CalArts alum Zoe Hertzberg (Theater BFA 25) returns to solo performance this Sunday with Stand Up in a Record Store, a new hour of comedy shaped by music and what she describes as “niche references [she] assumes are universal.” In a recent email interview, Hertzberg shared more about the origins of the show and her approach to comedy.
The show follows her 2023 solo hour ZOE^10: The Conference to Solve All Your Problems, after which she said she felt “very confident and assured” in her performance. But subsequent experiences left her “very far, and frankly very afraid, of going back on stage again…alone.”
Still, she continued writing—particularly about music.
“I found myself writing a lot of jokes about music…things that felt so formative and true to me,” she said. “I wanted to be understood. I didn’t want to feel like I had to prove myself.”
Drawing from childhood visits to record stores with her father, Hertzberg built the show around a setting she describes as “very safe,” even as the performance itself takes place in a theater. She also kept music at the center of the work as a point of origin. “The feeling of listening to a song you love alone in your headphones,” she said, “that was my original comfort.”
“People say, ‘But it’s in a theater, not a record store,’” she added. “And to that I say, not all theater takes place in a theater.”
The material draws on specific references, though she’s worked to ensure audiences can follow them. She also draws on her experience as an Asian American, which she describes as inseparable from her comedic voice. “If you do know the references, hopefully the bit is heightened for you,” she said, adding: “Phoebe Bridgers fans and theater kids are the same parts of the same Venn diagram.”
The show has been described as an hour of material about music without singing, though she leaves room for that idea to shift. “Singing is one of the things I feel most vulnerable about,” she said. “And maybe the final version even has some of that in it…maybe all the marketing is a lie.”
Hertzberg first performed stand-up at a CalArts open mic during a campus evacuation caused by a heatwave. After the set, an Asian international student told her it reminded her of her mother.
“That’s when I realized where my voice was,” Hertzberg said. “For moments like that.”
She added that she didn’t grow up seeing comedians she related to. “I thought comedy wasn’t for me,” she said. “I didn’t realize that I could be funny, or that I could laugh.”
Comedy, she said, became something she claimed for herself. Rather than asking whether she was funny, she focused on building a full-length show and performing it.
For those considering attending Sunday’s performance, Hertzberg’s pitch is direct: “If you think it sounds good, you’re right. If you think it might be weird, you’re also right.”
Stand Up in a Record Store will be performed Sunday, April 12 at 7:30 pm at the Lyric Hyperion Theater & Cafe, 2106 Hyperion Avenue, Los Angeles. For tickets and more information, go to Eventbrite.
