The Comic

PART 1

Elizabeth: Welcome to Creativists in Dialogue and our “Creativity and Difference” series, a podcast embracing the creative life. I’m Elizabeth Bruce.

In this episode with stand-up comic Arzoo Malhotra and guest host Lara Azar, we explore the comic imagination—how humor emerges from difference, disaffection, and deep personal honesty. We talk about the vulnerability of turning lived experience into performance, the tension between privacy and public storytelling, and the creative power of being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world. We also examine comedy as both a craft and a cultural barometer—where sincerity, structure, and survival intersect. From oversized mint-green bathtubs to foot-obsessed producers, this is a conversation about what’s funny, what’s terrifying, and what it means to laugh at—and with—ourselves.

In part 2, we dig deeper into the craft of comedy, exploring such topics as what’s taboo, free speech, and the politics of offense, and more.

Elizabeth: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Creativity and Difference series of Creativists in Dialogue, a podcast embracing the creative life, in this our fourth season. I’m Elizabeth Bruce. 

Lara: And I’m Lara Azar. 

Elizabeth: And today we have the distinct pleasure of welcoming both our guest host, Laura Azar and our interviewee Arzoo Malhotra. 

Arzoo is a comedian, writer, performer, and producer based in Washington, DC. Performing globally since 2017, she’s been featured at venues and festivals around the world, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the DC Improv, the Montreux Comedy Festival, Short and Sweet Dubai, Funny Women Awards, among others. Her last comedy tour, Masala, received a five star review from DC Theater Arts. Lara Azar is a comedian and educator [00:01:00] and board member of Zoo Animal Productions who can be found working on projects all over the DMV.

Welcome, Laura and welcome, Arzoo.

Arzoo: Hi. Thanks for having us. 

Lara: It’s good to be here. 

Elizabeth: Our first question is from Laura. 

Arzoo: Okay. 

Lara: Arzu, hi! 

Arzoo: Hi! As if we don’t know each other extremely well. 

Lara: So this is a question more for the audience than for me in particular. But tell us about yourself. Are you from DC? Do you do work other than comedy? 

Arzoo: I do. So I am, I’ve been in and out of DC since I was 17, since 2010. I’m a first generation or zeroth generation immigrant. I’m the immigrant. I became an American in 2016. In these times, I feel like I have to very much declare that. I don’t know if that’s too dark a joke. You’re welcome to cut that out. So I have been doing comedy overseas and then here for the last few years. I work with Lara on a [00:02:00] lot of events for Zoo Animal Productions. That’s always a blast. And yeah, I really enjoy the DC art scene, more broadly. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. We’ve enjoyed seeing you in the DC art scene.

Arzoo: Yeah. Oh, and in my other job, I work in STEM, actually, I work in climate change work, So I, yeah, two very different things. 

Elizabeth: Yes. One’s funny and the other’s not really. 

Arzoo: One is very distressing. Yes. 

Lara: So I know you as an artist who is a comedian, but also just plays and as a producer and other things. Do you…there’s a lot of—I hate the word discourse, but there’s a lot of discourse, right? About are comedians artists who really have something to say. Like, where do you see yourself? Do you identify more as a creative or an artist or a comedian? Like how do you categorize that in your own brain?

Arzoo: I think that’s such a good question. That’s a very interesting question. I think one of the things that I learned performing in a lot of different places is not to moralize medium or content. Different places will have different hangups [00:03:00] and different stories are appropriate to be told in different mediums. And so one of the things is, I started with comedy, but since I was a kid I was always writing like short stories and like little comic things. And I’ve always been hungry to express myself. And I think I’ve reached that place, and I’m so privileged to have reached that place, where I can go, okay, I have this story I wanna tell. Is it a movie? Is it a play? Is it a joke? Because I think jokes are a mechanism for telling particular kinds of stories better than in other ways, but it’s not appropriate for everything. And so I think it’s right to, ask are we artists? And I think absolutely, but just like all art, are you scribbling something out with no intent to express yourself or are you putting in that craftsmanship? And I think that is where the question gets more interesting.

Lara: Yeah, that makes sense to me and that feels like we could scrutinize a lot of comedy and get ourselves in a lot of trouble. Instead, I’m gonna move on. So you mentioned you were doing all sorts of other arts and then eventually [00:04:00] found comedy. So how did you get into standup?

Arzoo: I was in grad school actually in Scotland, the home of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And I was miserable. I could go on an entire conversation about my quarrels with academia and the general structure of it. And I was miserable. And I had turned 23 or 24, and I was like, do I wanna be the person who thinks about trying things or be the person who tries things? Just do it. Get out of your shell. And I did it. And it’s so corny, but the way I describe it is when I got my first laugh, do you know when like you’re on a train and it like the track switches and it like clicks into place and I could feel the trajectory of my entire life shift being like, Oh, I’m gonna be chasing this for the rest of my life. And Lara’s been performing longer than I have. You’ve been performing what, 14, 15 years? 

Lara: Yeah. Lots of hiatuses. But, yeah.

Arzoo: I mean that still counts. You got in the door early. 

Elizabeth: That’s such a great image though. I love that. [00:05:00] That old image of somebody pulling that lever and the train switches from going left to going right or right to left or whatever. 

Arzoo: It has a good sound, too. It clicks. You feel it in your bones. We love tactile. 

Lara: What I’ve noticed is it usually takes a lot to get to a point where people are like, Okay, it’s time for comedy. A lot of people dabble around and like you mentioned, there’s a lot of expression and things like that. But do you, and you’ve always been, you talked about looking for ways to always express yourself, but do you remember the moment when you realized your take on the world was different? And possibly funny. 

Arzoo: Ooh. Okay. This sounds like I’m lying to you, but I am not. One of my first memories when I was about one and a half or two, and we went on a family vacation to this like little house on the beach or whatever. And we went into the bathroom and it was a cavernous bathroom with a giant—and not even giant for a baby, like giant—big mint green [00:06:00] bathtub in the middle of the room. And I was like, Oh, who, who picked that? Is that the best aesthetic choice? And so I’ve always been like this. I’ve never not been like this. And it was in my goo gaga baby language, but I was like,—

Elizabeth: This is before you got to the US, right? 

Arzoo: Before. This was in India. This was back in the day. So, unfortunately, or fortunately, this is fully authentic to my journey. I’ve just developed the self-esteem to finally say it. 

Lara: Cavernous bathtub. 

Arzoo: Cavernous.

Elizabeth: That’s great. That’s great. 

Arzoo: In the ‘90s, the economy was better. You could have a house that was a House. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. With a giant bathroom made of marble or some such thing. 

Arzoo: Even 10 years ago in DC, I was looking for a place to live and it was a condo on U Street when back then was about $3,000 for a studio. And when I toured it, they were like, you could have a sofa or a bed. And I’m like, this, I don’t need [00:07:00] this. I don’t need this to happen. 

Elizabeth: Wow. 

Arzoo: Sorry. Lamenting about the economy. 

Elizabeth: Speaking of lamenting, I recently interviewed Michael who is a very thoughtful fellow, but he spoke in this interview deeply about creativity and alienation which is a variation of one’s sense of difference, really. Arzoo, what do you think is the role of difference or even disaffection in finding humor? 

Arzoo: I think it’s very interesting because it’s hard to…oh God, let me start over. I’m so sorry. One of the pieces of advice that I have heard from comedians very early on is it’s not funny if you’re standing on stage telling the audience how great your girlfriend is, how good your job is, and how life is just fabulous for you. I don’t know if I can make this joke. It’s a little bit crass. But so the advice they really gave, to put it succinctly, is if you are on stage, you do not have a big dick. [00:08:00] Even if you have a big dick, you do not have a big dick. 

Elizabeth: It’s all about your inadequacy. 

Arzoo: Yes! But it’s also, you’re not relatable. You’re not relatable to people if you’re not getting on their level and talking about things that are real. Maybe it’s ourselves, maybe it’s aging, maybe it’s their lives, maybe it’s the lady from HR who just gives birthday cakes, like whatever it is. Finding that together, I think, is powerful and it gives some solidarity to the fucking annoying, grueling—excuse me, the annoying, grueling parts of just existing.

Elizabeth: Sure. That makes sense. I mean, who wants to pay money to go hear somebody brag about themselves? 

Arzoo: Yeah. Great. Amazing. Post that on Instagram.

Elizabeth: Your humble brags or whatever they call them. E

Arzoo: Exactly. 

Elizabeth: So, anyway, that leads me to ask you about how comedy in general, but you in particular, I think, mine the personal for your material. So can you talk about the challenges or [00:09:00] the terrors, truly, of bearing yourself for comic effect?

Arzoo: Sure. So I will say, I think I am a chronic oversharer in my day-to-day life and comedy gave me an outlet so I don’t bum people out with the—Lara’s nodding. She knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Lara: I also relate, yes. 

Arzoo: She has been on the receiving end of some pretty diabolically unhinged oversharing stories from me. So that, that’s definitely it. Wait, remind me of the question again. I’m going off track because I’m being silly. 

Elizabeth: Oh, just the whole challenge and terror or joy of using your own life and your own material, your own experiences for comic effect. 

Arzoo: Sure. Thank you. But yeah, I definitely, I think it’s also rooted in a teensy bit of narcissism. Because I think to get on stage and to create things in the public eye, you have to in some way believe that what you’re saying has value. And so obviously as a narcissist, I want to talk about myself. It’s great. Who doesn’t like talking about themselves? But it’s also I, joking aside, I [00:10:00] think when you are vulnerable with an audience, you get credibility. Because sincerity, I think—hot take—is almost more important than being super funny. That sincerity is going to earn the relationship that you have with the audience for it to work through your set, even if it’s five minutes. And so I am of the personal opinion that I have built really joyful experiences for myself with audiences from being open, talking about my experiences.

