When I talked to Jessica Kirson back in March for a piece about how comedians were coping with the nascent pandemic, she told me, “It’s very hard to not do stand-up. I’m one of those comics who go up every night, sometimes two, three, four, five, six times a night, so it’s very hard to not perform.”
Nine months later, the comedy clubs are still closed, but like so many of her fellow stand-ups, Kirson has adapted. When she appears on Zoom to tape this week’s episode of The Last Laugh podcast, it looks like she’s on stage. Had she not told me, I’d have no idea that she’s in her walk-in closet in front of a cheap blue curtain she bought on Amazon so she can perform from home.
“It’s really bad,” Kirson says of the current state of comedy. “It’s really hard for me. It’s hard for all my friends.” She has tour dates booked for January but is starting to doubt that they will actually happen. Explaining that stand-up has traditionally served as a form of “therapy” for her, she says, “It’s been a huge loss. I’ve experienced it like a death. It’s not a death, because it can come back. But my career is in a coma. And it’s been hard.”
