For nearly three decades, Jessica Kirson has built a stand-up career the long way: performing night after night, city after city, trusting that if she stayed honest, vulnerable — maybe even just a bit raw — and kept getting better, her own audience would eventually find her. These days, they have. Kirson now plays sold-out theaters across the country, drawing crowds who know her voice, her energy and exactly what kind of night they’re signing up for.
Her Hulu special “I’m the Man” marks a moment that’s been a long time coming — not a pivot, but a culmination of her fast, physical and deeply observational style into an organized, hilarious tornado. She opens the show by forming her mouth into an almost awe-inspiring square. She then adds a tongue waggle. She explains the waggling as either a demonstration of her own sexual dysfunction or mimicking the dining habit dysfunction of the extremely senior audience that might typically come out for her shows in Florida.
In the next moment she has turned completely away from the audience and is whispering a save line she has honed and polished to perfection over the years: the beginnings of an anxiety-fueled interior monologue into the microphone.
“Why won’t they laugh?” Kirson asks, making the audience immediately, of course, laugh.
Grabbing the stage this way takes confidence that only comes from years on stage, and from learning what actually connects with people in real time. And — if we’re to be quite honest — her degree in social work from New York University probably doesn’t hurt either.
Recently, Kirson spoke about touring, longevity, crowd work, queerness, women in comedy and why, in a moment that feels increasingly overwhelming, making people laugh together still matters.
You’ve called yourself a “traveling clown” because you’re on the go so much. And it’s not like you just started yesterday; you’ve been at it a while. What makes performing on the road still worth it?
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You can’t make a living from the internet. It helps, but it’s more that a lot of us put up videos to build an audience we can perform for on the road. Because people follow you. They look at your schedule; they look at where you’re performing.
Plus, I’ve been doing live stand-up — I just started my 27th year — and [online] it’s not the same, you know, because you don’t have that live audience reaction. Now that I’m performing for a thousand people each time; it’s very different from the years and years of just doing it and hoping an audience shows up. The demand is there now.
The traveling is very, very hard — the planes and the hotels and all of that stuff — but the shows are amazing. So when you get there, it’s all right. But on the way, it’s a lot.
What makes a trip better or more meaningful once you’re there?
I really love anywhere I go, because now it’s my fans. It’s not like I’m performing for random people that I don’t know where they stand in life. I adore my fans. They’re amazing people.
There are certain places where I’ve been going for so long — Seattle, Vancouver, Chicago, New York, Boston — where I’ve been performing for 25 years, and it’s a little different. But I also love going to smaller places where they don’t have a ton of entertainment, or they don’t have a huge queer community, or it’s much harder to be queer. That’s very heartwarming for me.
Have you always done queer material?
No, I didn’t always do queer material. I started in ’99 and knew that if I wanted to have a big career and do stand-up and get somewhere in half the time, I couldn’t, as a business decision, talk as much about my lifestyle at first. Before, I wouldn’t say I have a boyfriend, but I just wouldn’t talk about any relationship. But I always did gay shows. Once I had children, I told myself I’m not gonna hide who I am.
I’ve always been mainstream. And I think that’s also, unfortunately for other people, why I am where I am, because I did it in a certain way.
Does queer material land differently now than it did 10 years ago?
Yes. It’s so much more accepted now. Completely different. When I’ve done queer material for straight people, it’s to educate them instead of just telling them they need to accept it. I do it in a way where I’m explaining it to them and not making them look stupid and ignorant, but in a way that’s more loving — not attacking. It’s very gentle. And it works.
How did the bit where you turn away from the audience to share your panicked internal monologue evolve?
I just did it on stage one night. I don’t even remember where I was or when. For a long time, it didn’t work. People were like, this woman has a mental disorder. Until I realized [it was a save line]; I had to do it when a joke didn’t go over well or when there was awkward silence. Then the response was so positive that I kept doing it.
Why do you think you’re so good at crowd work?
I’ve always been a people person. My mother’s a therapist. I grew up in therapy. I studied to be a therapist.
Joy Behar and other comics told me I should host shows because as a female comic you’d get hired more. They always need a good emcee. Hosting forced me to talk to the crowd. I was good at it. I hosted shows for years in New York and on the road. I got better and better. I started posting [crowd work] clips because you don’t want to post your [current] material online — you burn it. And people loved the crowd work. But I’m not a crowd work comic. I do crowd work and then I do an hour of material. People are shocked by that.
Are there people you avoid talking to in the crowd?
I used to find the person who looked the most miserable and angriest and go talk to them. Normally, a straight white guy. That was projecting. It hardly ever goes well.
Now I look for people who really want to talk to me. If someone looks uncomfortable, I say, “Do you not want to talk to me?” I’m not gonna make you uncomfortable. People up front want it. The front rows sell out first.
When I was prepping for this interview, I was amazed to read comments similar to this one in response to your performance clips: “I don’t usually like comedy, but I like your comedy.” Do you have a sense of why that is?
I hear that all the time. I also hear, “Women aren’t funny, but this woman is.” I get it every single day. There are fucking funny female comics. There are just less of us. It’s harder to get headlining gigs. People walk in thinking women aren’t funny. Some men are threatened by our power. They’re not open to it because it would be bad for their manhood if they laughed. They’re too busy hating.
What makes your “I’m the Man” special different from your other previous specials?
I worked so hard on that material. I don’t do a special every year because I want it undeniable. I want screaming laughter. This special was more edgy because I was in an edgy place. The election, Covid, a horrible divorce. I got pushback because it was dirty. Men can say the edgiest things and it’s fine. I’m proud I did what I wanted to do, even knowing some people wouldn’t like it.
What does comedy give this moment we’re in?
I never understood how a one-minute video could make a difference. But then someone sends me a message like “Hey, I’m not OK, I’m mentally ill and I’m very depressed and I was thinking of hurting myself and watching your videos has helped me.”
This isn’t about me. It’s just people feel seen in the struggles that I talk about on stage and then they feel less alone. When I come off stage, after hearing people laughing, and knowing that they’re healing, [I know] that this is helping them in this hour. That’s why I do this. As recently as this weekend, I was reminded, “Oh my god, people really need to laugh.” I still don’t understand it. But I see what it does for people. This is a horrific, scary time, and people really need to laugh.