It’s also a very powerful way to take charge of the things that are difficult for you. I’ve joked about my mental health. I’ve joked about body images. I’ve joked about hard relationships. And I think you can’t joke about them unless you are in charge of it. And there’s something empowering about milking your sadness for a laugh and other people finding joy from it. I joked about being bipolar very early on in my sets, and I [00:11:00] remember it did bristle some feathers. People did get upset. But I keep doing those jokes because a woman came to me after the show and said, my son is bipolar. He’s been through a lot. Thank you for making me laugh about this. And like, that, I don’t know, when someone says something like that to you, you’re like, “Of course!” Bawling backstage. But there’s something profound to making a connection to people through the deeper stuff. 

Elizabeth: Sure, yeah. That being able to laugh at yourself and having others laugh with you as opposed to at you is very empowering. 

Arzoo: Or like, crying about it. 

Elizabeth: Or crying about it 

Arzoo: Or just being distressed. 

Lara: I do wanna ask about the other side of that, because I do I think a lot of comics, especially women who started young, have those kinds of experiences and that’s why we stayed. But I mentioned my hiatuses and part of the reason that I had them is because there was a time in my life where I was, using standup as a [00:12:00] diary. I was writing jokes, I was going in and like testing things out and seeing what was happening because there were places where I felt really comfortable to do so, and I was like bopping around and somebody stopped me on the street and recognized me from comedy and I was, “Oh no, what do you know about me?” And so that kind of caused me to dial back a little bit. Because I was very young and very messy so I was like, oh no, what have I done? So I was wondering like, how do you think about that line? ‘Cause there’s a lot of beauty from vulnerability, but also, especially in this day and age, to put ourselves out there, standup is less private. People are gonna remember you, especially if you’re making a name for yourselves. How do you think about that and like, how do you navigate that? 

Arzoo: I think that’s tricky and I think there’s nuance to that question, particularly considering the context of our world. I think standup in particular, you feel more vulnerable because it’s just you up there, right? And it is [00:13:00] hard. Also, I’m quite ideological about this, where I think being out there now is an act of courage and defiance. And we need to continue to be there and platform all the voices, everybody’s voices, whoever we can get, and make sure that those voices keep out there, because I think that’s a way to normalize this not being normal. And making sure we’re out there. 

But it is really scary, huh? I’ve had like guys who followed me on Instagram and now it worries me if they’re gonna come to shows. Maybe some of these men are a little bit odd. And so it is really scary, even from like a safety perspective. There’s also, there’s always predators. There’s always predators in entertainment. 

What I think is great is even in Dubai, even here, there’s a lot of great producers, male, female, and non-binary who go, “Yeah, we’re not gonna accept that and we’re not gonna book the people who make our people uncomfortable.” Because not only [00:14:00] does it endanger our acts, but it is a reputational risk.  And I appreciate that, but, oh my god, entertainment is so trying. Oh my god. I could tell you stories, but some of them are rough. 

Elizabeth: Oh maybe some rough stories is what our listeners are needing in their lives. 

Arzoo: They want the real tea? Okay. This is the wildest one, one of the wildest ones. So, I don’t wear sandals on stage. 

Elizabeth: Okay… 

Arzoo: Because one time—you know this story—in LA, one time, I was wearing sandals and a producer followed me around ’cause he liked my toes and pulled out a flashlight and was just like, was about the tootsies. 

Lara: No. 

Arzoo: Like they could not, the piggies could not go to market. 

Lara: No!

Arzoo: Because this man had them under like, interrogation. He wasn’t a foot guy, he was an unabashed foot guy. 

Elizabeth: He was a toes guy. 

Arzoo: A toes guy! The heel, he knows what he likes. He knows what he likes. But that changed my [00:15:00] entire behavior. 

Elizabeth: Wow. 

Arzoo: Because now I just wear boots. Now I wear, you cover up the tootsies. That’s, you gotta—

Michael: But now you’re attracting all the boot people. 

Arzoo: Yes. Correct. I’m confusing the bisexual women. 

Elizabeth: Wow. It takes modesty to a whole other level. Yeah. 

Lara: Oh, gosh. I feel like you’re gonna have a lot to say about this question, so I’m excited. 

Arzoo: You, as if I don’t have a lot to say about every question you’ve asked me so far. 

Lara: This one in particular. 

Arzoo: Oh, dear. Okay. 

Lara: So, many comics and creative folks describe themselves or described as quirky, weird, or a word I’ve been hearing a lot lately, neurodivergent. Has that been your experience in the standup world? I know the answer to this question. Tell the people. 

Arzoo: Yes. Standup comedy is, and this in a very loving way, riddled with anxiety, ADHD, autism and bipolar disorder. It’s unbelievable. And I think part of it is honestly, for example, having a split [00:16:00] attention span actually makes you better at standup because you can focus on your jokes and if the audience is fidgeting and if the producer’s hming, that there are actually some things about neurodivergence that lend well. Also, for a lot of people on this autistic spectrum, this is a really controlled way of them socializing and having social interaction in a way that’s manageable. And I think it’s interesting how a disproportionate number of neurodivergent people find themselves in this space. 

I think another thing about standup that we don’t talk about enough is that it’s probably one of the most democratized mediums for performance because you don’t have to go to theater school. You don’t have to make it through programs. You don’t have to network or audition. You can just show up at a mic and producers will see you if you’re good enough and go, “We’re booking that person.” And I think that means that people who may not have benefited in the institutions of [00:17:00] art that have been around for longer, the theaters and the film making and the publishing.

Elizabeth: MFA and this or that. 

Arzoo: Correct. They may actually have to not—they can bypass that gatekeeping and I think, I would bet, I would posit that probably makes it feel safer. I’m curious what you think about that ’cause you also, you’ve been around a while.

Lara: This question makes me think of the time that, I don’t know, I used to do comedy at this poetry place where I would get heckled by poets who thought they were smarter than me. 

Arzoo: Poets. 

Lara: Oh, poets.

Arzoo: They’re the DJs of the writing world. And I’ll stand, I’ll die on that hill.

Lara: To my poet friends, I love you. 

Arzoo: I don’t have poet friends. 

Lara: But just don’t heckle comedians. Sorry. But, so I used to perform at one of those places. I really like it. Honestly, it made me a better performer because I became more theatrical and like I was relying—I don’t know. It did a lot of good for me, but there were also a lot of—it was a very interesting kind of culture. [00:18:00] And somebody there would always come up to me and ask me weird stuff. And one of the things he asked me one day was like, “Oh, comedians are depressed.” 

Arzoo: Yes, but rude. You can’t say that. No, I’m kidding. 

Lara: Yeah. But “all comedians are depressed.” You can’t be healthy and funny and da-dah. And he was really trying to—he thought he was bonding with me. And I was like, we could also just have a normal conversation. We don’t need to do this. 

Arzoo: Just ask me about my day. It’s not that hard. 

Lara: Please. But, so I like to, the way I think about it—and this I think will lead into the next question—but to answer your question the way I think about it is there’s like a lot of—when you feel like you have different perspective than the world around you, standup gives you the place to put it and I forget if it was Mike Birbiglia or somebody who also pushed back on this thing where it’s look, a lot of people go through depression a lot. Like mental health is a very common thing. It’s just the comedians who are talking about it. And that’s what’s resonating with people. It’s like, the [00:19:00] people who are drawn to talking about their experiences. And that has something to do with it. That’s, again, that’s I think Mike Birbiglia or another person who’s smarter than me, but that, that’s how I think about that. 

But then I guess at least the next question, which is—or sorry, that’s why I like I push back on that a lot because I think a lot of the stuff like that, that really resonated with me because a lot of this stuff is more common than we think. It’s just these are the people with platforms who are, like you said, being more vulnerable and connecting. And also it is so fun to be joyous and fun and silly. Like I, when I’m doing well, I also wanna write jokes and be creative and stuff, that’s when I’m connecting with the world. Like it’s, you can use comedy in a lot of different ways and I think it’s very reductive to just think about, “Yeah, you’re messed up, you’re on stage.” No, I’m just talking about it. You are in a cubicle. Don’t worry about it. 

Arzoo: It also trivializes the craft that goes into making art. 

Lara: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 

Arzoo: I joke, but I think you’re absolutely right to push back against the—I remember a comic [00:20:00] saying it directly, we need to decouple the idea of bad health and stand up and the rock and roll lifestyle. And this goes across I would say “nightlife industry,” the arts. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. Good point. Yeah. Nightlife industry. I don’t think I’ve heard that term before. That’s a great term. 

Arzoo: Yeah. Us. The DJs. The burlesque dancers. The drag queens. Us. I think there’s—because also nightlife doesn’t lend to a healthy lifestyle. It doesn’t lend to sleep hygiene. It lends to you, hey, you have to buy something at the bar so you end up getting a drink every time you perform. It can be tough. I also, so one of the things that I—research has come out, and you can please, please fact check me on this.Research has found that if you have a combination of depression and anxiety at the same time, it actually grows the part of your brain that feels empathy. 

Elizabeth: Interesting. Interesting. 

Arzoo: And so they’re finding like when you get hit with the double whammy, you actually grow your brain’s ability to connect with people, which I think could lend to why people get in there. [00:21:00] But not to their craft, not to the ability to execute it. That comes with talent. And also, yeah, our—not decoupling that and having those expectations kills us. 

Elizabeth: Sure. Yeah. 

Arzoo: It kills comedians, people dying of drug overdoses, people dying from the lifestyle, the larger lifestyle. It’s a damn shame. It’s a damn shame ’cause we lose some of our best and so you’re absolutely right. I know we all joke about it, but I think I’m a better comedian since I got my mental health in order because there’s a—yes, when you are all over the place, sparks of inspiration may come, but there’s so much work that goes between inspiration and execution that all of that other stuff is—I benefit from sleeping well and eating well and keeping balance in my lifestyle and being mindful about the pressure I’m putting on myself. And the pressure I’m putting on other people by not being a good— [00:22:00] the pressure I put on other people for not caring for myself properly.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that’s a great way to put it. 

Arzoo: It makes better art. It makes better art when I can do the goddamn art. 

Elizabeth: I wanna ask you who some of your mentors are. My sense is—I don’t think this is just a perception—that in the last 50 years there are a lot more women in standup than there used to be, or in comedy in general. In past decades, it was a pretty male-dominated field. We could talk about why that is, but what are your thoughts about women or women-identifying people in comedy? And you’ve mentioned some of what your gender has brought up for you as a performer, but is there a sisterhood among women comics? Can you just talk a little bit about what that, that subset of the comedy world is like? 

Arzoo: So this is actually, I could go, I’m gonna go down a rabbit hole a little bit. Because actually, last year or two years ago, this [00:23:00] woman while I was at the Fringe doing one of my shows, approached me because she’s doing a PhD on women in standup and was reaching out to people around the world to talk about it. And what’s so interesting is every single city has a group for women and non-binary people to help each other get gigs, to organize writing groups, to warn each other about the pests in the community—that one is actually a very valuable use of space, of talking about these experiences that they’ve had, it shows, Hey, watch out. This person isn’t actually very nice to women. Watch out. And I think there’s a huge amount of solidarity and camaraderie. 

I remember, so I read a book from, I think it was written in like the fifties or sixties, it was called Queens of Comedy, and it focused on like, Lucille Ball, Phyllis Diller and two other quite prominent artists. And what the preface in the book was saying is that—and I think it’s still quite relevant now—is that the women who are in comedy [00:24:00] being brazen and being sexual shouldn’t really happen at the same time because it can be threatening to men. So if you’re a pretty Lucille Ball, you have to be dumb. And if you are a blunt Phyllis Diller, you have to be sexually undesirable. 

Arzoo: And I think what’s changing with women now is we’re being multidimensional. You’re having Ali Wongs, you’re having Catherine Ryans, you’re having people all over the world who are women in the developing scenes in Asia and the Middle East and Africa and Latin America, who are putting themselves out there in ways that can be intimidating.

Elizabeth: That is so interesting. ‘Cause if you look at Lucille Ball or Phyllis Diller, for example—

Arzoo: Lucille Ball is one of the smartest women. 

Elizabeth: Yes, but they’re, if you take the goofiness and the character, they’re gorgeous women. They’re physically beautiful women. And it does seem to me that a lot of women comics, if they step out of their characters, they’re [00:25:00] physically stunning. More stunning than your average female walking down the street, in terms of just—but they don’t play on that. 

Arzoo: No. You can’t.

Elizabeth: They don’t play on their good looks or their sexiness or whatever.

Arzoo: And if you do, you have to do it with intent. I dress a certain way for stage. I imagine you do the same thing. You carry yourself a particular way for stage because it’s about presenting yourself in a way that gives you credibility with the comics and the audience and that doesn’t, yeah, that isn’t distracting from the jokes.

I also, I used to do, I think when I was in my twenties and I started comedy, I was much more—my first show was called “Unladylike” because people used to call my comedy unladylike. And I was pushing back. And there was this there was this like brazenness and raunch that I love, but that’s not as much me now. But was very much the time. And I remember I used to, I would wear crop tops all the time, and this guy came up to me after the show and was like, “If you’re gonna talk about your body, you shouldn’t wear clothes like that. Maybe cover up.” 

Lara: Ew. [00:26:00] 

Elizabeth: Interesting. He was a comic himself?

Arzoo: And I burst into tears. No, just some audience member. Some guy. But the bar banned him because the bartenders and staff liked me. The male comedians, one of them was like, “It’s your fault for letting him make you feel this way. You shouldn’t. Don’t cry.” And then they took me out for biryani because they were like, “Screw that guy. Let’s go get you some food.” Comedians express love in their own way. 

Elizabeth: So do women comics, do you think, get steered either by themselves or others in the industry into certain themes like relationships or self-deprecation while men get to have a broader field to choose from?

Arzoo: We can’t win. ‘Cause if we talk about our bodies, we’re being gross and reductive, and if we talk about things going too deep we’re whining. So it’s about striking that balance. And you’re not gonna please everyone. You’re not gonna please everyone. I remember I had a conversation with this person because I’ve always done satire and I’ve always tried [00:27:00] to creatively push myself structurally and with interesting topics. And I remember having a conversation with this this comedian Simeon, who was a comic in Dubai at the time, and now is like a regular in New York at all the big clubs. Incredible. And he gave this advice where he said, “There’s no wrong way to do comedy. If you want a large audience, you’ll have to be mainstream. If you wanna do your thing, your audience may be small, but they will be loyal and dedicated. And it’s not wrong to have specificity, you just have to do it intentionally. So you can develop the right strategy for how to get your art out there.” 

And I think, yeah, I remember another comic in Dubai was like, “Women in the audience resonate with you in a way that they don’t resonate sometimes with the men on stage.” And it’s not because I am disparaging men. I’m not actually a misogynist, excuse me, I’m not actually a misandrist in my stage. I talk about being attracted to men and getting [00:28:00] myself into trouble being too attracted to men sometimes. And so, I’m comfortable sharing my experience and I want it to resonate with the people who it will resonate with. And I respect that people’s taste exists. And if you don’t like what I do, there’s plenty of artists for you to go watch. Go to their show. I’ll buy you a ticket. It’s fine. Just don’t come bother me in my space. 

Elizabeth: Interesting. Yeah, at some point I want to talk to you more about Dubai, but—

Lara: I have a follow up to that. So something that they tell you early on when you’re starting standup is that the audience is going to have expectations from you. And I had a similar experience when I was young in my twenties and people thought I was just like really cute. So I would try to be as unhinged as possible to be like, “You think I’m cute? Take this.” That was very much what how I was doing it. 

But I think that’s something we’re always trying to navigate, which is like people expect us to be one way on stage. And that’s why you’ll see a lot of comedians with “I [00:29:00] look like” jokes, right? Because what they tell you early on at least like when I was coming up with a lot of there might be things when you come up that are going to distract the the audience so you wanna address ’em right away. Like, why is this girl talking to me? Why does she look like that? Why does, whatever? So when you address ’em, that’s like a strategy of being like, “Hey, we’re on the same page. “

Elizabeth: Interesting. So, “I look like this because I’m so tall.” Or I look—

Arzoo: Or my voice sounds like this. It’s high pitched. It’s low pitched. Yeah. “My glasses make me look like Harry Potter.” “I’m a little chubby.” “I’m a little skinny.”

Lara: Yeah. So when you do that, you, like, that’s something that they tell you early on. Okay. And sometimes I use it and then it hurts. Sometimes you’re like, “Oh God, you laughed at that? Geez.” Like you get mad that it works. But, so that’s the thing yeah, I would joke about looking like the Corpse Bride. “Started to get a makeover and gave up halfway through.” And my own mother thought it was funny, and I was like, “I [00:30:00] have to stop.”

I do it, but every time I do it, like why? But but I guess this point’s the larger thing of we’re taught to address it, I guess there are two points. I know that the older I got, the more I’m like, you know what? I don’t really care. You’re gonna have to deal with it. But also I think it points to a larger question about there always are gonna be those expectations around you when you have to, but you’re trying to say something on stage and like obviously that changes from when we’re in our twenties to our thirties. But what is, I guess in, on those two points, what is your experience with those two things? 

Arzoo: Sometimes—I think about this a lot, but I think when I’m in the moment, and I think I am blessed from having performed in like the global South and in the West and move around is that don’t moralize the taste or perspective of your audience.

I’ve done rooms which are like older uncle types who like are uninterested in [00:31:00] what I have to say, but I understand that. And I understand navigating that. And I think if you are mindful about that and you are not talking down to them or any of that, you can work around their expectations because you are presenting yourself in a way that acknowledges who they are. 

Lara: How do you do that? 

Arzoo: You kinda have to read the room. It comes from experience, too. Like I did a double bill show last night and I did two different sets. The 7:30 crowd got my math jokes and my 9:30 crowd got oral jokes. And you could you have some shorter jokes that you try out and you test the water. And then you go, okay, maybe they’ll like this one or they’ll like that one. And I think it’s a product of time, being able to read the room and pivot and listening to other comic set and see how their jokes are doing. Don’t jump on the same mines that they did. So I think that helps.

Elizabeth: So you’ve really gotta [00:32:00] pivot in the moment. You have to be present, as you said, and read the room and have this material that you have to have a chest of possibilities. 

Arzoo: An arsenal, a Rolodex that you run through. 

Elizabeth: A Rolodex. Yeah. Your bag of tricks or whatever. 

Arzoo: And I think that comes with time. That comes with doing the grind. I think also, so the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is such an experience because, it’s for people who are unfamiliar with it. It’s like a 4,000-show art festival that runs over a month and has I, the longest one I did was I did 23 shows over 25 days with a broken leg in Edinburgh On the hills in Old Town. And that grind of doing that many hour-long shows, you get so used to pivoting and you get so used to because you have 60 minutes and they will kick you the heck out at 50. And so you just get used to moving and having so many different audiences. And also because they can be small [00:33:00] audiences. ‘Cause it’s an arts festival and you’re doing shows at 12:30 in the afternoon, you gotta get very good at reading the room, otherwise they will walk out. They will walk out. ‘Cause they have a model called “pay what you want.” So you come in for free and on the way out you pay what you think the ticket, the show is worth. And so you want them to stay till the end. You did not want them running outta there. No, nothing made me stronger than doing the Edinburgh Fringe grind. 

Unfortunately, it’s unaffordable for independent artists now. It’s a $10,000 activity if you include getting a place to stay, booking a good room, buying flyers and maybe advertising space, your living expenses over the month, the flights.

Elizabeth: It is the model for fringe festivals all over the world. The DC Capital Fringe Festival—

Arzoo: They’re done now. 

Elizabeth: I know, it’s over, but it drew on Edinburgh. 

Arzoo: And actually, Julianne, I’m wanna give Julianne Brienza a shout, the founder and [00:34:00] the head of the festival because she actually was very kind to donate some of the speakers from the Capital Fringe Festival, two our Zoo Animal Productions collective—

Elizabeth: Life saver.

Arzoo: Truly, because we have farm shows and they’re like, we’re still an independent artist collective company that’s, we’re trying to build up. And so the expenses of soundboards and speakers and wires and mics, it would add up. Huge shout out to Julianne. It’s a tragedy that the Capitol Fringe has gone, but we’re so blessed that from those ruins and from that loss, we were able to get some kindness and be able to do our art. So thank you to Julianne.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Great lady, truly. 

