Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
Arts & Entertainment
Veteran comedian, activist heralds NYC's six-week queer stand-up comedy class
By
Tiffany Hanssen
Published Jun 25, 2023
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
Courtesy Kate Rigg
By
Tiffany Hanssen
Published Jun 25, 2023
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Starting this week at the Manhattan Comedy School, a class begins that's open only to LGBTQ+ comedians. Veteran comedian and activist Kate Rigg, who leads the class, said it is more of a workshop where queer comedians can hone their craft and find their voice in a safe space. Open to comedians at all levels, including novice comics, the class ends with a performance.
Rigg joined WNYC Weekend All Things Considered host Tiffany Hanssen to talk about the program, and about comedy in the queer community.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tiffany Hanssen: So this isn't a class that's pegged to Pride Month. So why do you think the class is important right now?
Kate Rigg: Tiffany, it's so important right now. In this country, we're being very assaulted with headlines that are all about banning drag queens and "don't say gay." And everybody's flipping out over what your letter is or your pronoun is, or where you choose to empty your loins in the bathroom. Everybody's freaking out and it's having repercussions on societal levels, political levels, right down to school kids. It's on people's minds and I think that it's very important for members of the queer community, no matter what your letter is.
I think it's so important right now because we're being told by a lot of media sources that there's a kind of a cultural ambush for people who are just trying to live their lives and be part of the world with everybody else. And I mean by that, queer people are getting ambushed a little bit about their very existence. If you don't live in New York City or San Francisco or on the coast or whatever, it's very difficult to speak truth to power if you don't have other images of yourself to sort of follow, like lamp posts or guideposts along the way to feeling good about yourself.
And so, comedy particularly is a way for us to, like I said, build bridges. And even though we're in New York City, first of all, a lot of people don't come from New York City who live here, who are going to come study with me. But also, we then have an opportunity as the graduates of these classes move out into the community and do shows or maybe just are funnier at work or have a little more power and sort of understanding of how to tell their story.
Clearly, we have a real opportunity to make a difference and be funny and be cool. And a supportive space like this, where there's only other queer people, is the ideal place, especially when you're first starting out, to start learning how to write your story in a way that can be heard and appreciated.
Well, I want to dig into this class now. It's not just for novices. If I sign up for this, what's it going to look like for me?
I feel like this class, it's more like a lab.
Okay, so you're in a class. I would like to also point out that Manhattan Comedy School had the great insight to do this last semester. It was the first ever LGBTQ+ class offered at a professional comedy school in New York City.
Andy [Engel] called me up. He's the director. And he said, "Do you want to do this class?" And at first I was like, "I don't know if we need this class. Like, comedy is comedy. Funny is funny. Maybe we just need to fold gay comics and queer comics into regular comedy classes."
But then when I started really polling my colleagues, like other queer comics, we started remembering together how difficult it is to find your voice to write freely. When you're always wondering if someone is homophobic that's looking at you, you just don't know.
And so, what I discovered by doing this class was all kinds of people showed up to this class. There were gay people, there were lesbian people, there were trans people. There was an actual drag queen. There was young people, people from all different countries of all different experiences. And we actually, within this little 20 person class, a community started forming immediately, and people were listening critically to each other's work, but from a very compassionate point of view, and support and compassion is what you need as any kind of public speaker to really grow quickly.
So what you expect is you come in the class, I do a lesson at the beginning, a little lesson. I assign homework for the next week, which has to do with the nuts and bolts of building a set, learning how to write a punchline, learning what the different kinds of jokes are. And then everybody showcases two minutes on a microphone just in front of the club, like a lab.
You perform your two minutes, and then at the end of the six weeks, you do an incredible professional show at the Gotham Comedy Club. Gotham is one of the biggest headline clubs in New York City, and you get an incredible piece of videotape.
The LGBTQ+ Only Stand-up Comedy Class begins on Monday, June 26 at Manhattan Comedy School; details here.
Tagged
LGBTQ
manhattan
comedy
Tiffany Hanssen
Tiffany is a host on WNYC. You can hear her regularly on Saturdays and Sundays during All Things Considered.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE arts-entertainment
Can eligible NYC singles find love with 30 minutes and some really spicy food?
We went to the Spiciest Supper Club singles night to take the temperature of New York City's dating scene.
By
Elizabeth Shwe
and
James Ramsay
Published Oct 15, 2026
How the NYC Marathon has changed in the last 50 years
Spoiler alert: It's still 26.2 miles.
By
Hannah Frishberg
Arts & Entertainment
How the NYC Marathon has changed in the last 50 years
Spoiler alert: It's still 26.2 miles.
By
Hannah Frishberg
A visit to Art of Play, the Brooklyn store in an animatronic bird beef with Kelly Clarkson
By
Sonia Rao
The hottest way to show you're an authentic New Yorker is… riding a Citi Bike?
By
Lindsay Lee Wallace
Is NYC’s hottest attraction the free observation deck at 1 Centre Street?
By
James Ramsay
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .