It’s not that it’s impossible for me to get out and perform at night. I have babysitters, and they will work at night, and I do shows at night.
But now that I’m a mom, going out late at night to perform has lost its sheen. My baby wakes up at 6:30am and my other kid needs to be up by 7:30am to start his day. If I want 8 hours of sleep, which, after experiencing years of sleep deprivation and segmented sleep, I DO, I have to be asleep by 10:30pm. So I try to hit the sack most nights by around 10pm.
I know I’m not the only person in the world to have kids and to have priorities that make me have to wake up early and all that stuff, but there is something about managing children day in and day out that is exhausting in a way that I’ve never experienced before. Maybe it’s that I’m getting older, I am in my 40s with two young children after all (I waited late to have kids—I was too busy having fun and performing). Maybe it’s that I am pain avoidant. Nope, kids are hard and exhausting, no matter who you are or what your age is.
And that is why I’m begging the world and society to normalize morning comedy. Why do we have to wait for the end of the day to get together and laugh? Doesn’t it make more sense that we start the day with laughter? Many people go to work and school starting early in the morning, but many of the best attended comedy shows are on the weekends anyway. So why not more Saturday and Sunday morning comedy shows?
One of my favorite comedy shows I ever performed on was a show which took place in the basement of a book store in Brooklyn around 10am, I think on a Wednesday. The first time I walked down those stairs and saw a packed room full of women nursing little babies, ready and eager for comedy, I was overwhelmed with joy. Why can’t live comedy take place in the morning, for moms with babies? These moms were here for it. They needed it. They needed to laugh, they needed a safe place to nurse and be enveloped with maternal energy and support. It was ALL GOOD. Plus, there were really good cookies for all the hungry nursing moms to gobble down.
I loved the premise of the show so much, I pitched a similar version called Comedy and Coffee to a local play place in a town about an hour or so away from that original show and the owner immediately bit. We’ve been doing it for about a year now, and it’s honestly one of my favorite shows. Is it a hot mess? Hell YES. Is it a beautiful way for me to meet other kids and families? Can my children come to the show? Is there really good coffee? Even more hell YES.
There is a lot of morning comedy on TV and the radio. But we need more live comedy shows in the mornings. It’s a virtually untapped market. And it not only benefits the moms who attend the shows, but it makes performing that much more possible for the women in comedy who have to tend to young ones during the day and then fall into their beds exhausted at 9 or 10pm.
Though I used to do it almost every night for years and years, the idea of doing a comedy show after 9pm now is, well, not inviting to me.
In short, please, PLEASE—normalize live morning time comedy shows.
Today’s comedy inspo:
At least one Bob Rivers song belongs on your holiday play list
I love how McSweeney’s is never afraid to get weird
I’m only on Facebook anymore for the groups