Arzoo: Great lady. 

Lara: Yeah. So just to shift gears a little bit to get back to crafting material. We talked a little bit about drawing from your life, but I guess more specifically, what are your primary sources for material like social mores, current events and your own life, absurdities, cultural clashes?

Arzoo: [00:35:00] It varies. I think I’ll enter phases of stuff, particularly if I’m writing a show. So if I’m writing an hour-long show, I’ll usually, it’s a six- to 12-month process where I’ll take inventory of the material I have, take inventory of maybe some thematic connections and then build that out. So if I’m building to something, sometimes it’s more structured. I did a map-based show, so there were more jokes that were geographic-centric and was able to take advantage of the fact that I was telling a visual story with space, because that does change the beats of things. For different shows that—my last show was very focused on the world through the lens of spices and allowing that to happen. So then that was more global commentary. 

At my core, I’m just silly. I love a good pun. I’m messy. I tell people that I’m  like God built an adult. And so, I have some fun stories. [00:36:00] I, yeah, I don’t take myself very seriously, but I do take what’s going on in the world seriously so I think I oscillate between absolute buffoonery and jokes that may not make people laugh as much as I would like them to, that make people distressed. But no I do try to end on a punchline, because you never wanna leave people coming out of a TED Talk going, “Why did I do this?” I hope that answers your question. I think that was a little tangential, but. 

Lara: No, yeah, it does. 

So a lot of people have a lot of opinions on comedy and how to structure things and what some people think about comedy in terms of categories and topics. And some people think about it in terms of types of jokes, like you’d hear a lot about one-liner comedians, observational like storytelling or whatever. How do you think about your categorization for humor and jokes and among that, like which ones do you use the most? What do you find yourself like, going back [00:37:00] to? 

Arzoo: That’s such a fun question that I actually love talking about because I’m very cerebral about comedy, and I actually take the craft of it quite seriously in the writing element and really getting into it. I read this really great—speaking of the discourse—I read this critical theory book on the genre of comedy more generally. I know I have a anthology of essays that I can’t wait to tear into. I’m not fun. Like I watch C-Span for fun. People think comedians are cool off stage. We are absolutely not.

Lara: No, we’re not. 

Arzoo: We’re big old dweebs. Yeah. But in this book, I think it said something that is probably one of the most profound things in art—so let’s do it with that setting, that high bar—the purpose of tragedy is to underscore the importance of value. And the purpose of comedy is to underscore the importance of logic.

Elizabeth: Interesting. 

Arzoo: Because tragedy allows you to think about things through loss and what really matters. But with comedy it’s about taking people on a journey from point A to point B [00:38:00] and that A to B can be pun, that A to B can be subversion, that A to B can be a shock jock punchline, that can be a story that you tell, but there has to be a coherence of how you got there. Otherwise, the audience won’t get it enough to find it funny. 

And so I think when I approach comedy from a structural perspective, you go, so what? Where is this going? What is the point of this? And actually I’m, I have a STEM background and I actually find the process of writing a research paper and writing a joke to be quite similar because a premise and a hypothesis I would say are comparable. And as you go through the research process and thinking about it and exploring and experimenting, once you get to the end, you can get to the conclusion of where that went and what that meant. And I think then when you analyze, Okay, is it word play? Okay, is it a story? Okay, is it a one-liner? That’s now going into [00:39:00] the more, the nitty gritty, getting into the weeds of how you construct that logic and present it. But it has to make sense. It has to make sense.

Lara: So that’s something I—one of the things that we hear that I pushed back on with comedians where they’re like, Oh, this didn’t work or this, whatever, I’m not gonna talk about it. It’s just actually, I think that joke can work. You just have to think about how you are getting the audience to where you wanna go. So I noticed that when I write new jokes like when I was in and out of my hiatus, I would come back and be like, Wow, I cannot get the audience to that point. Goodbye. I don’t wanna do this. But there’s this idea of getting us from one place to another and often it’s, the joke will work. You just have to sit there and explore and break things apart and try different things. And I’ve noticed like a lot on this scene that there are a lot of comics who don’t really give themselves the chance to play as much because there are [00:40:00] so many pressures on comedians as their own business and things like that, so they get stuck in this thing. But, so I think I love how you articulated. It’s, yeah, how do we get this journey? Because it probably is funny, you just have to figure out how to translate what’s in your brain in a way that resonates. 

Arzoo: And a funny, I’ve also, it’s really interesting because stories that are often funny in real life will not be funny on stage because if it’s just a funny premise, you haven’t developed anything to take the audience beyond just what happened. Or that superficial idea. And so it’s exactly that. I think a lot of, for early comics, there’s several things that’ll trip you up. Number one, you’ll get stuck on a premise that’s funny and not actually make a joke. So there’s no, “So, what?” Yeah. And so the audience is—

Elizabeth: There’s no “So, what?” Yeah. 

Arzoo: Or an audience won’t laugh, and then you panic and then you start rushing. But actually the joke needed to breathe and it’s okay. And it’s actually doing well. 

The other one is thinking about what you’re saying, how it’s coming off. That can be really distressing too. Particularly if you’re being [00:41:00] vulnerable. 

Also another one is if comedians mess up their first joke, they will then go, Oh, my jokes are bad. Oh no. When you don’t get that first laugh the way you want to. You have to center yourself and find a stillness. And it is tricky. And I think it can be daunting. It can be quite daunting because it’s not necessarily a construction that people are used to if they’re used to being funny. Yeah. Because I always tell this to people: Funny offstage is a personality trait. Funny onstage is a muscle.

Lara: Yes.

Elizabeth: What a great distinction.

Arzoo: Yeah. Anyone can do it if you put in the work. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. That it’s a craft. And I love what you said about logic and structure. It’s, there are parallels in poetry or writing or acting or music, et cetera, et cetera.

Arzoo: It’s the genre of comedy, the larger genre of comedy that predates stand up. Which only really emerged in, generously, the last 100 years. 

________________________________________________________________

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Special shoutout to Creativists in Dialogue’s production team: Audio engineer Elliot Lanes and transcription editor Morgan Musselman. Thank you, all. 

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The Creativists in Dialogue podcast is supported in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and subscribers like you. The Theatre in Community podcast series is supported in part by Humanities DC. Thanks.

[END OF PART 1]

PART 2 INTRO 

Welcome back to Creativists in Dialogue and Part 2 of our conversation with stand-up comic and creative force Arzoo Malhotra. In this episode, we dig deeper into the craft of comedy—where it meets risk, improvisation, and the politics of offense. Arzoo reflects on comedic influences from Orwell to Ali Wong, shares war stories of working international stages, and offers fierce insights on free speech, what’s taboo, and generational humor. We explore how stand-up can provoke, soothe, and connect across cultures—and how the act of making people laugh can also be an act of resistance, empathy, and profound honesty. From hecklers to healing, it’s all here.

Lara: Speaking of comedians who’ve come before us [00:42:00] Nice transition. Okay. Who are your comedian idols or role models and why? 

Arzoo: I will say my idol, idol. Idol, idol, idol. Is actually George Orwell. Because I’ve been—I know.

Michael: I was just thinking of his secret standup career. 

Arzoo: I think George Orwell would’ve actually smashed it because his essays are hilarious. His essays are hilarious! He was good at the short form storytelling. I also value the fact that his opinions and his perspective in the world was informed by a rigorous investigation of it. And engaging in it and being a part of it. I also think he was so good at translating these bigger concepts into accessible bite-sized things. 

But also, I think my magnum opus, my white whale is I would like to write a book of essays of critical theory on media and globalization and all of this stuff, because I think we don’t make the complex stuff fun. We don’t put it in terms that [00:43:00] make it seem relevant to people’s day-to-day lives. And even if people disagree with me, I think it would be so wonderful once I’ve developed more perspective in my arts and writing and how to communicate things, I would love to write an essay. 

For comedy, because that’s—truly the most dull person in the goddamn world—I love Tina Fey because I think she not only presented comedic challenge, but she also was like the first female head writer on SNL. She managed to be a leader in a comedy space and guide that. And I find that to be quite remarkable. Also just really funny! 

I think Trevor Noah is really good. As an immigrant myself, I think he finds a wonderful way to communicate the cultural differences in a way that doesn’t feel preachy, in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s attacking anyone. And I think that in a way that’s really [00:44:00] gentle and sincere. 

I think John Mulaney is a great writer. I think George Carlin was beyond his times.

Elizabeth: Oh, God, yeah. 

Arzoo: I think Catherine Ryan is a powerhouse who finds a way to be funny and silly but also in a way that she presents herself very lightly as a pretty girl. But she absolutely is one of those people who uses appearance in a way that like compliments her whip-smart mind and her sharp wit. 

I think Ali Wong is super brave for doing two specials pregnant. There’s so many. I think Hassan Minaj’s storytelling for “Homecoming King” is priceless. 

I think with artists as well, I admire pieces of art, specific pieces of art as much as I value their body of work. And so I could compliment like another three dozen artists being like, and—oh my God, I’m forgetting her name. Cut that part out. Oh, Issa Ray who’s been writing stuff incredible. There’s so much [00:45:00] talent. Oh my god. Quinta Brunson, who wrote Abbott Elementary, she put that show on network television because she said it’s the only channels that they can get in prison and she wants to make her art accessible. And I almost cried because that’s so nice. 

I just, I think there’s so many wonderful artists and the beauty of our world is that we can be connected to them digitally and everyone in the world can access them. But there’s a lot to admire and I think there’s a lot of joyful influences that just all feed into.

There’s another one I wanna shout out, too, he’s a Indian comedian named Daniel Fernandes, who is incredible and so vulnerable about mental health and talking about the rise of nationalism in Asia and being very brave about it. Gentleman named Kunal Kamra as well, who actually, it’s quite sad, in India, he did some political jokes there. And that comedy club, which is an institution of Mumbai, got absolutely destroyed. Like these people, these men came in and absolutely wrecked the place. And this [00:46:00] is like The Habitat, the comedy club in Mumbai. And so it’s, yeah, when we’re talking about the risks that comics face that’s a big one.

