There are less than 20 female comedians that perform regularly in A room comedy clubs in New York City. That’s not a lot, but considering the small amount of female comedians there are in general, that is a pretty good percentage. I felt like wait a minute, maybe if I get really good at this, I could have a shot at becoming a headliner. When I was acting, white females were a dime a dozen. Now with the proper skills, as a standup comedian I could be a hot commodity.
But, there is a reason there aren’t that many female comedians. One of the issues is having children and a family. Many of the female comedians who are headliners don’t have kids. I could see myself performing while pregnant, I already have my opening line. I look at a guy in the audience and say “no, it’s not yours”. Is getting pregnant worth one joke? Practically speaking, I could still perform and get a part-time nanny (grandma) to babysit in the evenings. But I wouldn’t be raising my kids hands on.
Do I even want kids? If I keep working as hard as I have been then to “throw” it all away to raise children seems wasteful. I could just not have kids. That seems like a very viable option, but then everyone who has kids loves it more than anything.
These are complicated life questions. Standup comedy can be quite serious.