Opening for Kyla Cobbler in Oslo
The more I am surrounded by talented women, the better I get.
Hi! Thank you for reading You’re Invited to Laugh: a weekly look at work as an American stand-up comedian based in Berlin, Germany. I moved to Europe as an opera singer in 2019 and you can read the full story here. This publication is free right now, but you are invited to pledge support for the future!
I want to start this week’s newsletter by letting you know that I’m doing my solo show, Lessons on Being Loud, here in Berlin on Thursday, March 20th at Wein Salon. The last show sold out, so grab your tickets now!
Last week, I opened for Irish comedian Kyla Cobbler at Latter in Oslo.
Oslo is stylish like Copenhagen without the pretension, and arty like Berlin without the trash. It’s a great city! The only drawback is that money flew away from me in droves. To sneeze in Oslo costs, like, €10.
I arrived a few days before the show to see my dear friends Ben and Haley, who recently moved to there. We went to the Munch museum and screamed, we climbed the roof of the opera house, and we hiked up a cross country ski route. You know, Norway things.
Haley and I found one of the best English bookstores yet:
. As a connoisseur of English bookstores across Europe, I have to say, Indigo and her shop are really lovely. You must go say hi if you’re in Oslo.One of the things you need to learn when doing comedy in Europe is how to navigate jokes in multiple cultures. Because there are so many different countries, a set has to be able to work in front of Germans and in front of Italians with little change.
A shared understanding of stereotypes is helpful. My joke about Germans smiling really big instead of laughing hits in most countries, because everyone has a basic understanding of Germans as serious people, and there are usually a few Germans in every audience no matter where you are, making the joke feel special. But this can quickly become hacky. If you want to make a joke about how ugly German sounds when compared to French, you better be doing something brilliant.
I spent five days in Oslo, so I had a few jokes that were Norway-specific. I did a bit about train announcements, how German announcements are crackly and long-winded, but Norwegian announcements are two cute “boop” sounds and that is supposed to be equivalent to eight words. That joke was good.
I tested another joke on Kyla and her manager Viveka (of Comedy in Barcelona) backstage to see if they got it, and I am so glad I treid it, because they absolutely did not. Here’s the background: in Oslo, the national Friday night meal is tacos. There is an entire aisle devoted to tacos in every grocery store. Additionally, there are hotdogs being sold on street corners. The other piece of information you need to know is that Norway invented skiing, and is home to the Ski Museum.
So my joke was, “Guys, there are hotdogs and tacos everywhere! Oslo turned skiing into a baseball game!”
I didn’t account for the other essential piece of information here: baseball. Woof. You need the knowledge that hot dogs and tacos are universally sold at baseball games, and having a hot dog at a baseball game is the cornerstone of the American experience. I was raised a Baseball Catholic, and I can forget that not everyone grew up on peanuts and cracker jacks.
Overall, not a great joke, and thank goodness I figured that out before getting on stage. But the “bood-lee-oop” immitation of Norwegian train annoucements did work, so my pride is intact.
I also ran into Pernille Haaland at Latter, a fabulous English-speaking comic currently writing for Norway’s SNL. We met in Berlin and she’s stayed with me while on tour. I highly recommend seeing her if she’s in your city, especially because she is right on the money. Also check out her great explainations on Scandinavian versus Nordic countries.
I met Kyla in Barcelona. She is popping off in a massive way, and if you haven’t heard of her, you will. The woman is just funny. Truly, the best crowd work I’ve ever seen live. Irish people are quick, but Kyla sets the bar. And she recently opened for THE DAD FROM DERRY GIRLS, Tommy Tiernan, so I mean, she’s the top of the top. (“GERRY!”) This was very good for me, selfishly, because being around that level of comedian makes me better at what I’m doing.
Once upon a time, my dad was developing Video on Demand for Starz. He helped determine the UI pathways for how your remote moves through on-demand content, in the nascent streaming world. One of the actors Starz was working with to promote VOD was Dennis Weaver, most famous for the 1960s TV show Gunsmoke.
I was probably 13 when I met him, and I asked him for his advice, as I was an aspiring actor. He said (paraphrased from prepubescent memory): “If you can do anything else with your life and be happy, do that. But if this is the only thing you can see yourself doing, and you’re hungry for it, do it anywhere. Do it all the time. And surround yourself with people who are better than you, because you will get better. You’ll be jealous, and want to be better, and they’ll make you do better.”
This advice has held up. Surround yourself with people who are better than you. Surround yourself with people who make you want to push harder and be more.
Watching Kyla made me want to be better at crowd work. I’m a perennial high school teacher, in that I want to make everyone feel loved and special. Crowd work is hard for me because I spent five years in a classroom containing side quests to get my crowd of sophomores back on track. But good comedy crowd work pushes people, finds the weird thing, and says the quiet part out loud. You serve the joke, not the feelings of the crowd-workee. This is a muscle I need to spend more time training.
Thank you Ben, Haley, Pernille, Kyla, and Viveka for a smashing Scandi time.
Saturday was International Women’s Day, a holiday I’d never heard of before moving to Europe. It’s like Mother’s Day, but for all the ladies. I’m a big fan. I was on a Don’t Tell Comedy showcase with a few other brilliant women, and the lineup was so epic that I’m going to post their names here, because you should follow them all:
Brownie points to Pat Moore, our lovely host.
I have a new long reel uploaded to Instagram and on YouTube. It’s pulled from the Michelle Wolf support set, which was linked in full last week. Any like or view this gets does help me get booked.
What’s on this week!
Friday, March 14th
Breaking Bed / Das Gift
Saturday, March 15th
Private show! You can always hire me for your party, as a host for the evening or for a performance.
UPCOMING:
Thursday, March 20th
Wein Salon SOLO BUY TICKETS RIGHT NOW YAY!
Have a wonderful week <3
About Me: I’m Steph, an award-winning writer and performer. You can read my full bio at www.stephaniedeprez.com.
I actually really like the baseball/skiing joke. I get why I didn't work in Norway, but it made me laugh.
Having you stop by Prismatic Pages was a total joy and delight! So glad you came to Oslo and hope you'll be back soon :)