People get very angry. We hurt their feefees when we make jokes. ‘Cause I think authoritarians and the bullies love the feared and hate being laughed at. 

Elizabeth: Speaking of perils. you talked a bit before about what it’s like to be on stage and riffing and improvising particularly maybe when a set isn’t going as you planned. So can you talk a little bit more about the terror of that or conversely, the exhilaration of being up there alone with—comics have a script to hide behind, but they improvise, it appears, so much. 

Arzoo: Oh, for sure. 

Elizabeth: That you’re up there and you’re not doing a one person show, like a actor, a scripted show, an actor would do. That’s gotta be terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. 

Arzoo: Oh, yes. And I think it comes with, I know I keep saying this, but I think it comes with time and I call it “the [00:47:00] stillness.” And it’s something I wish I had in other parts of my life, and I think, and in my real life, I’ll bump into a mannequin and apologize. But on stage I know who I am. I know my voice, and there’s a stillness. And you have to have that internal tranquility and that peace so that it’s, Hey, they’re not laughing as much? It’s okay. They’re, not getting your jokes. You have other jokes you can do some crowd work. Acknowledge they didn’t like it. Get on their level. It’s fine, it’ll be fine. They came there because they wanted to be entertained. And if they didn’t wanna be entertained and wanted to be disruptive, an audience can read that. They can clock that from a mile away and you will lose them.

One of the things that I live by is that if I am bombing, I am free. Because the audience cannot dislike me more than they already do. So it can only go up from here and you just bring, and also, with comedians, they do light us when it’s time to go. If you do less time, no one’s gonna be mad [00:48:00] at you. Comedians will be like, “Oh no, I guess I’ll take your two minutes. Oh, sorry!” So it’s fine. You just gotta acknowledge that the fear will come and things will throw you off, but that’s okay. It’s only five minutes. 

Elizabeth: It’s only five minutes. So you’ve talked about what it’s like to be up there and things not work well. Can you just give us a little bit of, a little window into the thrill of it working and being, playing off the audience and having that sort of magical energy going back and forth. 

Arzoo: Oh, there’s some shows like that. And I think I can count on, I think, both hands some shows where it’s electric. Where you can feel the laughter bouncing off the walls. And that is an experience that like, it fills you. It fills you in a way that I, it’s indescribable and it’s so exhilarating.

Also for me, I am, in case you didn’t notice, super chatty, super gregarious. [00:49:00] I gain a lot of joy from learning about people and interacting and engaging in exciting and interesting ways. And so for me, the thrill is that connection. You can really forge an intimate connection. Because in theater you’re working with a script. This is me and you, bud. It’s me having a conversation with you guys. And there is nothing like the connection that you can form and the satisfaction of it when it’s authentically you. Because they like you.

And if they don’t like you, eh, they didn’t like your jokes. Don’t think about it too much. 

Elizabeth: Such an interesting, it’s so interesting. It’s so different from the theater biz. Michael and I come out of stage work and it’s a different, it’s a different creature altogether. 

Arzoo: I love stage work, but the thing that kills me and why I would never do theater full-time is with stand up, I can do five shows a night, and I never have to rehearse. With theater, I had to spend four goddamn months with these people, with this director who is [00:50:00] like having a heart attack with all these actors. And then I do two shows and that’s it! And then you’re done. Stand up. It is. You’re so able when I’m like, in the grind, you can end up doing 10 to 12 shows a week from mics and feature shows. There are comedians, like a gentleman named Winston Hodges here, who’s an absolute powerhouse. He does four to five shows a night. This man is—and it shows—he’s very good. But yeah, comedy, you can do numbers.

Lara: So there are a lot of ways, I think, to approach this conversation, and I think this kind of discussion can be very surface level. And so I am asking it, but I sometimes… I have my own opinions on I think, how people talk about it, but let’s get into it: Stand up comedians sometimes often offend people either on or off stage. Some people see it as, like, an occupational hazard. Some people have their own kind of philosophies around it. What are your [00:51:00] thoughts about it? How do you deal with it? How do you think about being offensive? 

Because there are levels to it. There’s like the authoritarian level that we’re talking about, and then there are, I don’t, there are people who are angry for a variety, like just a range of reasons.

Arzoo: I think there’s a couple of factors that would be to consider. I think with offensive stuff, you have to think about who you’re offending. The way I think about standup is we are the court jesters in the court in front of the king. If you don’t make the king laugh, you will be executed. But if you don’t make the courts laugh, no one will take you seriously. If they didn’t laugh—there’s a great comedian who said this, “If they didn’t laugh, you didn’t get away with it.” You didn’t get away with it. And yes, I think for open mics, I think when you’re developing jokes, you need to have room to push the boundary so you know how to pull back and how to moderate yourself. [00:52:00] 

I think a certain amount of offense is going to happen for that because we’re at the edge of calling out things and being subversive and playing with that line. But I think to be funny, it’s gotta work at a certain point. And if you’re alienating more people than you’re entertaining, that’s a conversation you need to have with yourself and Jesus and figure it out honestly. Figure it out. 

But I don’t think jokes being offensive or jokes pushing the line are inherently bad if they’re done with the right intent, if they’re—sometimes you have to craft stuff, you gotta work on stuff. I have pissed off a lot of people because I had jokes that were sincere. That maybe didn’t fit certain places. That maybe didn’t work in the times anymore. That maybe came from a different context that maybe I botched one word. You change one word in a joke and you can tank it. You can absolutely flatten it. And so I think a lot of that—I think it’s [00:53:00] a, it’s very particular. I don’t know if this makes sense but it’s very nuanced, but offensiveness inherently isn’t bad, but it’s who you’re offending, how you’re offending them, and what your intent was when you were crafting it. 

Lara: So the way I used to think about it, and I have heard, I think, other famous comedians echo it, so I was like, Okay, maybe I’m onto something. But the way I think about it is I generally hear people out. And then I’m like, Okay, cool. Thank you. Do I want to offend you or not? Do I care? Because frankly that’s what it goes down to. I got some people really mad at me because I was talking about street harassment on stage, and I doubled down. It was really fun. 

Arzoo: “You need to hear this.” 

Lara: Yeah. I got booed and I was so excited. It was a good time. But there are other things where I’m like, Oh, wow, that’s not what I was trying to do. I actually want you in the conversation. No, you need to have fun. The other guy, it’s fun for me to be like, That’s hilarious that I’m talking about being touched on [00:54:00] the street and you are mad. That’s a you problem. And you are, we’re gonna air this out together because you sorted it. That’s fun for me. But I think that’s like practically how I thought about it and navigated it. But does that kind of resonate with you?

Arzoo: Yeah, it does. Dude, it’s so tricky. It’s so tricky to manage all of this. Because I also think like at a certain point, your personal quarrels in being offended does not diminish the fact that someone needs to say the thing. Sometimes you have to say the thing out loud and it’s about being like, Hey, you gotta take a bullet here for this.

I remember, and I’m most inspired by a professor of mine, actually—I went to GW for geography and environmental science—and I had a professor he passed away and had a overflowing memorial at the school. But he was a a human geographer and a political geographer and more on the human side of it. And I took his [00:55:00] intro to human geography class as a requirement, and he, every year, taught a lesson on race that was essentially, race as a construction doesn’t exist because the genetic variability inside a race is equal to the genetic variability between races. Which means the lines we draw are arbitrary because you would expect inside the race they’d be similar and then you’d see pronounced differences between, but it’s very nuanced and varied. And he did this lesson every semester and said, some of you are gonna be mad, some of you are gonna wanna fight me on this, some of you are going to debate. It happens every semester. But let’s go. This is the lesson. This is the lesson that we point out. And bless him, he took all of those questions, he handled them with grace and dignity, and I was like, Ah. Just because it made people mad doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be saying it. Sometimes that’s exactly why you [00:56:00] need to say it. 

Elizabeth: That leads me to ask about taboo subjects in comedy. There are cancer jokes and there are jokes about all kinds of suffering, but they’re not taboo because somebody who’s making that joke is making some kind of connection that humanizes the situation.

Arzoo: So when I write a joke, my thought is if I’m joking about someone, I should be able to look them dead in the eyes and tell them that joke to their face and not feel ashamed. And not feel like I’d be hurting them. If you’re making a joke about gay people or trans people or refugees, you better be making the trans, gay, and refugee folks laugh. That’s who my target audience is. And that to me is a way to navigate taboos. 

Also, every place has taboos. In America, I dropped my race jokes. In the UAE, when I was there, I didn’t do as many religion jokes. In Australia, true story, someone told me that they would heckle me personally [00:57:00] if I made my Steve Irwin joke. I am dead serious. It was another comic who said, “If you make a Steve Irwin joke, I will heckle you personally.” 

Lara: Did you take the challenge? 

Arzoo: I did not.

Elizabeth: So tell our listeners who Steve Irwin is. 

Arzoo: Steve Irwin. Oh, goodness. So Steve Irwin is an absolute rock star in the conservation world who unfortunately passed away from swimming over a stingray and an unfortunate injury. But he was the founder of the Sydney Zoo. His kids are still involved in conservation. They have done wonderful work. And so, listen, I wanna keep his name in my mouth, but apparently that he’s a national treasure and I would get drawn and quartered and a mob would chase me out of Australia and I’d have to swim to New Zealand.

Taboos exist everywhere and I think it has been good for my career to not moralize it. On my own time, I can [00:58:00] say, Hey, is this discourse being limited by whatever? When I’m on stage and I’m performing to you, I’m here to entertain you. And my thoughts about how you feel and navigate the world are irrelevant for those seven minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes. And so I’m very much I am very much of the opinion that you have to deal with an audience that you get. And it’s our job to navigate that, even if it feels yucky, even if you’re performing to audiences that you know aren’t about you or anything you stand for and would judge your lifestyle. It is what it is. 

