Five Questions with Maya Sharma
Michael Melamedoff’s friend and collaborator, Maya Sharma, is ready to take on his five questions! You may know Maya from the comedy group The Ladies Who Ranch, or from her work as Associate Director of the Brooklyn Comedy Collective. But today, Michael and Maya discuss her perspective on creating a sense of play over a sense of being impressive, the philosophical connection that exists amongst comedians internationally, and how comedy can feel empty if you don’t have a sense of communion with your audience.
This interview has been condensed for length and clarity.
MICHAEL MELAMEDOFF: I’m super excited to be talking to you today. I’ve known you now for four years. I don’t know if you remember this, but we actually first crossed paths when you and Philip Markle invited me to a comedy showcase at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective. It is still to this day probably the best comedy showcase I’ve ever attended. I set meetings with half the comics on the bill, I’m working with them all to this day, and part of that netted me this incredible relationship with you! For people that are unfamiliar with it, can you tell me a little bit about what the Brooklyn Comedy Collective does?
MAYA SHARMA: I mean four years, wow that’s really wild. [laughs] So the Brooklyn Comedy Collective is both a theater and a training center, and our main ethos is community – it’s rooted in uplifting new artists, new comedians, and giving them play space to find their voice and find their people. The combination of those two things – honing in on what you as a comedian have to say and also honing in on the people who make you feel confident and encourage you to say it – that to me personally changed my comedy career. And so for BCC in our classes we encourage a sense of play over a sense of being impressive. In the BCC philosophy, elevation comes from personal growth and a sense of play and joy. That’s really where we live, which is all the more fun when you have partners and playmates to do it all with. That’s where we’re born. On the theater side of things, we believe in paying performers and making sure that as you gain confidence and zero in on what you want to say, you’re not doing it for someone else’s benefit. You’re really reaping the rewards for having put yourself out there. So that’s basically where we live as a theater and as a training center.
MELAMEDOFF: That’s amazing. I’ve seen so many shows at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective since that first showcase…everything from sketch shows to clown shows to musical cabarets to straight stand-up – no matter how diverse the roster of comics and their approaches to the art are, there is a defined sense of curation that for me is a hallmark of the space. As the Associate Director of the BCC, how would you explain that approach to curation?
SHARMA: You know that’s my specific job at the theater – programming our schedule and the different shows – and so where I come from or what guides my programming is looking for shows that have a real point of view. There’s a throughline at BCC, even though it is such diverse programming and you can see any number of things, the thing that all of these shows share is a sense of perspective. Especially when it comes to stand-up, you’re not gonna see a Manhattan club comic’s take on dating. You’re going to see a Brooklyn weirdo’s take on dating which is going to come from a whole different angle. And when it comes to sketch, you’re going to see people play with form. When you see clown, you’re going to see people push as far as they can to create a connection with the audience. We have so much improv programmed at our theater, and we encourage our improvisers to not do “good improv” big quotes, but to do improv that feeds their own sense of humor. As a result, your improv shows – even though everyone has their individual sense of humor – there’s a sense of freedom and a fierce kind of fearless play that I think connects all of this. A willingness to bend and try. I teach improv as well, and I always say, “It’s important to please yourself on stage.” You should be kind of bubbling over – that’s what the audience is looking for. I think that the BCC vibe is one where the performer is taking real pleasure in the act of expressing and the act of connecting with the audience.
MELAMEDOFF: I love that – it ties back to something else I wanted to ask you. In listening to you, I’ve heard you talk both about caring for your performers by paying those performers, by ensuring there are rewards for doing the work, and also in taking pleasure in the work. And I’d almost say there’s a focus on doing the work in a way that can be kind. I think there are all these ideas around performance and comedy – that making art is supposed to be hard, that a requisite of being in comedy is that there has to be something acerbic about it, that there has to be a harder edge to it especially in New York. But one of the things that I’ve always loved about you as a performer and as a person is the generosity with which you approach comedy and other comedians. Can you talk to me a little bit about that philosophy?
