Beth Stelling brings her best to The Comedy Club of Kansas City this weekend

Beth Stelling, Courtesy of the Artist

Standup comic Beth Stelling comes through the Comedy Club of Kansas City on Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25. She hails from the Chicago standup scene, since amassing a wide range of specials. She’s witty and debaucherous and wildly fun to watch—and her special on Netflix’s The Standups series had me rolling in laughter. We caught a chance to talk ahead of the KC dates.

The Pitch: You seem pretty close with your mom. Has she been influential in your comedy?

Yeah, she’s always been super supportive. My mom’s a pianist, and I don’t think she ever had any qualms about encouraging me to pursue the arts. I always felt very supported by her, which you can’t say in front of other people, obviously—other parents. Not only encouragement but belief in your pursuing something in the arts which is not always a guaranteed, sort of safe lifestyle if you’re going to be able to survive and provide for yourself.

Before you go on stage, is there ever a point where you get nervous before your performance?

Sometimes I get nervous; I think it depends. I don’t always know the scenarios that make me nervous, you know. But nerves usually come from wanting to do a good job. I’ve been nervous at a big arena opening for John Mulaney; I’ve been nervous at UCB Franklin which seats less than a hundred people—because my boyfriend’s parents were there.

What constitutes doing a good job for you?

It’s a cool art form that gives you that direct feedback in the form of a laugh. And, so, if you’re getting laughs you can feel that, you can feel that connection with the crowd and the majority of the crowd. Because I can say, sometimes, you may make a fraction of the crowd laugh, depending on the scenario. Is it an entire theater of your fans, is it a random room you’re doing, is it a bar show where maybe five people have already been up? I think maybe success is making the majority of the crowd laugh, and feeling like you connected with them and performed your best. My best is usually when I feel connected to the material as well and I had fun doing it, and, yeah—getting everybody to laugh.

I noticed in your special on The Standups that a lot of the laughter you’re getting continues in a slow roll because the joke seems to hit people in two waves, like a second later. Really fun to watch. How have you evolved your style of comedy?

Over time, I’ve grown closer to my personality. Like, my very first late-night set—I’m 26 years old. I’m certainly still the same person but—I would imagine most people hope for—I’ve changed over time and grown and evolved. I’m more comfortable with myself and just closer to my personality and having fun and more relaxed on stage, because I trust in my 18 years of experience with tons of trial and error that I can do my job well.

I didn’t pick that type of style that I started—it just kinda came out of me in my early years. But I was always at ease in silence and just taking my time. I’d rather start that way than have changed my style to be a yelling comic. I think that’s really hard to sustain and I’ve never really been drawn to that type of thing. But I am grateful that I’m not the yelling type.

That’s a lot of new comedians now, I’m seeing. When I lived in Miami, the style was mostly crass and yelling, not so much the slow-form.

I’ve only been to Miami once—they tried to do a South Beach comedy festival there. It didn’t take off.

Beth Stelling, Courtesy the Artist

I understand why, unfortunately. You said you’re at ease in silence—that’s always how you’ve been?

Yeah, I think—I was always more at ease in silence when I was younger. And now, I’m maybe quicker with my comedy.

And you’re also a writer—what part of writing do you most enjoy?

It’s the closest thing to stand-up, which is doing a punch-up on a script, just trying to make it the funniest it can be—being the joke or offering different alternatives to the joke that’s on the paper—being in the room, figuring out ideas with the writer’s room in that way. I think that’s my favorite part of the process.

I’m still figuring it all out, but I think stand-up has different ways and moments. In some ways, it’s like studying childhood development. Years of three-to-six and six-to-nine, there’s like all these stages of development and in some ways you have to be naive enough to start, to be like ‘hey, I should talk into a mic.’ And over time I’ve had different periods of my life where I’ve felt the opposite, like, ‘I should shut the heck up and just listen.’ You know, ultimately, you have to take solace in knowing that it’s not so much you have the most important thing to say, it’s that some of us are speakers and some of us are enjoyers and can relate in that way and don’t have any desire to get on stage. And so, when somebody finds someone they really like, like a stand-up comic or a fan of mine, they get joy out of seeing how you’re going to see the world. That’s what I take solace in, because, over time I’ve felt like, ‘well what’s so important that I have to say?’

