably know him Skippy Do. And I'm like no. [00:01:55][7.9]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:01:56] No. [00:01:56][0.0]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:01:57] Maybe he does stands up at different places than you. And I'm like, there's actually no such thing. We all do stand up in the same places. You all see each other out there. [00:02:05][8.3]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:02:06] Okay. So this is this is the whole point of this episode is that there's courage and community, right? Like you're all out there doing this thing together and somehow I thinking that you help each other in this process. We all know each other from The Moth. And there's I know the power of the storytelling community. So I want to know a little bit also about the power of the standup community. But let me ask you really quickly. Ophira, so what was your first act of creative courage? [00:02:39][32.9]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:02:39] I remember I used to put on a puppet show, the same one, the same script over and over and over. I mean, I can't even imagine how many times I made my mother trot down the stairs to the shag carpeted basement for me to pull out the same puppet, same dialog over and over again. But I truly think about it with stand up that I made the decision in Vancouver that I wanted to try it, but I had no friends in it, no entry into it. I didn't I didn't live in Vancouver long enough to even have any community at all. And I ushered, I volunteered to be an usher at their comedy festival and learned that other people who volunteered to be an usher at a comedy festival are usually people that are interested in comedy, including people that are trying to try it. And they told me about a weekend workshop that I could not afford. I did not have the money for it, I think was $300. And I think I had $302 in the bank and I had this whole plan that I was going to go to it and then before they asked for the money, I would take off, not understanding that these people know how these things work. They ask for the money when you walk in. [00:03:48][68.9]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:03:49] Very clever. You are also looking to, you are interested in grifting as well. Yeah. [00:03:54][4.7]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:03:55] It was a path going either way. Grifting, stand up. Grifting, stand up. [00:03:59][4.2]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:04:00] Well, you know, sometimes suspicion and fear can be the same, and so I was suspicious that a class was even necessary to do stand up. And so I thought I would see if it was just a ploy to take people's money based on what? Like take moneys based on people's dreams or if it was actually teaching you something. So my idea was tha. But I was also fearful about doing this at all. So, you know, I was able to intellectualize it. But then I got there and they said, great, yeah. Well, $300, please. And I, I just went to the ATM and I took it out. [00:04:33][32.9]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:04:34] Yeah. [00:04:34][0.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:04:35] And that was it. And then I was in a standup workshop. It would be a long time after that until I called myself a standup or even took it seriously enough and put a little bit of that fear aside. But that, that was it. [00:04:49][13.6]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:04:50] How long did it take you from that first workshop to where you were like, Yeah, I'm a standup. [00:04:54][4.5]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:04:57] I don't know. I would say two years before I started actually pursuing stage time, which is the key. [00:05:02][5.0]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:05:03] Yeah. [00:05:03][0.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:05:04] And then I would say when I moved to Toronto, which was about three years later, I moved there to pursue standup. And also escape a boyfriend. But that's what I do. I would break up with people or they would dump me and I would shift towns. [00:05:23][19.2]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:05:24] I'm leaving this town. I'm shaking the dust off and going someplace else. [00:05:27][2.8]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:05:28] And so it's like old fashioned ghosting. [00:05:29][1.7]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:05:32] Bethany, how about you? I interviewed you all those years ago for Yankee magazine. I know a little bit about your back story. You were already an artist as far as being a runway model, and you had run this restaurant. But what made you suddenly go, Yeah, I think I'm going to do standup? [00:05:45][13.1]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:05:49] Before that, I want to say you interviewed me all those years back because of Ophira. Yeah. So talk about community. How does community support you? Ophira recommended I guess you asked for a woman comedian and Ophira recommended me so and we didn't even know each other that well at that time. Ophira absolutely supports people in such a great way. Like, and I think a lot of us do quietly without like making big fanfare about it. But if someone says, Hey, do you know somebody? Oh, yeah. You name like three people who are working you like. So anyway, that's that's the full circle the question of community. As far as...I too had playwriting stuff going on when I was little. I wrote