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Culture Theatre

Preview: Deanne Smith

DEANNE SMITH opening for SARA SCHAEFER at Comedy Bar (945 Bloor West), Saturday (January 17), 8 and 10 pm, comedybar.ca performing at UNTRIED & TRUE at Bad Dog Theatre (875 Bloor West) on Wednesday (January 21), 9:30 pm, baddogtheatre.com and headlining at Absolute Comedy (2335 Yonge), February 4 to 8 at various times, absolutecomedy.ca.


You can thank DeAnne Smith that there are no T-shirts reading #TellItToMyBalls.

Even though that hashtag – a repeated phrase from one of her jokes – trended in social media during her time in 2014’s Last Comic Standing competition, she decided not to brand it with merch.

“It was always meant to be ironic,” she says about the expression, part of a joke satirizing lazy male comics.

Her popular appearances on the reality show may have raised her profile in the U.S., but she was doing very well before that.

She’s done great sets at Just For Laughs, and in March she heads to Australia for her seventh appearance at the prestigious Melbourne Comedy Festival. You can catch glimpses of the new material this week at Comedy Bar and Bad Dog and in headlining sets in early February at Absolute Comedy.

“The show for Melbourne is called Get Into It, and I’m calling it comedy that digs deep – and then goes deeper,” she says on the phone from a tour stop in Kingston. “I’m trying to write jokes, look at them and then see how much more vulnerable or real I can get.”

Smith’s onstage persona is already very real. She exudes a queer studies grad student-ish vibe and expertly sends up hipsters, queer political correctness and her own anxiety.

“When I first started out, people would tell me I seemed comfortable onstage, and I would joke that I was equally uncomfortable everywhere,” she says. “My anxiety is such that I’m always managing. Nothing – and everything – is scary.”

She cites Maria Bamford, no stranger to revealing onstage anxieties, as one of her comedy heroes.

“I don’t think I come anywhere close to what she does, but I admire how concise and sharp her jokes are. She gets up and basically says, ‘This is me, this is what I think about, take it or leave it.’ That’s really brave.”

Speaking of bravery, the New York state-raised Smith has uprooted her life to follow relationships. She moved to Montreal to be with one girlfriend – fortuitous because Smith, an aspiring poet, began performing comedy there (“If I had a room full of people, I’d rather make them laugh than feel quietly reflective with my poems”).

Then she followed another woman to Australia, where her impressive act caught the attention of bookers for the acclaimed Melbourne festival.

Will she ever deal with those relationships in her act?

“I recently broke up, and I’m finding it cathartic to write about it,” she says. “I’ve come up with a little joke and said it once onstage. My ex was worried that I’d talk about our history in my act. And I assured her, ‘Oh my god, I’d never do that. Nothing we did was ever fun. Why would I talk about it onstage?’

“When I do talk about anyone else onstage,” she adds, “the joke is always on me. It’s not about making fun of others. There’s no fun in that.”

Interview Clips

Smith on getting the audience on her side and working for different crowds.

On learning not to judge the audience.

On regularly coming up with a new hour of material.

On making the most of live performance.

On her podcast.

@glennsumi

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