Meet Alicia Dattner | Comedian

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alicia Dattner and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alicia, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
My mother is a visual artist. I spent a lot of time as a kid in her art studio in rural Connecticut, surrounded by canvases, paints, paint brushes, colored pencils and markers. A woman next door was a potter, and she taught me to throw pots on the wheel. I did every kind of art from collage to intricate book binding, crochet to black and white photography, making quilts to drawing miniature comic books.

But what I loved most was closing the door, putting on Huey Lewis and The News, and dancing in the mirror. Eventually, I had a video camera, and I started making my own movies in 7th grade or so. We were so far from the entertainment industry that when I’d say in high school, “I’m making a movie.” people would say “Why? What’s it for?”

There was really no stopping the creative impulse. The drive to get on stage. Subjects with right and wrong answers, like math, were not interesting to me. In algebra class, I would try to engage the teacher on how and where we would use mathematics. I wasn’t into the abstract unless it was abstract art.

People would frequently say, “Don’t go into film. Don’t go into acting. Don’t go into comedy. It’s too hard.” I would say, “I’m going to do it anyway.” And then they would say, “Well, if you have to, you have to.” They were right. But I had to do it.

I had only one full-time job for nine months, right after graduating college. I couldn’t keep that up, and I managed to fall into video editing, having studied filmmaking in college.

One job I had to support myself while I did comedy doing freelance video editing for TV news. It was creative without being too demanding of my time and energy.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
So, I do comedy.

I wanted to be a comedian since I was eight years old. I started writing jokes at eleven. My mom is really annoyed when I trot this one out, but this is the first joke I wrote. “My mom drank so much, when she quit, she had to go to AAA.”

I’ve always been silly and charming and had great timing and physicality. I love embarrassing myself in a way that invites others to relate and identify with me and then we all laugh together, because we all know we’re ridiculous. I love getting on stage, and I think part of my purpose is to shock people. Not gratuitously, but to wake people up.

At the same time, I’m really sensitive to rejection, so getting on stage is emotionally complicated. Most comics thrive under pressure, because they developed humor as a defense mechanism. But I thrive with acceptance. My humor is a response to feeling safe and free.

After a decade of doing comedy, as well as dabbling in other fields (I wrote funny books, I started a circus called The Latest Show on Earth and toured the country, I made some comedy films), I was doing some pretty heavy self-sabotage. I’m pretty miserable when I’m creatively paralyzed.

So I took time off from comedy to do some healing and soul searching. I traveled to India and Bali a bunch. I did therapy. I did medicine journeys. I did recovery. I did yoga. I studied authentic relating and became a life coach. You know. The whole thing.

That’s around the time I started helping other people get on stage and use humor to tell their life stories. I’ve lead storytelling and comedy workshops around the world, coached folks one on one, and now I lead an “embodied writing” workshop every week online. It’s really fulfilling to support other people.

So then I came back to comedy, having realized that I am built to be in front of audiences who aren’t drunk. So I quit the club scene and started doing my show in theaters.

Letting go of trying to be Somebody set me free. And surrounding myself with people who could give me honest but compassionate feedback on my performance, and hold me accountable to show up, and making a little bit of progress every day made all the difference.

That’s when it started getting fun again… writing jokes with friends and discovering new ideas together became so creatively juicy. Working on my set with my director became so playful and interesting. I finally got into the art of it.

I worked the Fringe Festivals and performing around the world. I started winning awards, getting voted “Best of the Fringe”, “Best Female Solo Performer”, “Best Storyteller”, “Solo Show of the Year”… “Comedian of the Year”…

I love getting off stage and hearing that people laughed – but also cried. I love seeing people’s eyes light up saying things like, “I’ve never seen comedy like THAT”.

It’s really like I’m taking people on a medicine journey. And this particular molecule we discovered is a medicine called Alicia. We’re going on the Alicia ride. Another night, we’ll go on the Kevin ride. But tonight. it’s the Aliciacoaster. But instead of puking, you’re gonna laugh. Or maybe both. Hopefully just laugh. Unless you ate too much before the show.

You can see the most recent two of my six feature-length comedy specials on Youtube, “One Life Stand” and “Are You Dressed for the Apocalypse?”

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Ok, I’m a newbie here, so this is what I’m into so far…

First, we’re gonna go to Blue Bottle Coffee on Abbot Kinney to get a decaf mocha, and then we’re gonna get some galoshes and sunglasses on, because we are heading to the beach! I love to walk along the shore in Santa Monica and down to Venice. But now that the pollution from the Palisades fires has washed all over the sand, I don’t go barefoot. Is that too dark? Yikes.

After that, we’re gonna get a short rib burger at Heavy Handed, Jeff’s way, which is with the french fries stuffed inside the burger. Then we’ll head north again to get some Go Greek Yogurt near the pier in Santa Monica. At night, I’m gonna take you to Drunk Theatre, where my friend Ittai Geiger performs. We’ll say hi to Ittai after, because we went on a date once in Oakland a decade ago, but I thought he was too young for me.

The next morning, we’ll go to Erewhon, and look at the smoothies, but then decide not to get one because they’re stupid expensive. Instead, we’ll go to Whole Foods and get a green drink to take with us when we go paddle boarding at Mother’s Beach. You don’t need a board. We can rent them there!

For lunch, we’ll grab the some amazing deli food and cake over at Gjusta. Yum.

Next, head to the Museum of Jurassic Technology, because I’ve always wanted to go, and my boyfriend doesn’t feel like it. So you’ll be the guinea pig and we’ll find out how cool it is.

For dinner, I want to go to Carmel for Mediterranean delights. And then we’ll head to Largo at the Coronet for a can’t-miss comedy show. Literally, you can’t miss. Every night at Largo is truly a comedy event.

And for our last day, let’s head to LACMA to take in some art. After two hours, I’ll get maxed out and we’ll blow that popsicle stand for one of the several amazing Korean spas in the morning to sweat it out. We can eat bibimbap for dinner.

And we’ll round out the evening with an outdoor concert at the Greek Theatre and dance the night away. Pretty much every night they book a band I’d enjoy.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Who do I have to thank? It’s more like who DON’T I have to thank? So many people have been so supportive to me.

My journey as a comedian has meandered through a lot of territory, much of it in the realm of psychology and spirituality.

At a young age, I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a success. That pressure was paralyzing. I’m so grateful to the healers who helped me realize self-acceptance and self-expression are what unlocks my creativity.

From Vipassana meditation to the practice of Circling, Burning Man to Esalen Institute, Mount Arunachala to Mount Shasta, the Funny Bone in Boise to the Cobb’s in San Francisco, my acting teachers Rob Reece to Tom Bentley-Fisher, and of course comedy mentors like Eugene Mirman and W. Kamau Bell, I’ve really thrived on encouragement and support.

Website: http://www.aliciadattner.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliciadattner/

Youtube: https://youtube.com/aliciadattner

Other: Are You Dressed for the Apocalypse? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewt8Zd7K8LM
One Life Stand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyo9Idu0R4c&t=2s

Image Credits
Ashleigh Taylor for headshots
Robyn Reinstadler for theater shots (stills from my comedy special)