plays. My parents are Marxist from way, way, way back, you know, so I was like kind of raised Marxist the way people are raised in religion and I wrote these plays -- very minimal dialog. And someone would walk out. One of us would walk out and go, I am the queen. And then another would walk out and say, I am the princess. And then another would walk out and go, I am the king. And then we'd go, No, we're not. We are the people. And then we'd bow. And my mother would invite... [00:07:05][76.9]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:07:09] Oh my gosh. Just to put this in perspective, I was like in a knockoff of Laugh-In, and I was going across the stage going, sock it to me, sock it to me. And you're doing like, you know, Marxist plays. [00:07:20][11.7]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:07:22] That that's just because that's what was in the house and on the walls. It's kind of like doing the nativity, but in Marxism. When I started standup, I was working in restaurants. I had been modeling for, you know. maybe 15, ten or 15 years and ready to age out because they put you out to pasture when you're 25? Well, it's Boston, so you can work till you're like elderly. [00:07:52][29.4]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:07:52] 52. [00:07:52][0.0]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:07:53] No, like 35. 35? Yeah. I knew this was coming to an end at some point. I didn't know what I was going to do. And I was managing restaurants and I used to take every adult ed class of anything that I liked, anything I thought of. So I took cartooning adult ed classes, voice work, all all these things that maybe I'll do that when I when I can't make money modeling anymore. And there was a standup class and I took that and my stomach was churning about it, you know, because I had severe, severe stage fright, like so, so bad that I couldn't really runway model for a very long time. Like the first times that that I was approached, I couldn't do it. I would like vomit or pass out or weird things would happen. And even in college, I couldn't do an oral report. They'd adapt it for me, and I would do a 20 page paper instead of like a 15 minute oral presentation. Yeah, I was absolutely, absolutely terrified. I had the worst stage fright and I wanted to do comedy so bad, probably my whole life. You know, we watched Laugh-In, too. And I my my dad was a huge fan of Mae West and W.C. Fields. And my mother listened to Freddie Prinze and Richard Pryor. And I loved comedy. And comedy was part of our life, but it wasn't for me because I couldn't get up and stand in front of people. So when I did start modeling, there was an idea in my head that this will help me conquer my stage fright, and then maybe one day I can do comedy. But as things go, I got caught up in it and traveled and made money and stuff. So I kind of forgot the goal of, you know, doing comedy. So I was in therapy and my therapist, you know, we are in like a couple of years in and she says, so, you know, what do you think? How's it going? What would you you know, where are you now? Kind of check in. And she said, So now if you could do anything with your life, what would you do? And I said, Well, you know, I'll probably open a restaurant because I was working in restaurants and I know I'm going to be super old, 35 or 36 any minute. Right? So I said I'll probably open a restaurant in, but I'll probably open like a cash cow first, like something near B.U. That kids kids will go to and then, you know, I'll a level up and then my third restaurant will be like my ego my ego restaurant. And she says, you know, I feel like you're saying that because that's what you do. But if you could do anything, I was like, Oh, if I could just, like be a different person? Like if I could stop being me and be somebody else? I'd definitely do comedy. Like I'd do standup. I'd be on Saturday Night Live because Ophira, like checking it out to see if if like checking it out or running away before they ask for the money, in my brain, I was like, Oh, you are on Saturday Night Live, if you want to be. Right? I was like, so, yeah, I'd be on Saturday Night Live for sure. And I'd do stand up and she says, Well, why don't you try it? And I said, Well, you know, I've got this really good job. I've got a 9 to 5 Monday through Friday in the restaurant world. That's like a unicorn and I have this like this nice boyfriend and and he really puts up with me. And if I started doing standup and comedy and had to like move to New York or Los Angeles, like, I'd lose my apartment and this boyfriend and my therapist is like, what are you talking about? Like, you've already made it, not made it, lost everything, gained evenrything, just go do it. [00:11:30][216.3]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:11:31] Go to Like a class before you. [00:11:32][1.0]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:11:33] Do something. Yeah, yeah. Now I was like, oh really? [00:11:36][3.4]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:11:38] How much later in the game did you all get in comed then the people who start out? Like were you later to comedy? And how much later? Can you put years attached to that? I just talked to a friend of mine are an episode eight Hillary Graham and she was walking into a writer's room in L.A., probably 15 years older than everybody else in the room. [00:11:57][19.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:11:57] It always feels younger to a certain degree. But I knew I felt like, especially in Canada, maybe because that's where I started out, I it felt like there was a lot of variation. I felt like I knew people that came to it after their first career when they were looking for a change. I felt like there was some 17 year olds that were fresh out of high school that, you know, were loved it. I also, and then, you know, people in the middle. But I also feel like it's a little different now just in terms of comedy is popular now. I feel like when I wanted to do it in the late nineties and early 2000s and I was interested, nobody liked comedy. Nobody wanted to go see comedy. The people would literally say, I hate comedy. They hated it. It didn't have a podcast life. You know, television had sort of reduced it. It wasn't a huge creative outlet for as as the masses saw it, and especially when I moved to New York. [00:12:59][61.6]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:12:59] Why did it appeal to you? [00:13:00][1.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:13:01] Oh, because I felt like I had something to say and that was the medium that I wanted to say it through. But it was hard fitting in and figuring out where was going to be supportive within this huge comedy scene. So actually in Toronto was pretty good. But like, I think, like you can't do it once a month and also you can't be at one place because every place has its scene and its way that people are doing it. At least that's how the way it felt. I think there's a lot more variation, but still, if you go to a Brooklyn club here or you go to a manhattan club tourist club, it's going to sound very different to you what's happening on stage. Some of it might sound like poetry and the rest of it might sound like, you know, a dick jokes. Like it just can sound very different of what is going on in. It's based on audience expectations and kind of the general tone of that place. So, you know, I moved to New York purposefully because here there was maybe opportunities, but moreover there was like 40 different scenes happening. [00:14:00][59.4]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:14:01] Okay. [00:14:01][0.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:14:02] So you could find the place that supported what you wanted to say. [00:14:05][3.5]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:14:05] Yeah. [00:14:05][0.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:14:06] And how you wanted to say it. [00:14:08][1.5]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:14:08] So how do you all support each other? How does a community lift each other up in a way to just make sure you get back on stage. You've bombed, which of course, I'm going to assume you all have bombed. [00:14:19][10.3]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:14:19] You must bomb. [00:14:20][0.6]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:14:21] Yeah, yeah. Everybody bombs. [00:14:22][1.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:14:23] No one's going to get through that. No one's going to get through without bomb. No one. [00:14:26][3.5]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:14:27] Ophira, tell me about your first bomb. [00:14:27][0.8]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:14:29] I assume it was the first time I was on stage, although that was such an elevated experience. It's hard to separate the chemistry from the bomb because some stuff did get a laugh. And, you know, I was like, Oh, I actually think I did okay for the first few. And then, you know, and then reality sunk in that I didn't have the chops and just bombed forever or, you know, you think you have a joke and all you have is a statement. It's not a joke yet. But to the answer of like, how do you keep doing it? I mean, one is, it is like going to the gym. Yeah. I think there's some people out there that always claim to me that they run a marathon and hey didn't run one day beforehand and blah, blah, blah, great. But for most people, you train consistently and continuously, much like perfecting any instrument. And the only way it with standup just you can't practice in your house, so you have to hit a stage. So that's why, you know, standups are kind of notoriously criticized for being such, like, hungry for stage time, sometimes negative. They're like, Oh, you'll just do stand up anywhere. Or like you hear about a show and your first thought isn't, Oh, I wonder if that shows any good. It's like, How do I get on that show? [00:15:42][72.5]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:15:44] How do I get in? Who books that? [00:15:44][0.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:15:44] You have to practice, you have to practice, you just have to practice. And that's also, for me, the only way any of the fear doesn't overtake you. Because when you're doing it all the time, you're doing it all the time. And so if you fail at one, you've got another one next and there's no time to sit there and wallow. You got to you got to figure it out and get back on the next show and do it again and start figuring it out and try to be a little subjective. And sometimes you go on a run of failure and then you got to regroup. But you just have to keep you really just have to keep doing it and then it just gets easier and you don't notice it. [00:16:22][38.1]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:16:24] If you keep doing it, it becomes the norm. You know, just like you're like runners, I guess. Yeah. Like I look at runners and go, how do you do that and why? Why do you