SHARMA: When it comes to the theater, there’s an active pursuit to create an environment where no one is cooler than anyone. I think it’s really stifling to feel like you have to impress, not only an audience but the people around you, in order to garner a sense of respect. I think that’s really limiting to art. A natural trap to fall into as an artist is wanting to be seen, respected and elevated – so there is a need to impress, hobnob and posture. Anything I can do at the theater to allow young artists to just create from a place of authenticity and freedom, that’s what I wanna do. But when it comes to my own work and my positioning within the comedy community, all of my gorgeous fruit that I’ve been able to create and eat and all of that – it grew out of community and grew out of collaboration and inspiration and being connected to others as a means of expressing myself. So as a performer, I’m concerned with creating a sense of communion with the audience – a coming together. My way of connecting is by tapping into the thing that is kind of sacred, but also potentially has some shame around it. The generosity piece is saying to the audience, “Look here we are, we all seem to be able to talk in the same language of fear or hope…” Whatever it is, it’s creating a sense of openness. I remember I started at The Annoyance New York and watched all of these performers taking big swings and assuming that the audience was gonna be able to join them in that pursuit. That’s what inspired me. But then once you get to this place of fearlessness, it feels empty if you don’t have that sense of connection. So that’s what I try to foster both from a community and theater standpoint, but also my performance. I want there to be a sense of, “We’re taking big swings, we're taking big chances and risks together, even though you’re the audience, it’s us together as we traverse whatever insane idea I’ve decided to try.”
MELAMEDOFF: Speaking of close communities: you are one-fifth of the comedy group Ladies Who Ranch, an incredible group of performers that includes you, Sophie Zucker, Kelly Cooper, Caroline Yost, and Caitlin Dullea. You’ve been in this group for seven years. I know that the Ladies are incredibly close friends – like they’re your best friends – and I’m curious what is it like to maintain that working relationship with people who you happen to be so close to?
SHARMA: I mean I feel really lucky that we came together. Sophie Zucker and I had gone to college together, which is where we connected as collaborators – we were in a sketch group, we did improv together…all of that. So when we moved to New York, we got a random slot at The Annoyance Theater and just asked the people we thought were funny and cool – who we really hadn’t built friendships with yet – to do bits on our show. And there just seemed to be a real kind of jelling of our voices in creating this show together. And we continued and continued and continued… But I think what sets us up for success as a group is that we spent years operating as individuals in support of one another, as opposed to trying to fit into a box together and squish into one identity. For the first two or three years, our show was kind of a showcase of each of our individual acts. Our slogan for a while was, “Women doing it for themselves, together.” That is the ethos behind us. So when we started to collaborate more, we had a real sense of each other’s individual voice and a care and a respect and an excitement around everyone’s individual voice. It allowed us to continue to be friends because we don’t feel constrained by each other. We all celebrate each other in a creative capacity, which allows us to then appreciate each other when we’re just at home watching a movie or celebrating out at a bar. It is Caroline’s Caroline-ness that draws me to her both creatively and also as a fun hang. I think that’s what has kept us really healthy.
MELAMEDOFF: The Ladies Who Ranch recently went abroad – you brought your show to Edinburgh [Festival Fringe]. I’m curious what was it like knowing how comedy can be so famously local. I mean, we just talked about the difference between a Manhattan comic and a Brooklyn weirdo’s comic sensibility on dating. Comedy can be so regional, so hyper-specific. What was the experience like of bringing your voices to an international community?
SHARMA: We had such a good time doing improv twelve nights in a row. I was worried that it was potentially going to be traumatic, but it was an absolute joy. There was so much about being at Fringe with the girls that was absolutely delicious and I loved it so much. But the thing that really stuck with me was watching other performers from around the world, and seeing that there’s a global alternative, experimental interest in comedy. Just seeing everybody from an international perspective doing the kind of work that you know, in my brain is like, “Well that’s Brooklyn. You know, Brooklyn v Manhattan!” It's like, no. It’s so much larger. It’s like a philosophy that all over the world people are twisting and pushing, and that was really, really gratifying. From the perspective of bringing our voice to this international stage, it was really interesting. I actually loved flyering – and I know that can be a big ego death – but because it was us as a group of five American women flyering all together, there was a sense of excitement. I think we brought our own blend of excitement and ruckus energy while still being a part of this tradition that seemed to be woven throughout all the international acts of trying things, taking bold swings, and pushing boundaries as much as possible. Even when it’s improv and nothing’s written and we’re just trying to build something together. How can we build and also dissect and push at the same time? I just loved that aspect of it, seeing artists from all over the world – it was amazing.
MELAMEDOFF: I’m so excited to know that there are funny weirdos everywhere, and I’m genuinely grateful for the work that you and Philip are doing. The Brooklyn Comedy Collective is filling such an important space in New York City, and it’s such an amazing place to go to and really discover – I think – the next wave of the best of comedy that’s coming. So thank you!
SHARMA: Of course! Thanks for talking to me!
