Connecting Community and Comedy with Asher O’Briant
Meet Asher O’Briant, a Pittsburgh-based, award-winning screenwriter and comedian dedicated to spreading joy and awareness through his approachable and eccentric personality. His experience as a social worker and community advocate takes root in his activism-centered, inclusive comedy.
You may recognize Asher from his teaching role at the QMNTY Center where he encourages queer-identifying writers and comedians to step out of their comfort zone and further into their identities. Or, you may recognize him from performance spaces all over the city, including Arcade Comedy Theater, Bottlerocket Social Hall, Pittsburgh Pride, and a continuously growing list of others.
Upon meeting Asher, it’s quite easy to understand why he is one of Pittsburgh's busiest creatives. Asher’s understanding and inviting character can be recognized immediately, creating a space in which underrepresented artists and marginalized identities can be centered – a value intrinsic to his artistry as an openly transgender comedian. (One of his standing bits is to introduce himself to the audience as having the pronouns "he/he," pronounced as if he's giggling.)
Asher’s influence is only growing, as reflected in his heavily booked Pride month, including his series “One Man, No Woman” Show. These performances follow Asher’s mission of inclusivity, awareness, and exploration of gender-queerness in accessible and approachable ways. Asher’s full list of shows are on his website, including a recorded performance of his show “One Man, No Woman” at Arcade Comedy Theater.
We asked Asher to share his experiences and mission. (This interview has been condensed for space and clarity).
What do you hope your audiences take away from your art?
I find that most media conveying transgender people is not written by members of the community which makes the representation so much more diluted and bleaker than it should be. Trans characters in popular culture have been continuously associated with crime and tragedy which is not the representation our trans youth need or deserve. I hope that my audience, cis-gender and transgender alike, can enjoy gender euphoria within art. I think that there is so much comedy and happiness and joy in coming out that isn’t shown. After all, what's funnier than going through puberty twice. I think it’s important to keep in mind that you can play to the room that you're in, but, if you keep doing that, you’re not exactly opening the door for new people to enjoy your material. So really playing to different crowds and learning is a very valuable skill in this career.
What have you been most excited to teach your students? What do you think is your biggest takeaway from teaching? Your students’ biggest takeaways?
For me, there’s a certain confidence to come with learning stand-up and sketch but especially in the world of improv. I love seeing a student crack open their shell and really step out of their comfort zone. It’s important to be present in your body on the stage and I think that’s not something that enough stand-up comedians focus on. I think their own nerves are a part of the reason they end up punching down. Since my teaching style caters to comedians who, like myself, are unrepresented or stereotyped in mass media, I’ve gotten the pleasure of students telling me that speaking about their real lived experiences, or even being able to laugh about them, has drastically increased their self-worth. And I’ve felt that myself especially because I didn’t really expect comedy to be my career at this point in my life. It was something I fell into through writing, but it definitely has a lot of power behind it.
How do you structure your jokes? How do you handle crowdwork?
Writing is very much re-writing. It’s even more so with stand-up comedy, in particular, as you are constantly receiving live feedback … if you care to listen to it, granted, because some people really don’t. I enjoy audience engagement. I think as someone who is very structured in my material it’s good to take a break and take a breath and engage with the audience. It can make something which is normally so performative feel like an open conversation. Which, especially with subjects that I talk about and subjects that many comedians talk about, comedy should be a little bit more give and take so that we’re checking the temperature of the room that we’re in.
With hecklers, I think the idea of hecklers are a lot scarier than when you're presented with an actual heckler. The thing that you forget when you first start comedy is the rest of the audience is never on the side of the heckler. They came to see you. They know that you hopefully prepared your material and put a lot of thought into it. They really don’t want to listen to the guy standing up because he’s had too many beers for the night. So, I think comedians worry about how to shut down a heckler. There's a difference between a heckler and someone who’s trying to engage and be conversational. As someone who is taking your performance and making a mockery of it or trying to be rude or speaking hate speech, you're allowed to take control of the room. You need to keep everyone safe in that room, not just yourself. As the comedian, you’re probably the most powerful person in that room. So, I engage with a heckler for a little bit, but if it becomes anything where they are not here to enjoy the show, and that is clear, you’re safe to go on the offensive.
Do you prefer teaching, writing, or performing? Why?
Many of the reasons I love writing come up in the realm of teaching. Especially when I’ve been given the honor of working one-on-one with an aspiring creative. Everyone has some sort of a story. Some are fortunate enough to have a few stories, but it’s great to get that outside perspective on cultivating your own narrative. I truly believe that most of the work in comedy is the pre-production work far more than the being-on-stage performance side of it. So, I love being able to brainstorm and create a story that is accurate to someone’s lived experiences. It’s nice for me to open my creative side, collaborating with people from different backgrounds, and different identities and different ideas of what comedy is.
I don't always love the experience of performing. I would prefer being the man behind the curtain, a Wizard of Oz — helping make shows happen! The pre-production process, the earlier stages of writing is where the deep thought, connection, and thematic ideas really come from. You aren't going to find those under those bright lights on stage.