do that? That looks awful. It looks so awful for your body. It looks miserable. But I imagine they just get they get up and they go and do it and they do it so much that they don't notice they don't notice the effect it has on their body. And I do think that when we do stand up the way we do, we don't notice these things. We don't notice the bombing, we don't notice the fear, we don't notice any of it because being on stage becomes the norm. And that's pretty much what we need to do to be good at it. That's just kind of how it goes, I think. [00:17:09][44.8]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:17:09] Well, I think if it's any medium, too, you just have to keep showing up and doing it. That's right. When I was a visual artist, I just never knew I could be rejected that many times. It just feels like with standup, it's like, wow, it's that immediate. [00:17:22][13.1]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:17:23] It is very immediate. But then you also watch your you watch your heroes fail. Like you watch people, you know, throwing out new material on stage is a process. And it would be great if you could just boil it down and make it perfect and then put it out there. But that's just not how it works. You try it, you have to listen. You have to retool. That doesn't work. I mean, it's such a process. And then, you know, here I would say at the clubs, like I see all a lot of the famous comedians that everyone knows and love preparing, starting their new hour, starting their new tour, preparing for their SNL appearance. And you hear them failing. [00:17:59][35.7]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:18:00] And how does it make you feel when you hear them failing? [00:18:02][1.6]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:18:02] Oh, I love it. [00:18:03][0.6]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:18:03] I was going to say. I mean, it's got to be reassuring. [00:18:06][2.9]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:18:07] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then what is even more interesting is then seeing how it ended up and realizing the huge amount of work that happened in between those two spaces. [00:18:20][13.0]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:18:20] Yeah. Yeah. [00:18:21][0.8]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:18:22] That's making a. [00:18:22][0.7]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:18:22] Real nonjudgmental work with yourself. Right? You have to step back and agree to fix something and agree that there's something wrong and not be afraid of that. Not just be like I failed, I failed, I failed. [00:18:33][10.4]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:18:33] Yeah, man. Yeah, yeah. [00:18:34][1.2]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:18:35] Here in Boston. Lots of comedians start their tours working on their hour at the Wilbur. And I. I work at the Wilbur all the time, so I get to open for someone doing their first time running this hour. And then I get to see it that first time. And then a year later or a year and a half later, the special comes out and getting to see what it became between the time that they did it the first time here at the Wilbur. And when it comes out on HBO or wherever and like Ophira says, that's like the amount of work and the tweaking. And just sometimes it's just a pause that changes the joke from, you know, a laugh to just uproarious laughter. And getting to to see that, to see everybody do that work is really cool. [00:19:30][54.5]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:19:30] Well, that's what I was so struck with and watching y'all. It was the negative spaces for y'all more than the jokes you were giving. It was like the amount of time that you were pacing these things was remarkable to me. It was fantastic. [00:19:42][11.8]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:19:43] Thank you. I still write and pen and paper and then I have some stuff that I write on the computer and print out, it's a real disorganized mess of how my process, but I will say every -- I'm just like seeing if I have a book near me -- every single book on every second page of where I'm writing my act or jokes or whatever I'm doing, says on the top, Slow Down. [00:20:00][17.2]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:20:00] Oh, yeah. [00:20:00][0.3]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:20:02] Always, because and I made that mistake for years. I would just go as fast as I could and then, you know, pause and don't hear anything immediate onto the next thing. And it's an approval thing. It's like a needing thing. I also, it is a power thing. You know, I think I have a kind of ingrained female thing where it's just like, you don't like me now? How about now? How about now? How about now? How about now? How about now? And I'll just nail it through. And if you don't leave that space, it's never going to come to you. [00:20:34][32.0]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:20:34] Catherine Burns gave me some of the best direction I ever got, as a storyteller doing the same thing. I've always been funny. I feel reassured when somebody is laughing with, you know, it's very reassuring to get that response. And I was blowing through things that really needed to land. And she said, Tricia, you need to lean into the silences. But it is that idea of silence to use of silence is so powerful. [00:20:56][22.