Friday, February 13, 2009

Ask Abbi: Why Comedy?


Slava of Stand-Up Comedy 101 writes:

Why did you start doing stand-up comedy?

This is an actual interview that you may read in its entirety here (Don't forget to leave some feedback). But the long and the short of it is to show my husband and two kids that I am not just a frumpy housewife, and that I can genuinely make people laugh. Okay I stole that reason from Punchline. But it turns out I had the same aspirations as Sally Field's character in that movie. I wanted to prove myself. Especially after several attempts at stand-up that didn't count as real attempts because there was either no jokes, no microphone or no audience. Sally Field's character gets help and encouragement from a fellow comedian played by Tom Hanks. A funny young man hit all the open mics with me and supported my every effort, but unlike the film, he did NOT blank on stage in front of his father or have a mental breakdown in the rain when I rejected him. I did not reject him. In fact, we are going to get married. I did, however, get a horrible haircut early in my career.



Feel free to post your questions for Abbi in the comments section, to be answered in a later post, or write curlycomedy (at) yahoo.com with "Ask Abbi" in the Subject.

Photo credit:
buy.com

4 comments:

Seth said...

Aaaaaaah! What happened to your hair? That's all kinds of bad.

Happy VD Eve to you and Luke!

Mo Diggs said...

My mom felt my life as a stand-up was sad because the movie Punchline made stand-up look like a sad business
How right she is!

Abbi Crutchfield said...

@ Seth: Thanks for the V-Day wishes. We're having an Anti-Valentine's Day show tonight. By the way, I cut off the last of the orange in December. Now it just feels like a bad dream I had.

@ Mo: My mom feared I would hang out with drug addicts, and all I could picture are people with curly mullets.

badslava said...

Punchline was a great movie, and as relatable as ever. I personally know at least one Mom from NJ trying to break into stand-up.