Living genuinely. Celebrating imperfection. Making memories. Embracing wear you are in your life and how you live. This is WEAR THEY ARE: A Snapshot of Fearless Females and How They Got There– a series where all of these concepts come to life through the stories of women who’ve embraced them firsthand.
I want you to imagine for a minute how different you would be without the women in your life. The women who have encouraged, inspired, told you the harsh but necessary truth, and supported you along your journey. Your sisters. Your mothers. Your friends. Your teachers. Your neighbors. Your mentors. You know the saying “It takes a village”? Well, it does. I don’t care if you’re a stay-at-home Mom or a CEO- you didn’t get there alone. And you’re not alone now. And I’m not alone either. And that’s in part to Natasha Samreny.
You may know her as comedian and sketch comedy writer with the Florida Studio Theatre Improv (Sarasota, FL), Got Jokes? (Tampa) and Millennial Fresh. I know her as my Uncle Mark’s niece, a quasi-cousin through marriage, and the woman who has been my walking definition of “hair goals” since I was a little girl. Natasha is a storyteller in the truest sense. Whether on stage or sitting across from you at a kitchen table, she draws you in to her every word, encapsulating the most minute details of every story, all to make you feel like you were right there with her in the first place. Her comedy is funny, open and truthful- not obvious or gimmicky- almost as if she cracked open both your head and your heart simultaneously and made you say, “AHA! Yes!” while you laugh til your sides hurt.
I’m sitting down with Natasha today to share her story; a story of a woman who never imagined she’d land in comedy and a peak into the path this self-proclaimed “Culture Chameleon” took to walk from a Master’s Degree in Arabic to the comedy circuit.
WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO BE A STAND-UP COMIC?
I can tell you how I fell into comedy. I’d finished grad school and planned to go back to reporting. I was in radio and studied Arabic, hoping to work overseas. After a series of things not panning out, I moved back home and did work I could find: proofreading, editing, painting my parents’ house. But I missed writing and wanted to rediscover the joy I’d felt doing it before journalism.
I heard about these comedy classes in Chicago. After a couple months of calling, emailing and pitching, I was interning with the head of Archives at The Second City. I started my first classes soon after.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND. HOW HAS THAT IMPACTED YOUR APPROACH TO COMEDY?
I’ve thought about this a lot.
My upbringing is sacred to me. I’m a Third Culture Kid who grew up with the world as my backyard. As an adult, I think my global cravings pushed me to take unusual risks for the sake of experience. Like traveling to fringe festivals in Scotland and England to perform. So I could challenge my comedy with more international audiences and to see what else is out there.
I’m a military brat and my parents are the children of immigrants. We spoke three languages at home: English, Spanish and food. My dad’s Italian-Lebanese and my mom’s Ecuadorean. Plus, I was raised Mormon. You could say that moving back to the States was the biggest culture shock of my life.
But my family’s the most entertaining group of storytellers I know. I’ve lost count of how many Sunday dinners began with one of my mom’s multi-course spreads and ended with a family room of international guests singing and playing guitar while we ate and laughed and talked Until.
We had one TV channel, but spent summers road-tripping to other countries. Sports meant playing whatever team sport was offered on the base for that season — soccer in the fall, baseball in the spring, swimming all year round.
Limited choices in a limitless world taught me to absorb everything I could. To become a cultural chameleon and adapt to whatever room, group of people or setting as needed. That being said, I will probably never have enough stoner or Star Wars jokes for the mainstream American palette.
WHAT’S THE HARDEST PART OF YOUR JOB?
Networking. I hate small talk. I like people, but my brain’s not wired that way.
Also, actually writing and polishing bits offstage. My mind’s always on and circulating premises, popping bits like bubbles. I love working stuff out onstage because magic can happen riffing with the audience. But tweaking afterwards, putting pen to paper is not a passive process.
DO YOU HAVE A RITUAL THAT HELPS YOU PREPARE BEFORE YOU TAKE THE STAGE?
Breathing. Breathing definitely helps. I try not to drink coffee right before a show. ‘Cause caffeine spins my pace out of control once the adrenaline kicks in. I visualize myself onstage wearing the actual energy I want to channel.
Curling my eyelashes always picks me up. When I was in high school, someone described me as “that girl that always looks high.” I was still Mormon at the time, so I literally didn’t know what that meant. But once I found out, I realized I should probably feel offended. So that stuck with me and I try to look awake if I’m conscious.
AT 11 AM ON A SATURDAY YOU CAN FIND ME…
Sleeping if I had a show the night before. Or doing my laundry and trying to find new homes for my endless supply of receipts I’m supposed to do something with as a working comedian. I don’t make enough money to have this many receipts.
