The Last Place She'd Look by Arlene Schindler

One foot, then the other, echoing a half block away as I race-walked the five blocks to the urine-scented subway for a 45-minute ride home on the F train. Walking alone through the chilly April wind, my adrenaline surged as my heart beat kept pace with the clickety-clack of my spike heels on cement. But after a few months of that, I’d now run out of couches.

On nights like tonight that ran late, I’d ask a fellow comic if I could go home with them and sleep on their couch, then train home to Brooklyn in daylight. Afterwards, taking compliments and congratulations from well-wishers, I grabbed my coat and left the club after midnight. Nothing like a great set to make me feel fearless. As the crowd laughed long and loud, it seemed as if the room had embraced me in a loving hug. Thrilled to be in front of an audience, I felt the hot lights on my face. In school, I was voted most likely to be forgotten. That’s why you probably never heard of me.Ĭenter stage: Comedy U, down-town Manhattan. I never said the word vagina in public until my parents were dead. Stand Up & Heartbreak spotlights being a comic at the wrong time in a world where timing is everything. With big hair and a satin jumpsuit, she confronts sexism, manages hecklers, says “next” to bad sex and endures a marriage gone awry, finally emerging with the punch line. Set in NYC in 1981, from comedy cellars to dive bars to Park Avenue high-rises, a female comic from Brooklyn meets the man of her dreams, not knowing his addictions and double life. Stand Up & Heartbreak is a narrative non-fiction glimpse into the life of a budding stand-up comic who unknowingly marries a sex addict, and they both stop performing.

The Last Place She'd Look by Arlene Schindler