Lara: But also it goes back to what you were saying about how one word can tank a joke and also I think that’s approach. It’s less about what you’re talking about and more how you’re talking about it, often. I think about Cameron Esposito who has a special called “Rape Jokes” talking about, they’re like, I can make sexual assault funny. This is how I’m going to do it. Talking about their own experiences. And so [00:59:00] I think there’s a way to play with taboo, right? Yeah, taboo’s gonna be everywhere, but we have things we wanna say. And I think it goes back to your point of is it important enough to say? 

Arzoo: Yeah. And comedy provides a really, as we were talking about earlier about stories and which mediums are appropriate to tell which, standup lends very well to quickly making a very salient point to stick that can be taboo, but because you’re not writing a research paper about it or you’re going too deeply into it, it allows people to click with the message and then move quickly through it. And so I think it lends to discussing taboos just from a structural perspective. 

Elizabeth: Yeah, that’s interesting. Gives people permission, maybe, too.

Arzoo: I think that’s a really good way of saying it. And it also gives, audiences have the permission to laugh at it, right? Because if something weird happens in a poem, you’re like, do I laugh? Is this, do I snap? What’s happening here? With comedians, at least the good ones, if you’re doing it right, you’re giving [01:00:00] permission to people to be entertained by the taboos and entertained by the suffering of whatever you’re talking about. Not be like, Oooh. Whoop-whoop.

Lara: I saw Michael Ian Black perform at MIT and they had some suicides that year and he started with suicide jokes. He said, “Let’s. Go.” And the people at first were pissed and shocked but he like comedians at that level are really good at pushing and pulling. And being like, look, I’m gonna do this. You’re gonna get back on my side. We’re gonna understand it. And just, flowing. It’s there’s a control of the emotion. I’m having trouble finding the words, but that’s what it is.

Arzoo: No, you’re absolutely right. You have to hold their hand. And you also, if you take them to the trenches in World War I, you can’t leave them there. You’ve gotta have a rescue plan. You gotta get these guys out of Fallujah, yeah. Because you don’t leave the audience in the trenches. That’s not why we do this. And it’s absolutely right. The good comics are able to manage that. And it’s, [01:01:00] I’ve had some pretty rough jokes myself and learning to manage that made me a better performer. But I did piss some people off. And that’s okay. And that’s okay because I respect that person’s feelings. And I respect, I come from a place of respect and not judgment or hostility or defensiveness, or at least I try to. But if you heckle me, I will eat you. I will unhinge my jaw and I will plop you in like a giant trying to eat Jack and the Beanstalk. You’ve seen it.

Lara: Yes. Yes, I have. That’s actually a really nice image to transition into the next question because standup comedy often zeroes in on the absurdities and the idiosyncrasies of life. So where do you think this, like radar for difference comes from? This ability to pick up on, Oh, this is wild, this is silly. Like, I had coffee today and I have something like, I have a story about it. Like where do you think that kind, that thing comes from? [01:02:00] 

Arzoo: Oh, God. A lot of it is, does it make me laugh? And that’s the first criteria. I think also so much of the art that I make, I know this is like a tangential answer, so much of the art I make is based on who I am in that moment and what’s on my mind. And what I’m thinking about. And so that also ends up, I don’t know, that ends up determining the kind of different things that I end up approaching.

Lara: I think you’re gonna have more to say about this next question. 

Arzoo: Oh. I love that preface. Okay, I’m like stretching.

Lara: Stretching. 

Arzoo: Crack my back 

Lara: Deep breath. Let’s go. Okay. This is, we’re recording this in DC so this word comes up a lot in a lot of different places, so it’s interesting to hear it, to put it in this context. So the comedy world itself, do you find it as polarized as the rest of us, or is there some cross-political camaraderie among comics?

Arzoo: I think the arts in general [01:03:00] attracts people who are perhaps more progressive because it does attract people who are often more in cities, more surrounded by diverse groups. Particularly in comedy, if you’re in the fun rooms, you’re exposed to a lot of different stories and it becomes very difficult to not be empathetic. I think there are a mix of other voices that are a little bit more conservative in comedy. I think people are trying to make space for that, do faith-based shows or do shows with maybe older people or do shows in different spaces to cultivate that. But I think there is an underrepresentation. I think also because comedy is so subversive and it’s about pushing the boundaries, you end up with people who are a little bit more progressive, I would think, but I think DC in particular…  DC in particular is very liberal. 

Elizabeth: Oh God, yeah. 

Arzoo: But often [01:04:00] performatively so in many ways, yeah.

We’re both people of color comedians, and I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but for me, often, I feel policed in the way that I talk about my own community. Because there are people in the West who think that it’s a little bit of gatekeeping of the Western liberal values are the only way to do feminism and development and to consider things. And if you are not using the language of liberation and oppression that certain groups of people have, there can be a defensiveness about why are you talking about things in that way or thinking about that perspective. I don’t know if that’s—

Elizabeth: That’s actually a part of this spectrum that Lara’s question talked about. If you, the comedian, push back on that sort of, for lack of a better word, I’ll say political correctness or sort of woke mentality or something, that’s pushing it in a different [01:05:00] direction as opposed to being one of the voices that is embracing a kind of orthodoxy of thought. So if you’re talking about orthodoxy of thought, there’s a big chunk of orthodoxy in this city, and then there’s orthodoxy in other cities, but—

Arzoo: And it varies.

Elizabeth: Pushing back on orthodoxy, be it a right wing or a left wing or some other orthodoxy—

Arzoo: I think when I started I was often a little bit more ideological sometimes but what I’ve found I think can be very unifying in all environments is some of the sets that I’ve been writing now are actually more clean and about a more general human experience of aging, of families, of having a slipped disc and having to deal with the medical conundrums of that. Some of the more… less sensational perils of dating, navigating stuff that I think can unify people regardless of where they fall on [01:06:00] that. And I think it’s also a way of, in a roundabout way, combating the orthodoxy. Because I think people who get trapped anywhere on the spectrum and just get stuck there, it’s not good.

I grew up in a household where my dad always told me that a party is strongest when they have a strong opposition. And when they can both agree on something, nothing’s gonna stop it. And I think we need to be able to see each other as human beings and normalize being in spaces that might stretch on the spectrum.

So then there’s a line. Because if you don’t think people are human and there’s a certain point where it’s I can’t take you seriously. And I, you’re not, you are in a space where now you’re trivializing the lived existence and the right to exist of certain groups. And then I’m like, Girl, I don’t want your opinion. Go to someone else’s show. 

Lara: Sorry, just to follow up, because ultimately what we were talking about is jokes, and you’re talking about the aesthetics of being [01:07:00] liberal and stuff. And what I find is there’s often scripts, and there are a lot of people who are like, I’m a liberal comedian, and they’re gonna follow the scripts. And I’m like, Oh my God, I’ve heard that joke. I have heard this! On both sides. When you guys are talking about it Orthodox, you were talking about jokes, right? Yeah. Ultimately, I’m like, Oh my God, I have heard that before. That is not connecting with me. I, that’s also part of why I quit. I’m like I did so much comedy, I’ve heard these jokes a hundred times.

Arzoo: And they get recycled. If hear one more Trump joke, I swear to God, I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. Stop making fun of him. It’s fine. Like it’s not, you’re not mining new material here. It lends to superficiality in your jokes. Exactly. Orthodoxy lends to superficiality. 

Elizabeth: That’s great.

Lara: For context, for people who don’t know a lot about comedy. Maybe you were told this when you were starting up, but when you do comedy for a while, you start to understand, Okay, it’s my perspective, right? You start and you watch your friends start saying things that they think people need to hear, and then suddenly you’re like, Oh, this is actually you. Or this is actually me. And what [01:08:00] I was told early on was you write a joke and the first thing that you think of discard it about the subject, the second thing, you discard it, third, fourth, fifth, that’s gonna be closer to you. So when I’m hearing a lot of this, “I’m a liberal comedian and this is what I have to say.” I’m like, is it really what you have to say? It doesn’t feel like it because I heard that this morning—

Arzoo: On MSNCB, Rachel Maddow. That’s so funny. That’s true. It’s very true. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. Low hanging fruit. 

Lara: It’s so tired.

Arzoo: And it’ll be funny premises. This will be another situation where we’re like, “He’s so stupid. Ahhhh.” And I’m like this, I would rather hear like, a sexist do dick jokes at that point. Tell me about that one bitch you took home. 

Lara: You found a new angle on it? Please. I’m dying. 

Arzoo: You found a new angle on her? Great. Grreat. Hey, I’ll take a good, if it’s a good wiener joke, I am, [01:09:00] here for it. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. Among historically comics that, old school comics like Lenny Bruce or Lucille Ball or George Carlin you mentioned, or Richard Pryor, Wanda Sykes, and you all have mentioned whole bunch—

Arzoo: Oh, Wanda Sykes, too! Wanda Sykes, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, girl.

Elizabeth: All these people who are just extraordinary. They, and you talked about pushing boundaries, they’ve pushed boundaries, they’ve defied censorship. And you’ve talked about this, that I’m wondering what your specific thoughts are about free speech and any—you’re talking about this in terms of pushing boundaries and something new and having free speech as a sort of core principle in the comedy world, I would think that free speech is pretty essential.

Arzoo: I think one of the issues that I would identify is quite critical in general when we’re talking about freedom of speech in the context of art is I think there’s this very dangerous exercise taking place that goes, this art is good, [01:10:00] this art is bad. This art is for kids. This art is for this. And by breaking it down and villainizing some forms of art, maybe things that have been more queer, drag, and things like that, maybe things that are a little bit more boundary-pushing in music or in, the physical arts or burlesque or standup. And I think one of the dangers is we need to acknowledge that all art is art. All expression is expression. We need the room to do it. And then if people have an adverse response, audiences have a right to not like something and be pissed off. But that doesn’t mean you break down the mechanisms to perform that medium at all.

Elizabeth: There are plenty of times in history where that’s been the case. You mentioned—

Arzoo: Lenny Bruce was a dragged off stage. 

Elizabeth: Oh, yeah. Thrown in jail. Yeah. 

Arzoo: Indecency.