IT SEEMS, WITH THE SUCCESS OF MAINSTREAM FEMALE COMEDIANS AMY SCHUMER, LESLIE JONES, TINA FEY, KRISTEN WIIG, AND MELISSA MCCARTHY THAT IT’S AN AMAZING TIME TO BE A WOMAN IN COMEDY. IS COMEDY STILL A BOYS CLUB? WHAT IS IT REALLY LIKE TO BE A WOMAN IN COMEDY?
Being a woman in comedy is like being a woman in any other male-dominated sector. I often feel I have to work harder to get people to listen. And I’m often second-guessing a booker’s intentions because I’ve been blind-sided before.
IN YOUR WRITING, DO YOU FEEL A SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY TO NOT ONLY ENTERTAIN, BUT INFORM YOUR AUDIENCE? THERE IS SO MUCH IMMEDIACY INVOLVED IN DISCUSSING CURRENT EVENTS AND POLITICAL HAPPENINGS. HOW DOES THAT PLAY A ROLE FOR YOU?
I do feel a responsibility and I think it’s easier for me to pull off with sketch writing than with stand-up.
In one of my favorite sketches, I play Mamacita. It’s a sweet but honest scene between a Latin, Catholic immigrant and her more Americanized granddaughter. The young woman’s questioning her relationship with a a guy. But the dynamic between the characters themselves challenges cultural, gender and age stereotypes.
It was so fulfilling to hear audience members recognize, laugh at and tell me afterwards how much they related to it.
LET’S DO A LITTLE WORD ASSOCIATION.
SANDWICHES
yum
MARTHA STEWART
whuuuut?
RAIN
outdoors
YOUR MOTHER
the bomb
ELON MUSK
airport, air ranger guy
THE COLOR PINK
delicious
NEW YORK
New Yaaaahrk (like the song)
KALE
green
WOMEN
dope as fuh
HOW DO YOU DEFINE THE WORD “FEARLESS”?
I’d rather leap into a really scary thing than slowly step into a somewhat hard thing. When I want to be Fearless, I jump in that direction. I leap.
My fear lives in thinking too long about the unanswerable What Ifs of Life. Spiraling into circular thinking makes me afraid to move forward. In those moments, I literally turn my headphones way up. Scream. And just try to make it through the next minute counting breaths.
I BELIEVE THAT EVERY WOMAN HAS A TRIBE OF LIKE-MINDED LADIES WHO HELPED THEM GET WHERE THEY ARE. DO YOU HAVE A FEMALE ROLE MODEL? WHO IS SHE, AND WHY?
My mom. Anyone looking in would think she’s Fearless. But she’s so real — fighting her own demons every day while treating everyone around her with constant compassion.
She’s done all the hard things. Even when they weren’t thrust upon her, it’s like she sought them out to prove herself to an unfit birth father and all the others and systems who dared her with No.
She has two graduate degrees in her second language, retired full Colonel, fought wars and bad guys across the globe, and raised and moved a family of six across the world several times. But mostly, she always showed me how to work hard and fight honestly for the things I want and people I love. Math was my hardest subject. But when dinner was done and everyone else was in bed, my mom spent hours tutoring me until I fell asleep at the kitchen table. And each time my heart was broken and I couldn’t see through the tears, she held me and let me cry Until. First as my mom, now as my friend. She’s just a bad-ass in so many ways.
AND YOUR COMEDY ROLE MODEL?
Maria Bamford, Tig Notaro, Kathleen Madigan, Kate McKinnon and Meryl Streep
WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR PROUDEST FASHION MOMENT TO DATE?
Every time I can fit my boobs into something and not make it look like I’m trying to put them out there. Lol. Thanks a lot, Mamacita!
But also, a couple years ago shooting promo pics for my storytelling show Practice Wedding. I wore the wedding dress I was supposed to wear when I almost got married in 2008. The dress was loose (yass) and since I didn’t have to worry about getting it dirty, I ran around barefoot on the beach. Older couples kept coming up to me saying “Congratulations!” and “Who’s the lucky man?” I gave different answers every time, “Thank you! I’m not keeping him” and “I am! I’m a lucky man!”
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 10 YEARS?
Abroad, living a digital nomad/performer life. There’s too much of the world to stay in one place. Published book. Maybe a TV series. And a warm little hedgehog that travels in my pocket. Or a man if he’s not too messy. But the man can’t stay in my pocket, that’s too small.
To keep up with Natasha, and for her performance schedule, you can find her at NatashaSamreny.com, on Twitter and Instagram at @NatashaSamreny, and on Facebook at Natasha Samreny Comedy.
Build your tribe. Wear you are now.
xx
Natalie
Natalie
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