Comedy’s Rising Star: Tamar Rubin’s Journey from Open Mic to EP
The first time I ever performed in Atlanta I was doing improv and didn’t know the format. I was brought up on stage, and with a surprised face, I joked to my roommate, “Well, guess I’m performing.” Just then, someone from across the room made eye contact with me and just mouthed out the words:
“You okay?”
I was fine. But ya’ know what? It was a nice little moment. And it was the first time I saw Atlanta Stand-Up staple, Tamar Rubin. Being around creative people is a different experience. There are people you’d be friends with even if they weren’t talented and people whose work you would follow even if they weren’t incredibly solid people. Tamar checks both those boxes. She’s just easy to root for. Doing this stuff is stressful. You remember who’s nice to you.
I contacted Tamar for her perspective on a career milestone she was about to hit. Stand-up is a different beast than other forms of entertainment in that the artist has to build their career brick by brick. There are many long drives to bars in Alabama down here for some of those bricks—people who don’t know you and don’t know your brand of comedy. Tamar’s performed for older crowds, gay bars, and open mics in towns that I couldn’t find on a map. And all those bricks lead to one of those milestones: Tamar’s first album.
“I was sick leading up to it.” Two weeks before, she had COVID. During the week, she didn’t do any material from the album. She wanted to keep it fresh. Keep the material exciting. One of the tricky things about stand-up is you need to be your own motor. Comedians have told those jokes one hundred times. As a writer, you can take a break and return when you feel fresher. Actors have other scene partners. For comics, it is just you up there.
“Your first album can be as big as you want it to be or as small as you want.” The album, it felt, is undoubtedly an accomplishment. It is one of a few that is turning into a big year for Tamar. She recorded her first taping earlier this year with Only Fans, who’s now branching into comedy. Then Rhizome reached out to her about recording an album. You stack enough bricks, and people believe in you. Rhizome and Only Fans are names people recognize, and they have a brand to consider. “It’s good to have someone believe in you.”
I went to the taping, and there was one specific thing Tamar told me that I kept thinking about: “One of the craziest things about stand-up is how captivating something as simple as stand-up can be. In an age with cell phones and all the information in the world in your pocket, a room full of crazy, overstimulated people can just sit down and watch someone with a microphone for half an hour in absolute entrenchment.”
During Tamar’s set, I looked into the audience, and sure enough, all 100 eyeballs were glued on her. She killed. I’ll spare you a review (those will come out later, I’m sure), but you could feel the room. It was the kind of audience you hoped for. The type of reaction that lets listeners feel the room. Unabashedly, I was happy for her. We see how hard our peers work, and we all know not everyone we’re rooting for will catch a break. It’s good to see it happen for someone.
“It’s three years of jokes, and it’s over in half an hour.”
“I must have dropped something,” she felt right at the end in a quiet panic, “that went by too fast.” But no. It was just that tight of a set. Hit every 15 seconds. The crowd loved it. The label loved it. A room full of people. Captivated. Woman. Microphone. Jokes. Laughter.
She says the jokes helped her keep her momentum. There’s a craft to stand up I’ve never entirely been able to capture, which is just the jokes having their own momentum. An excellent stand-up set is like a train. The rails do the work. But the comedian is the motor.
When a band plays they want the crowd to know every word of every song. They want the crowd to be intimately familiar with their work. For a stand up comedian every word is precious. You live and die in the unexpected.
Tamar looked out and hardly recognized anyone.
Just the way she wants it. Every comedian you’ve ever seen on a Netflix special is playing for hundreds of people who love them. Everyone who bought a ticket knows they like the product. They know they like the comedian’s brand of comedy. I asked Tamar if she thought comedy was easier the bigger you get.
“1000% percent.”
And I asked her if that’s what she wanted. No. She wants people not to know her. She wants to see if she can win the audience. She wants the surprise of the unknown. (I don’t want this. I think Tamar can beat me up.)
Then there are the little wins in the big wins. People were there because they recognized her on Instagram. They found her style, and they liked it. It is humbling to consider that everyone in that room is spending the time and money they could do anything with to find joy in your performance. That’s kind of nuts.
The one thing I hadn’t anticipated Tamar saying when I talked to her after the show:
“It was emotional. That was three years of jokes. And now I have this timestamp of my life and career at this moment in time.”
It’s strange to think that now all those first EPs of comedians I like were chapters of someone’s life. Someone who was trying to make this thing happen. Sure, now they’re Bill Burr and John Mulaney and Wanda Sykes, but those first couple of years, they were just full of energy and uncertainty and fear and hope, just like the rest of us. And now Tamar has her first landmark. She had COVID, a panic attack, and more mics than she can count, but she’s got 30 minutes that will live forever in our digital world.
And she’s got what’s next. She hopes this helps launch her to get TV credits, booked on bigger venues, working with bigger acts. You know. Brick by brick.
To follow Tamar (and the album when it’s released), follow her on social media:
Comedy Album Recording – March 22nd, 2024