Lara: Didn’t they ask Nikki Glaser or something— 

Arzoo: Or her friend at the airport, “Do you make fun of Trump?” as she was coming back into the country from a tour. And they’re checking social medias for people. It’s, this is the thing. Fascists don’t like being laughed at. [01:11:00] They cannot handle being laughed at because they, it makes them feel small, which is why we need to laugh at fascists. We need to keep laughing at them. But it’s tough. It is. It is tough. It’s scary.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Back to orthodoxy. You all are clearly members of a generation that Michael and I are not members of. Can you talk about generational differences in humor? Does Gen Z laugh at something that wouldn’t have worked a decade ago or millennials don’t— 

Lara: We don’t like wife jokes. 

Elizabeth: No more wife jokes. Who is it? “Take my wife.”

Lara: We don’t we don’t find people complaining about their wives on stage that funny anymore.

Arzoo: I think also it’s very dark. It’s very dark. Particularly a Gen Z. I think they make everything brooding, which makes me laugh ’cause it’s so corny. ‘Cause they’ll take Archie comics, which is arguably one of the most lighthearted, jughead eating a giant sandwich, and turn it into a super dark cult murder mystery. They take Sabrina the Teenage Witch and turn it into human [01:12:00] sacrifice. Girl, Gen Z’s, very Gen Z’s very intense. They have a lot of feefees and big feelings about stuff. 

I think millennials are, I think millennials are a bit—also Gen Z’s very conservative. Gen Z’s extremely conservative. They don’t like sex jokes, they don’t like sex scenes in movies.

Elizabeth: Is it really? 

Arzoo: They also don’t have sex, like generally across the board, they’re like the least sexually active. It’s quite telling. I think millennials, like we came to consciousness around 9/11. I came to consciousness with a mint green bathtub, but are generally my social consciousness of the world came in around 9/11. And so I truly think we are just fried. And so I think millennial humor can be quite absurdist. It can be quite random. People make fun of us for it. It’s a very particular aesthetic. We get called cringe. 

I think Gen X liked to be liberal and it was like a, “we can do anything” type of feminism and type of empowerment. And it was [01:13:00] very positive and it was very Fujiyama, the end of history has happened. And so I think, yeah, I think it, I think humor is such a byproduct of the time that it comes out of because it’s what’s on everyone’s mind. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. That’s so interesting. These different generations and who’s who laughs at what.

Arzoo: Gen Z’s prudes. Prudes! Go out, make bad choices. Gen Z, you’re listening to this. Go do something. Just stay out late and flirt with a bartender. I don’t know. Live your life. 

Lara: And tell us how it goes.

Arzoo: And tell us how it goes. Send an email, leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you.

Elizabeth: These different generations respond to current political and cultural landscapes in different ways and on the generational question, can you push against the woke agenda or push against a conservative agenda more or less, depending on if it’s a Gen Z or a Gen X or a [01:14:00] millennial audience?

Arzoo: I would say it more depends on the cities and the areas of the world that you’re in than I would say ages. Like in DC I always joke, they’re too smart to be happy. DC’s, they know way too much to feel true joy. So that can lead to certain kinds of jokes not working. And then some places, if it’s a late night raunchy bar at one o’clock in the morning, that’s extremely different jokes. 

Elizabeth: Alcohol, I would assume changes. Very different vibe between nine o’clock show and a midnight show.

Arzoo: Correct. I also, when, the craziest reason I used to be in Dubai, I used to do like public events for shopping festivals and things like that. So then I’m performing to families who don’t speak English. And trying to navigate or speak very imperfectly and try and engage. The way things are received are, there’s many factors. I think people also don’t consider the difference in the way jokes are received when it’s someone who’s a native English speaker versus someone who’s a [01:15:00] non-native English speaker. Because construction will matter. 

Elizabeth: Idioms and sarcasm is hard. 

Arzoo: And certain words.

Elizabeth: Parts of language divide, for example.

Arzoo: The best jokes are one you can adapt with the vernacular and the references of that place. Americans actually have a lot of trouble, sorry, Americans also have a lot of trouble with standup because our style is very referential. And so when Americans go overseas, they don’t know. They’re like, “Who is a AOC? Who is this person?”

Lara: Because you’ve performed for all these different types of audiences and all these different places over, a long period of time, how has your routine and your and your jokes and all this stuff, like what kinds of changes has it gone through over the years? How do you feel like your perspective has shifted and how does that show up in your jokes? And also what motivates shifts in your routines or in the kind of humor you create? 

Arzoo: I always, whenever comedians give me unsolicited advice, I’ll smile and take it, but in my head I’m like, I don’t [01:16:00] care what you have to say. I truly don’t care. The only thing I care about is that audience. How did they feel when they come in? And so I think the main motivating factor for those jokes is just humbling myself and trying to listen to what the audience is responding as and adapt. In different places there are different patterns. There’ll be different words that hit better. For example, someone told me, if you’re doing a punchline in Hindi, put the swear word at the end, not the beginning. Because when a punchline is structured that way in Hindi, it’s distracting to have that punchline first. And so learning those little ticks and the language and the structures. I think for me, I don’t know if it was such a thoughtful process as much as it was, Okay, what did I learn? What can I do better? And how can I translate what I am thinking for them? And making that “for them” part the crucial part. 

Elizabeth: Have you actually performed in Hindi? 

Arzoo: So I do have some [01:17:00] Hindi punchlines sometimes. I’m very bad at Hindi. But what happens is if I’m in an Indian audience and you suddenly whip out an Indian line, it’s so satisfying. Or like an Arabic audience, if you whip out an Arabic line, those few people in the audience who enjoy it will love it. They’ll love it.

Lara: I have seen you do it. Yes. 

Arzoo: It’s fun. It’s so fun. Because it just makes people feel validated. It makes you feel like someone knows. Also, I think once you start doing crowd work and having a list of like culturally relevant jokes and things you’ve said before that have worked, that also does, that informs it. 

Lara: On the larger picture of that, so you have these like technical ways of dealing with it and whatever. So on the larger picture you were talking about in your twenties, you were like, “I’m unladylike. Ah, stop calling me lady.” Relatable. And now your persona is very different. So as you’ve been doing this technical thing, how has that like larger stage presence and perspective, like how has that changed? What does that look like now? 

Arzoo: Very interesting. So I think when I [01:18:00] started, I was trying to find my voice and sometimes that was pushing back at the way people responded to my voice as I was trying to cultivate it. And that was involved like, Oh, you don’t like when women make sex jokes? Ha, psych. Here we go. Oh, you don’t like when women get dark? Ha, psych. I’m gonna do a set about suicidal experiences that I, an ideation that I’ve had. Doing all of this stuff. 

And I think as I entered my late twenties and thirties and I think it’s reflected in the three hours that I did, the second one was more about thinking about place. And that one, it was a lot about, my grandparents were all refugees. And using maps and space to think about who am I, and having a little bit more empathy for how the world got the way it did and being, making those connections and helping. Now when I reach that place I work in STEM, I do all of this, and I went, What are new ways to communicate and engage people now that I have the comedy base? What can I do to expand that? 

I have my voice. I’m not now defensive about it. You can like it or don’t like it. I’m not pushing back. Now how do I communicate that? And then the [01:19:00] third one is with “Masala” how to have a multisensory experience. What if you integrate smells and tastes and sound like a more holistic entertainment experience? No, not holistic. A more well-rounded and dynamic entertainment experience. 

And I think recently I’ve realized that I think my goal in life is I would like to help people connect with each other and get off technology by making the world a little bit more interesting. And make it more engaging and give people a reason to come back into the world. And I think, so now the way I create things is let’s do alt, let’s push the boundaries of what a show can look like, a lineup can look like and say, how do I work with people now to develop an ecosystem of art? And make that more interesting. And that’s where folks like, Lara, myself, and the two other people in Zoo Animal Productions, Emma and Frank, have been working really hard to think about shows from the audience’s perspective, think [01:20:00] about things from how it’s going to be received and what it’s gonna build in the community. And that’s an important value I think all of us share of that ecosystem of art. 

Elizabeth: I love that. “Ecosystem of art.”

Lara: So like the ecosystem starts with the jokes, right? Starts with the performance, starts with the jokes. And so some of the best jokes often reveal to an audience something new about themselves in the world. And that revelation changes ’em, I think, like I have some jokes like that are just forever ingrained in my brain. You do too. But have you had an experience on stage where you felt like you really connected with the audience and change lives? So I guess you have mentioned that, but if you wanna provide any examples or anything. 

Arzoo: So the best ones where I know that it actually resonated is not during the show, but when they come to me after and say, “That stuck with me.” One of the best experiences was another comedian who I actually really respect from Scotland, who came to me and said three months after my show, ’cause I had a joke that was like, when you’re a teenager, Indian families are like, “No boyfriend, you need to study.” And then the minute you hit your twenties, they’re [01:21:00] like, “Where’s your baby?” And you’re like, total whiplash going from Mother Teresa to Mia Khalifa. What is this? Where is the Adobe free trial period? And I got a message three months later going, “I’ve been thinking about that. That’s so true! The transition is so jarring.” And this was like a white Scottish person who now understood something profound, not only about our culture, but about my culture in that world. And so for me that’s when you’re like—and you can tell when an audience is with you but even for comedians, it’s like when someone remembers your joke. That’s how you know. That’s how you know. 

The other one is if you’re in the audience or as a comedian and you hear a joke that a comic did and you’re like, I wish I wrote that. I wish I thought of that. That’s a killer, killerjoke.

Lara: I know I’ve gotten a lot of bad advice about comedy and I’m sure you have too. So I am personally very careful about this and I’m sure you are as well. What advice would you give to someone who’s just starting out in standup comedy? What should they absolutely do? What should they [01:22:00] absolutely not do? 

Arzoo: Number one, and this is a controversial take, I think there’s a pressure to do, you need to be doing this in many gigs, you need to be doing this, you need to be doing that. It’s more important that you’re here for the long run than you burn yourself out trying to meet expectations for other people that may be right for them, but not for you. So number one is, if you’re approaching comedy or any performing arts, find a balance with the rest of your life that works for you. Because many comedians make the joke, “Oh, and comedy’s going everything else in life is not going well.” And it’s, oh baby, you might wanna hit the brakes on the comedy ’cause you don’t wanna not have a job or not have good relationships with your loved ones or lose track with your friends. So that’s one.