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:20:57] Totally. [00:20:57][0.0]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:21:06] We'll get back to the second half of our conversation in a moment. But right now I want to tell you about our sponsor Interabang Books, a Dallas-based independent bookstore with a terrific online collection. And at Interabang, their dedicated staff of book enthusiast will guide you on your search for knowledge and the excitement of discovery. Shop their curated collection online at interabangbooks.com. That's in Interabang I N T E R A B A N G books dot com. Stay with us through the end of the episode to receive a special online offer. [00:21:41][35.2]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:21:59] How have y'all both been helped by the stand up community? How to stand up work together? [00:22:05][5.7]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:22:05] I would say for me, being a mother of two young kids, trying to do stand up is really, really daunting and complicated. And the community here is so supportive that, you know, when sometimes I have to cancel, all of a sudden, you know, one of the kids is sick or something happens and I have to last minute say I can't show up. And they keep booking me. They're just they don't ever go, oh, this bitch, like, never shows up or don't book Bethany. She's going to blow it off or whatever. They keep booking me. And when I show up, the next time I'm, you know, like, I'll show up with my tail between my legs, like, I'm so sorry I had to cancel. They'd be like, whenever you have kids, man, like, so glad you're back. And I'm like, Wow. And these are over the years, these become younger and younger people who are saying this to me. So it's people without kids, people who are having their first experience, you know, in a community where they come up in this thing together, they struggle through this thing together and grow through this thing together. This is like my third experience with that kind of thing, you know. But this is their first time around. They still. Have the empathy and the compassion and are still so supportive about somebody else going through this different thing. You know, somebody older, somebody not, you know, living a life that they're not living at all. When COVID hit, there were people who kind of like just started doing stand up again right away. And then I'd say, you know, sometime last year. I think the scene just came back like or just like opened up. Of course it had to rebuild and everything, but I'd say by last spring or summer people were like, back at it. And I wasn't. I didn't go back to it because we were really, really very concerned about my daughter getting COVID because she previously would get like the common cold and end up in ICU and on, you know, oxygen and everything. So I didn't go back to standup at all right away and all that fear came flying right back. And then it was the fear that was driving me to never go back maybe, and start really thinking about what else I might do as a career. But again, these people would call like producing shows and they'd say, Hey, I know that you're not really doing standup right now, but I have this this show, it's in a yard. It's in a yard. And we're asking for vaccinations and everybody's going to wear masks. Would you consider doing that? So I did my first show after COVID last June, and I was that was way behind everybody, you know? And and that's what happened for that for that the rest of that year, people would call and say, I have, I know you're not really doing shows, but I have this spot and it's in a huge warehouse and everybody's going to be vaccinated and we'll all stay away from you and you can bring your own mic. And I'm like, Oh my God. It didn't even occur to me to ask for these things and people are offering it. And now, you know, I'm out there regular, now I'm just back at it, but I still wear my mask, you know, because up until last week, my daughter hadn't gotten COVID yet, but she has it now. So now I'm just going to go out and act like a maniac. But up until up until last week, I was still showing up at these shows, these like very young Gen Z shows with a mask on and no one says a word. They just like they just, it's like, Hey, I'm just happy you're here. However you show up. I'm just happy you're here. [00:25:37][211.3]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:25:37] Yeah, that's. [00:25:37][0.2]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:25:38] That's, like, pretty incredible. [00:25:38][0.7]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:25:39] Yeah. How about you, Ophira? [00:25:40][1.1]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:25:42] I mean, I would say the 98% of the jobs, gigs, shows, whatever that I have done, have been because other comics have put me in touch with it, given me the gig, recommended me. It is very much like that community. If you're good and you work at it and you know, people have to know who you are, that's just part of the thing. So you have to be part of the community and an active part of the community and are easy to deal with. That's a huge part of it, too. They just people are like, Hey, I'm looking for a comic to do this. Someone goes, Hey, do you want to do this gig? Always. I mean, there is actually a lot of work out there of just a huge variety of work. And people go to comics and go, can you like who are three people? [00:26:31][48.4]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:26:31] Yeah. [00:26:31][0.