The Hollywood Fringe festival is fastly approaching! Lucky for us comedy is a major player in the festival lineup. There will be a whopping forty-four live comedy shows being performed throughout the community at a bunch of venues. Today I hope to narrow down your choices just a smidgeon. The Asylum Lab (around the corner from Theatre Asylum) will be debuting Not Another Teen Solo Show which runs seven days from June 9 to June 29. You exclaim “Oh, not another teen another teen solo show!” CHILL OUT, homies!!! We got to ask Rati Gupta, the star and creator of this teen trials and tribulations tribute, a few questions about her comedy, her production and her hilarious podcast, How to Grow The F*** Up. You will not only love Rati immediately but I’m sure you won’t miss a single performance of NATSS. Cool acronym, huh? Ok, it’s time to be impressed!
COMEDY CAKE: Tell us about the inspiration for your one woman show “Not Another Teen Solo Show”?
RATI GUPTA: I was home in Indiana, and bored, so I started reading through my old journals and was HORRIFIED by my high school self. I think the first journal that I re-read was about all the shit that went down leading up to Prom, and literally in the journal I kept comparing myself to Rachael Leigh
Cook from “She’s All That”. That is literally how I used to think. I used to watch movies that paralleled whatever situation I was currently dealing with, thinking that they would guide me out of it. My stories were all so embarrassingly stupid and incredibly entertaining (in hindsight), that I played with the idea of writing a book using them, and I actually started to write it… but writing a book is freakin’ scary! One of my writing mentors, Kimmi Auerbach Berlin, had done a one woman show before she wrote her book, so I thought I could do the same. The Prom story naturally became the big finale and I just backtracked from there.
COMEDY CAKE: What do you feel is the perfect high school experience?
RATI: If you asked me this when I was 15, I would’ve said the perfect high school experience means crazy drunken house parties, a highly sexual relationship with the captain of the basketball team, and a wardrobe consisting entirely of crop tops and low-rise jeans. Looking back on it now though… I’d say the same thing, but add as a first priority a best friend who has your back
no matter what. High school sucks, but if you have someone to go through it with… you’ll survive. And you’ll have someone to sit and complain with in the corner at your 10-year reunion.
COMEDY CAKE: How did you get your start in comedy?
RATI: It was totally random. I was a dancer for the majority of my life, it’s what brought me to Los Angeles in the first place. My dream was always to be a back up dancer for Janet Jackson, but there were only so many auditions I could go to where I was required to wear bootie shorts and
heels. So I figured since I was in LA I might as well take some acting classes. I thought I’d be a good soap actor. So I went to an acting coach and she kept saying that I had a natural comedic rhythm (which I actually credit to my dance background), and everyone in the class was constantly
laughing at me. But instead of it making me cry like it did in middle school… it felt pretty awesome. So I took it and ran with it, started doing stand-up and improv and boxed up my bootie shorts.
COMEDY CAKE: You host the podcast “How to Grow The F*** Up.” How did you get started? You have two podcast co-hosts, Tony G. and Nadia V. What are the advantages of having a group podcast?
RATI: Tony, Nadia and I met in a comedy writing class, became awesome friends and decided that we should do something together. Comedy is such a scary world, because a lot of times you don’t know if what you’re doing is actually funny. So when you find other people who not only understand your style of humor but play off of it well.. you gotta hold on to that. Working with other people just takes the pressure off. Only one of you needs to be funny.
We ended up starting a podcast because we decided that we were just really good at talking about stuff… Mostly about how stupid we are when it comes to basic life situations, like buying wedding gifts, getting your car fixed and dealing with breakups. So we thought, why not do a podcast about that? We could not only help each other figure out this whole growing up thing, but we could help out all the other “adolescent adults” out there who suck at it too. And entertain people with stories of just how stupid we really are.
COMEDY CAKE: What are some of the best pieces of advice you think you’ve given HTGTFU listeners so far?
RATI: Well… generally speaking, I don’t know if I’d even call our advice… good. We all really suck at being twentysomethings so I don’t think we’re qualified to guide a person in any way, but in the Going To Weddings episode, we actually gave some legit advice on what to wear, who to hang out with, and how much to spend on the gift. Now if I had to pick the BEST piece of advice we’ve given, it’d be from the Cooking episode. Tony told this story about how he had to go to the hospital because of a bagel-slicing incident. Bagel-slicing is extremely dangerous you guys! Take it seriously. Put the bagel down on a flat surface and slice from side to side with your hand ON TOP of the bagel, not on the side of the bagel.
Mentions: Careful how you slice a bagel! Tickets for NATSS are $10 suggested donation. Get detailed show information HERE. Support Hollywood Fringe! Check out all things Rati Gupta at her website.