Number two, they’re there to laugh. The audiences have come there to be entertained. It’s in your favor. They are rooting for you. They are rooting for you. And don’t approach it as if you’re being judged, approach it as if [01:23:00] it’s a conversation. You’re just having it with a lot of people at once, and you’d prefer if they didn’t talk back and reply.

The third thing is, it’s only five minutes. You’ve taken poops longer than that that have been far more unpleasant. 

Elizabeth: Or rewarding. 

Arzoo: Or rewarding. And it’ll be okay. 

And then the one that I always have to remember for—actually, this was another one that someone gave me early. There’s so much advice. This one was great. So there’s a woman, she wrote a name, a book called Animal, I’m forgetting her name right now. She’s a great comedian in the UK who said, you are not allowed to feel bad about a bad gig or good about a good gig after 10:00 AM the next morning. 

Elizabeth: Oh, interesting.

Arzoo: It’s over. You’re done. Shake it off. Shake it off. And oh my God, if you’re starting comedy, do write some jokes. People think because they’ve seen comedians look loose, that it’s loose. Write jokes!

Lara: Can I add something? 

Arzoo: Please. 

Lara: So, comedy’s very malleable. People are like, oh, you get up there, you know it. No, you write jokes, you [01:24:00] record it, you record your set, you figure out how you write, you figure out what your voice is. You figure out all of this stuff. And so the same way you would sit down and write a song and edit it or something like that, you’re just doing, you’re doing that when you’re performing, but the people are watching you. And so just understanding that it’s gonna take a minute to find your voice and you need to figure out who you are on stage. 

And honestly, my biggest piece of advice is to stop listening to people telling you what to do. 

Arzoo: Stop listening! Stop listening. 

Lara: I started comedy very young and I had people disguising advice or disguising pickup lines as comedy advice. It was annoying. I had a really good friend where we would just give each other jokes and it just wouldn’t work on stage. But I had another friend who could repeat my jokes back to me with less words. I don’t know how he did it. But so ultimately, like, you are in the process of figuring out what you need to do and people who are coming onto you very pedantically and telling you this is or isn’t working, [01:25:00] like they, from my experience, they’re gonna be so far removed from what it is you actually wanna be doing.

Arzoo: And they’re rigid. Their styles are usually extremely rigid because they can’t see the validity of the bigger art. 

Lara: Yeah. And it’s it’s not going to, it’s not gonna work. And I’ve met comics where like a lot of the stuff gets in people’s heads and they’re like, “Oh yeah. And now I have to work on I—I’m looking wrong on stage.” I was like, “No, you’re not.” 

Arzoo: Don’t do that. 

Lara: No you’re not. 

Arzoo: There’s some things that I think you can guide. Hey, you’re swaying a little. Hey maybe you can hold the mic a little closer. But A, you have to preface, you have to ask if they want that advice. ‘Cause even us who are, who’ve been in the game a little bit longer. We don’t matter. The audience matters. I said that about my jokes, too.

Lara: Yeah, exactly. That’s ultimately where you need to get your information from. Yeah. Does it work? Does it not? Yeah. Maybe change one word.

Arzoo: And somebody once told me, and this is so true, you don’t know if a joke works unless you’ve tried it at least 50 times. And so you wanna take [01:26:00] survey data, not anecdotal evidence. 

Elizabeth: Crunch that data. 

Arzoo: You gotta crunch that data and they will tell you, they will, audiences tell you immediately. It’s a performance review every five seconds. 

Lara: Yes! It’s a very analytical process. It doesn’t feel like that because you’re often at a bar and the people are drinking, but it’s a very analytical process. You sit there, you go back, you analyze your joke. You analyze what works and you’re like, Oh, okay, actually I’m always too fast on this punchline. What happens if I slow it down? Yeah. Oh, actually I thought it was a bad joke. I just heard it. I nobody heard me. 

Arzoo: I mumbled.

Lara: Yeah, I mumbled. Or, oh, I don’t even know what that word was but it felt bad on stage.

Arzoo: Yeah. They didn’t like—the other one is, the funny part of this is one that I’m like very pedantic about this, is if the funny part of the joke is that the beginning of the punchline, you’ve lost the game. You’ve gotta restructure your sentence. So the most surprising and subversive part is the last word. [01:27:00] And it’s like stuff like that. But that, yeah. You learn that comedy’s a muscle. Comedy is a muscle. You gotta work it out. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. Speaking of muscle, it, widen the camera lens here and give our listening audience some really tangible advice about their own creativity. Not necessarily comedy, but just how to sustain and nurture and really embrace their own creativity. 

Arzoo: Everyone is creative. You shouldn’t be making art thinking about the output. Art is about you expressing whatever you wanna express. The first things that we have found in archeological records are scratches of people painting and trying to frantically almost talk through time. To us to say, “I exist.” And I think there’s something beautiful to embracing that whatever that means. There’s no right answer for the way you make art, the quality you make of it, or where you find your creative piece. Is it [01:28:00] gardening and landscaping? Is it putting stuff up on your walls? Whatever it is, if you find that, you find peace. 

Another one is, this one is science-backed. Nobel Prize winning scientists are 22 times more likely to have a creative pursuit than non-prize winning scientists. And it, and they’re all different. But the thing is, it’s about functional knowledge. So a surgeon who knits gets better at doing their sutures, or Albert Einstein discovering relativity while playing the guitar and something clicked in his head. So I am of the belief that genius can actually be cultivated, particularly in young people, by encouraging them to engage in arts. Because arts and science aren’t different. It’s the same—polymaths are the people who have broad interests. Those are the people who are making the most innovative stuff because that art and creativity laid the foundation for more innovative thought. 

So express yourself, be free. It might actually, [01:29:00] it’ll make you smarter. And you can make your kids little geniuses. And I, as an Asian tiger mom in training, I’m like, genius is cultivated and I will take on that challenge. 

Elizabeth: Did you have anything you wanted to, advice you wanted to give?

Lara: Yeah, it’s okay to be bad at stuff. Don’t worry about it, do it for you. If you think you’re not creative, you honestly probably are, but you’re just not thinking about it in that way. I’ve met a lot of people who I’ve been really impressed by like how they think and they approach things. They’re like, “Oh, I’m not creative.” What? Because you don’t wanna like just yell at people at a microphone for five minutes.

Arzoo: You don’t wanna paint a bowl of fruit? And you’re now not creative. Come on.

Lara: Yeah. Give yourself more credit. And do it for you. Like you don’t have to make a career out of it. You don’t have to make whatever but what Arzoo was talking about, like finding peace, just take that pressure off of it. Whatever you can do. Easier said than sung, but whatever you can do to just strip it down and make it as manageable as possible. Maybe you’re just singing in the car. Whatever you [01:30:00] can do to make it fit for your life, prioritize it that way. 

Arzoo: Yeah. And I think it’s a good way to make community too, because I think it’s difficult to meet people in the real world. So even if you wanna do something more, more solitary, like sculpture or ceramics, you might still find yourself in a place where there’s other people who are doing work around you. And there’s something magical and comforting, I think, to be around people who are finding their peace in their own way and doing that stuff. It’s a great way to meet people. It’s a great way to meet people. 

Lara: We met through a writer’s group. Writing is very solitary but we met through a writer’s group. 

Elizabeth: Exactly. Yeah.

Arzoo: Lara is, we met through comedy. 

Lara: Yeah. Exactly.

Elizabeth: That leads me to ask you both what what is next? What are your upcoming events and where can our listeners find out more about you? So our zoo, what is next for you?

Arzoo: Sure. So we, through Zoo Animal Productions, have been organizing a lot of alternative shows. We have some really exciting stuff coming up in June. So on June 4th we have a pride show. So [01:31:00] we do a monthly cabaret show called Uncaged where the show is themed and we bring in artists of all genres to express around that theme. Maybe it’s cyberpunk, maybe it’s climate change, maybe it’s Halloween. So this time we’re doing a gender bender theme to bring in trans and non-binary artists and just generally artists expressing gender and celebrating the interpretations of that, through music, through drag, through circus, through comedy, across the board. On June 11th we have, there’s a beautiful urban farm that’s run by the community called Edgewood Community Farm. It’s land owned by monks that allow the community to farm there for free every Sunday, if you’re looking for something to do 11 to 2 they need help and volunteer work and we’re doing a comedy show there.

Elizabeth: There you go. And what’s the location? It’s in Edgewood, DC?

Arzoo: It’s in Edgewood, so it’s just off the Rhode Island Avenue Metro. So we have a comedy show there on June 11th. Funny Farm. And then Lara very excitingly is has a lot of experience doing educational stuff and is now using her experiences to [01:32:00] bring out more educational content.

Lara: Yeah, in collaboration with, Because Science on June 22nd, we are going to be having a drag story time at Because Science. We’re gonna have more details in the notes. 

Elizabeth: Is there a place in the cyber world where people can find out more about you? 

Arzoo: Yes. So for my individual standup and my shows outside of just what we produce, you can find me @ArzooDoesComedy, so A-R-Z-O-O does comedy, regular spelling.

And then for our shows that were—our indie stuff and our art collective stuff, you can find us @ZooAnimalProductions. Instagram I think is the best way, but you can send us an email at ZooAnimalproductions@gmail.com. We have a mailing list. You can come join the fun. We’d love to have you.

Elizabeth: Sounds great! This has been so much fun. Really. 

Arzoo: It has! Thank you so much. 

Elizabeth: We should have stand up comics more often.

Arzoo: We can [01:33:00] find you people who wanna talk about themselves, if that’s what you’re looking for. It’ll be a list. 

Elizabeth: Sit down comics, actually, nobody was standing. Let everybody know we were not standing throughout this interview.

Anyway, gentle ladies, it has been wonderful talking to you both Arzoo Malhotra and Lara Azar. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for listening. 

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[END OF PART 2]