Five years ago, Maddie Wiener, a senior at Chapel Hill High School, was performing comedy routines at local venues as a fun activity after school. She had no plans to make a career out of comedy and was simply trying to get a few laughs.
“I was on the Chapel Hill High School Improv team, and I think people can probably attest that it wasn’t my biggest strength,” Wiener, who was also a performer at the now-defunct DSI Comedy Theater, said.
The year after she graduated, Wiener was a semifinalist for StandUp NBC, where comedians around the country get the chance to present material for key persons at NBCUniversal studios.
From her humble beginnings performing for a handful of people in Chapel Hill to her being named a 2018 semifinalist and performing for casting directors and television executives, Wiener has flourished in the comedy industry in the past few years.
She is currently a comedy writer and performer in New York City and has been a regular performer at comedy clubs in Chicago, New York and North Carolina.
“Careers in the arts are seen as this unachievable goal, but obviously people make a living like that even if they aren’t household names,” Wiener said.
Social media platforms like Twitter have become crucial to comedians looking to gain a following, especially with many in-person performances being cancelled due to the pandemic. Wiener performs different gigs from seven to midnight nearly every day now that she lives in New York.
She mainly focuses her jokes on herself and aspects of her own life rather than society and politics as many other comedians do.
“I’m trying to make it less of a generic joke that anyone could tell and more of a joke from my perspective,” Wiener said.
Wiener is breaking into a field where those who do not identify as male have traditionally had very different opportunities.
Wiener described the comedy industry as an “amorphous community of people that exist around the country.” Wiener also said comedians are tied together by their careers, not by a physical work environment, so many of them try to be there for each other in any way they can, especially when traveling.
Wiener explained in her stand-up routine that she has embraced her appearance in the past year. Body positivity is an important topic in her sets, and Wiener’s jokes help describe the movement in a lighthearted and comical way.
“You don’t have to necessarily emulate men to do [comedy]. It’s not an inherently masculine thing,” Wiener said.
Wiener identifies as genderfluid, which brings new opportunities for material that was not available to comedians of previous generations.
“I’m trying to do more jokes about identifying as genderfluid, and that was something I didn’t really have the tools to talk about in the beginning,” Wiener said.
English teacher Tom Stanfa taught Wiener when she was a student at Chapel Hill High School.
“She always had an offbeat sense of humor,” Stanfa said, “so I wasn’t that surprised [when she became a comedian].”
Stanfa, who described Wiener as a “really dedicated and hard-working” student, said he was taken aback by Wiener’s stand-up routine.
“Maddie’s comedic stylings caught me by surprise in how risque they tended to be,” he said.
Breaking into the field, Wiener had low expectations but continued working hard on new material. She wants to tell the world about herself in hopes that some people can relate to her experiences.
“If I can spend my time doing this and get paid, I will be happy,” Wiener said.
Well written, we enjoyed reading this
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