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:26:32] How do you know? Or It's all been through my peers. [00:26:36][4.8]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:26:37] I mean, I always find too and I'm in my studio by myself going, What am I doing? I have no idea what I'm doing here. I have to reach out to somebody else and run something, pass somebody, or just reach out because it looks like it looks like standup is such a solitary endeavor, but it's not. I mean, you're running it past all these people, as you were saying, as part of the process. But I think a lot of times people start isolating if they don't know what they're doing or isolating if they think, you know, wait, this is new and I don't know how to do this, when in fact, it's like if you don't know how to do it, ask somebody and get in there and get a group and be around people. [00:27:13][35.6]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:27:15] Right. It just becomes too hard. It's too hard. I think that it just seems like too hard. And then you and you think you're so alone and then you show up somewhere and you go, like, I just like, whatever, I'll say to someone I have, like, this new joke that I just can't get off the ground. It's like I've been working on it. It feels like 40 shows and it's garbage and they're like, Yeah, I've got 9 minutes like that right now. [00:27:36][21.1]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:27:39] It is the sense of just not feeling crazy because I think as artists, yeah. You know, we're not really part of the general population anyway because we're just looking at things so differently often we're seeing things differently a lot of the times, and so we need to be with the tribe that can help us just sort of work out our vision and, you know, it's just really making sure that you're reaching out. Could you ever be where you are right now if you hadn't somehow been lifted by other people along the way? [00:28:10][31.2]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:28:10] No, no, no, no. And it doesn't even work. Like like it doesn't, I think work like that for standup, really. You know, you go to a show, there's more than one standup on that show. You're not all pals and hanging out in the clubhouse before. Usually it's just a variety. And sometimes you are meeting people for the first time still. But you all are on that experience together. And and even like, there's very few jerks, I will say that are out there. But I in my estimation, there's very few. There's people that are weird. There's people that are socially inept. But there's very few people that are just ongoing jerks. And I think you probably even know many of their names because social media does a good job of that. But for the most part, you're all in this thing together. And so there and so it's impossible for such a solo existence on stage. You are all in this together. [00:29:03][52.9]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:29:04] And that's got to, that's got to make it easier. It's just got to make it easier. [00:29:10][5.8]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:29:12] It does. Yeah. And the comic after you usually says, you know, if they just walked in, they'll be like, what's this audience like? Like, we also depend on each other to, like, set the stage. And you're like, I don't know, someone's drunk in the front, lot of tourist in the back. These people are noisy. I love those. And they're like, Oh, okay, got it. You know, like, there's a lot of that going on, too. [00:29:31][19.5]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:29:32] Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, if you're I know you in particular are building community again with your new podcast, Parenting is a Joke and is there is a particular community there? Like tell us just a little bit about your podcast real quick. [00:29:45][13.4]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:29:47] Well, I mean, like exactly what Bethany said, having kids and doing a especially a night job, any creative job, but I think a night job, it just there are no comedy shows at 2 p.m.. I mean, maybe they are. [00:29:59][12.1]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:29:59] Don't want to do them. [00:29:59][0.0]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:30:00] They're not the best. [00:30:00][0.5]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:30:01] Don't want to do them. [00:30:01][0.4]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:30:01] Not the best. So, you know, I, I never I never thought I was going to be a parent. And so I did that also later in life. And then I felt very alone. But then I looked around and just realized all of these stand up, like a lot of stand ups suddenly had kids. There was nothing for a long time, I swear. There was like nobody I knew had had a kid and that all of a sudden it was just all these people don't really know why. I don't know if it was like some message sent down from aliens that we have to create an army or what. But it all happened. And I was like, Oh my goodness, we're all having to do this at the same time and we're all having to figure it out. And we're all talking about our experiences, I think, in a way that is super fresh and different from what you might think of as like parenting comedy. You know, it's like mom with wines and wine in the sippy cup is very different from that and it's very vulnerable and it's very truthful. And I just love the whole thing. And I thought while we're in this moment, I need to gather as many of these