It’s less than and more able to take my experience—whether it was silly or fun or mundane or painful—I’m able to transmute that into a live show that people can enjoy.

What’s the biggest feedback you receive from people who watch your comedy, with the perspective that you specifically bring to the table?

Most people say they felt like they were my friend while I was on stage, as if we were just having a conversation. And, that, it didn’t feel like they were necessarily listening to a set of jokes but more a very funny conversation they were having in which they never had to say anything at all. It can seem a little ironic.

What keeps you entertained when you’re on the road?

Sometimes I get wrapped up in a TV show and I want to watch that. But—people watching. What I do when I get to the city is try to find the best cafe or the best coffee or meeting up with friends if I have the opportunity and sharing meals or what they like.

Unfortunately, I too have sometimes succumbed to the wile of social media on my phone.

Beth Stelling, Courtesy the Artist

When you were—early on—babysitting and serving bagels and getting a theater degree, did you ever think you would have to keep doing those jobs for a while?

I will say, it’s not that I enjoy customer service necessarily—I was sick of it at times, there were too many people, I asked the question, ‘what can I get for you’—that can become something that can drive you crazy. But I do enjoy making something nice for someone, whether that was a bagel sandwich or a really good cup of coffee—I take pride in that. Like, serving another human something they’ll enjoy. I was never—at least I don’t recall—being ever, ‘I’m going to get myself out of this shithole’ or something, you know. I felt like—yes, of course, I wish I didn’t have to be working, sometimes I was exhausted. I’m not promoting some sort of chaoplexic worker-bee scenario; I’m grateful that I got to survive on extremely low paychecks every two weeks. I mean my life that I’ve chosen is still a [variable] existence. So it’s not that I have stability, but it is on my own terms, for the most part. I never really felt like, ‘oh, I gotta get out of here and prove someone wrong.’ It was more gratifying to have the flexibility of a job, usually bosses who, for the most part, supported me and my dreams. I was probably a cunty barista. For the most part, I did the best to provide the service to the best of my ability.

What would you say to someone in a similar position who was trying to engage with that deeper calling?

I mean, anything can happen. Pretty sure, Cheryl Strayed talked about, in a poem, “put the light in your heart towards the powers that look like you.”

You know, I’m not saying I’m Carol Burnett, but if I were to ask Carol Burnett, ‘Oh, what should I do?’ you know, if I had that cheat, she’d say, ‘Well, print out your headshot and your resume and mail it to the casting directors you want to work for.’ You’re trying to live a moral and altruistic life as an artist. Make the work you care about.

You’re trying to hopefully let you find your audience or let them find you. Which is hard, you know, especially when you have social media and the internet and—I guess that’s the beauty and the mess of it—you can find anybody. You can start following—I’m thinking of Jordan Brodsky—a teacher in Seattle and their performing crew. There are people whom I’ve met that I wouldn’t have met because of that. They’re pursuing like, it’s not that it’s my art form but it’s at a completely different entry point to what I do.

There are pros and cons to both ways, of course. That’s why it’s hard to give advice. Because I think the advice nowadays is inherently toxic due to the internet: ‘Work for free and give them everything.’ If I say no, they’d be, oh, you don’t want that bad enough. No, I just want to be paid for my work. Of course, I worked for free one time. But I felt like I was worthy of being paid for my time.

It’s a tough situation we’ve gotten ourselves into, providing free art. A lot of people are giving away their work for free. So that’s the hard part we’re all up against is the promise of giving away your work for free, maybe you’ll get paid someday. Whether that’s from Lysol or whoever the heck you’re putting in your video.

Beth Stelling is at The Comedy Club of Kansas City, April 24 and 25. You can get tickets here.