Michelle Dobrawsky

Today I am interviewing Michelle Dobrawsky, a comedian born in Brooklyn, NY who has been doing comedy for five years. To find out more about Michelle, please visit her website.

Why did you start doing stand-up comedy?

I started doing stand-up comedy in the first place in part because I was bored. All I did was work (first as a social worker, then as a lawyer), and didn't have a creative outlet. I'd been watching stand-up since I was very young; I watched all the HBO specials ever since HBO began - people like George Carlin, Robert Klein, Robin Williams. I also watched a lot of late-night TV when I was too young; Carson always had great stand-ups and that's where I'd see young comics like Freddie Prinze and Ellen DeGeneres. So I finally decided that I wanted to do it, not just watch it, and it was a great feeling to get up on stage.

How do you keep your material fresh?

I keep my material fresh by constantly incorporating people, incidents and observations from my real life. Everyone I know, everything I do, is a source of inspiration. I also keep things fresh and fun by playing with material I know extremely well - you have to have a good foundation before playing around - and when I incorporate my old material with playing off the audience, sometimes unexpectedly interesting things happen that I can work into future routines.

What is the weirdest thing that happened while you were on stage?

One of the weirdest shows I did was a midnight show. It involved a crowd of five people, who all knew each other (three were comics, two were girlfriends). I introduced myself to everyone, and then did a character bit rather than my act. At the very end, the host came on as a fake-Asian character and started throwing handfuls of wet noodles all over us and the stage. We all spent awhile cleaning them up after the show.