people as I can and talk to them. You know, as and I thought a good medium for that would be a podcast. [00:31:12][71.1]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:31:13] Yeah. Yeah, I know. I listened to a couple episodes and I don't have children I still like. This is fascinating. Everybody's got something that they're trying to navigate, you know, and to and whether it's, you know, how to be a comedian when you have children, how to be an artist if you have children, how to be an artist under any circumstances, it's hard to navigate it. And so just hearing how other people are are doing that, it's and plus, it's very funny. So that's always helpful. Humor's always helpful. [00:31:37][24.3]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:31:37] Well, I thought, you know, who better to talk? We're not no experts, actually. We we had an expert on who is an actual doctor. But, you know, when people are like, oh, are you giving advice? I was like, no, no, no, no advice. There is no advice on this. This is all about just laughing. [00:31:53][15.8]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:31:55] Just camaraderie. I'm going to ask both of you this question. What is the thing that you're working on right now that scares you? [00:32:00][5.2]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:32:06] Everything. [00:32:06][0.0]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:32:06] Yeah. [00:32:06][0.0]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:32:10] I was like, What is she going to say? Because it feels like there's nothing that's not scary. [00:32:13][3.3]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:32:14] New material in general is scary because I have a tendency, you know, you get some stuff working. Everything's always new at one point. Yet when you get it working and it feels old and then I will get in this place where I'm like, I'll never write anything as good as that. And so I feel like the new stuff, I'm like, This is terrible. That was my heyday. I got, you know, and you just got to get past that. It's very, very hard. So there is just writing, you know, whatever the next hour of standup is. And then, you know, also scaring me, I, I was working on the solo show for years about all the scars that cover my body and people's experiences with their scars. And I was working on it. And right before the pandemic, I had a little bit of a runway to make something happen with it, which evaporated. And now I'm looking at that material again for the first time, I actually thought I would never look at it again. I was like, I'm done, I'm done. And then I realized that it is one of the biggest stories of my life and I need to approach it. And that is daunting. And also I don't connect to the way I have written the material. So it's a process of looking at that as the OphiraI am now and rewriting it. And it's a lot. It is a mind fuck as they say. [00:33:36][81.8]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:33:36] Yes. Hey, you know, I did that one woman show for years and then I got asked to do it after I hadn't done it in four years. I took 8 minutes out of the first act because I was like, Why did I ever say this? Why does it? And I always felt like when I was on stage going, Why am I still in Act One? Why is this still happening? I don't why am I here? And I just never could figure it out. And then four years later, I'm like, because no one needs to hear that anymore. And just like and it was funny, but it didn't move the story forward and so it can just be used. So I'm excited about you looking at that material again. [00:34:15][38.7]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:34:15] Yeah, it's hard. [00:34:16][0.8]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:34:17] How about you, Bethany? What are you working on? [00:34:18][1.4]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:34:19] I've been working on a keynote about the importance of storytelling in family engagement and collaboration, and it's. It's something I did before the pandemic and then also somehow managed to do lots tons of conferences during the pandemic, speaking to people either in the early intervention community, early childhood education community or special education community. [00:34:42][22.9]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:34:42] Do you have anything on the comedy front you're working on? [00:34:44][1.7]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:34:45] Just comedy. Just doing comedy. Just doing shows. [00:34:49][4.5]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:34:50] Yeah, it is. It is the ongoing. Just keep working on the bits. Keep putting it together. [00:34:54][3.9]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:34:55] Working on new stuff, everything. I absolutely relate to everything Ophira said about new material. I'm in the new material, old material vortex right now. I have some irons in the fire, but Mars is retrograde, so I'm going to keep it close to the chest. And when Mars comes out of retrograde, I'll talk about the irons in the fire. I just made that up. I totally made that up. [00:35:20][25.0]
Speaker 1Tricia: [00:35:21] It sounds very convincing. Okay, well, I can't thank you all enough for joining the show. I really appreciate it. And thank you again. Ophira and Bethany will keep an eye out for you. [00:35:32][10.8]
Speaker 3 Bethany: [00:35:32] Thank you so much. [00:35:33][0.6]
Speaker 2 Ophira: [00:35:33] Thank you so much. So nice to see you. [00:35:33][0.0]
[2005.2]