{"id":39894,"date":"2022-11-11T01:39:48","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T09:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=39894"},"modified":"2022-11-09T10:54:39","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T18:54:39","slug":"a-crush-leads-to-new-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2022\/11\/11\/a-crush-leads-to-new-career\/","title":{"rendered":"A crush leads to new career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liz Glazer headlines the Nov. 24 Chutzpah! event Celebrating Queer Jewish Comedy. (photo from Chutzpah!)<\/em><\/p>\n

Lawyer-turned-comedian Liz Glazer shares the Rothstein Theatre stage Nov. 24 with the Holy Sisters, Israeli drag queens Ziona Patriot and Talula Bonet, in the Chutzpah! Festival event Celebrating Queer Jewish Comedy. The evening is hosted by multidisciplinary artist and performer Yenta, whose alter ego is Stuart B. Meyers.<\/p>\n

Based in New Jersey, Glazer is an award-winning comedian. Before taking to the stage as a career \u2013 and engaging in other creative endeavours, including acting and writing \u2013 she was a tenured law professor.<\/p>\n

Of comedy, Glazer said, \u201cI never intended to get into it. I had a crush on a woman who asked if I ever thought of doing comedy (no) and said she would put me on her show (to which I initially also said no, then realized she would probably be at her own show, so I said yes). I loved it so much from that first performance, and I think what I loved about it wasn\u2019t even the laughs or attention or even that this woman I had a crush on was in the audience, though all of those things were nice, but that all I had to be to do it was me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoyed teaching law, but there was always something about it where I had to fit what I wanted to say or write about into a framework of legal analysis. I had to have the topic of whatever I was saying or writing be the law, not just my own life, because there would eventually be something like a bar exam. When I did comedy, all I needed to talk about was myself. Though I should note: after all of my shows there are exams, so audience members should be prepared for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glazer\u2019s first comedy performance was on March 5, 2013. She admitted to having been \u201ca wreck.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote stuff to say,\u201d said Glazer, \u201cbut had the thankfully correct instinct that it wouldn\u2019t connect with the audience or be funny or good, so I called a friend with experience performing comedy and she told me to just say something vulnerable to the audience at the beginning of my set.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thinking she got the message, she hung up before realizing she didn\u2019t know how to be vulnerable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t teach you how to do that in law school,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, I paced around a bunch trying to think of something vulnerable to say, couldn\u2019t really think of anything, then headed to my front door to leave for the show\u2026. I see a package at my front door, and I hadn\u2019t ordered anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

With time to spare before the show, Glazer brought the package inside. As she was about to open it, she said, \u201cI realize[d] a trick to being vulnerable is not knowing the answer to something, and I didn\u2019t know what was in the package, so perhaps the vulnerable thing I could do to start my set would be to open the package on stage. So I did.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurns out the package was from my mom, who had visited my apartment a couple weeks before and noticed that my white fluffy cat Mona \u2013 who would climb to the top of my closet \u2013 was shedding her white fluffy fur on my dark suits I would wear to teach class, making me look like a white fluffy law professor. My mom said I should buy vinyl suit covers \u2026 [but] knowing I wouldn\u2019t, she ordered me three packs of six of them and sent them to me without my knowledge. So, my first set ever began with my opening this package on stage and explaining to the audience my relationship with my mother and my cat Mona, and how I\u2019m a law professor who teaches class with white fluff all over my suits. And it worked! I think because, even though I had no idea how to do comedy, I couldn\u2019t not be myself because I was genuinely reacting to what was in that package in the moment I opened it for the first time along with the audience. And\/or because, as a rule, vinyl suit covers are very funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glazer no longer relies mainly on improvisation, but it still is an important part of her act.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do write a lot of jokes,\u201d she said, \u201cand much of my shows consist of prepared material but also improvising is everything, to quote the great Joan Rivers (in a very short interview I saw somewhere and am not sure where). Live comedy, whether it\u2019s written down ahead of time or not is, by nature, dependent on interaction and connection with the audience which is, by nature, improvisational. So, to prepare for a show, I make sure I know what I want to say \u2013 sometimes a set of things and, more often, one big idea I want to get across \u2013 and I annoy my wife for a few hours repeating it aloud while she tries on clothes and asks me if I like them. And I try to meditate before [a show] because the key ingredient for me is clearing my focus so I can be present with the audience in the moment. That\u2019s really the stuff. Connection and clarity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glazer is married to Rabbi Karen Glazer Perolman, a spiritual leader at\u00a0Congregation B\u2019nai Jeshurun\u00a0in Short Hills, N.J.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was raised going to Orthodox Jewish day school, a Conservative synagogue, and I\u2019m now married to a Reform rabbi, so I think that makes me Chassidic,\u201d Glazer joked. \u201cI do talk about being Jewish in my comedy, and I do comedy for Jewish organizations and synagogues frequently. I talk about being married to a rabbi and, when I do comedy for Jewish audiences, I talk more extensively about my upbringing and how I learned in school all of these rules about what not to do, then lived in a house where we ate pepperoni pizza on trayf silverware on Shabbos.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt an even deeper level,\u201d she said, \u201cmy lineage consists of four out of four grandparents who survived the Holocaust. Not to brag, but it\u2019s true. And I think of them constantly when I do comedy, especially when it\u2019s explicitly about being Jewish and especially now as antisemitism is on the rise, unfortunately. There\u2019s always a fearful part of me that wonders how much to talk about being Jewish in situations where there might be antisemitic people in the audience or if I post a video that may spark antisemitic comments, but I think of my grandparents in those moments, too. I think, if they survived for me to not be loudly Jewish, what was the point?\u201d<\/p>\n

Glazer doesn\u2019t shy away from who she is or what challenging circumstances she has faced.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m recording an album soon called Still Born Sorry<\/em>, about grief and trauma and stillbirth (and it\u2019s funny!) that will be an audio album available wherever you get your music and such, and also part of a documentary film about how I was supposed to record an album and have a baby last year, and neither of those came to fruition when I thought they would. That prior album was supposed to be called Born Sorry<\/em>, and was postponed due to a stillbirth, so this one (the album and the documentary) will be called Still Born Sorry<\/em>, which may be the best pun I definitely did not intend.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the Nov. 24 performance at Chutzpah!, Glazer will be leading a two-hour workshop on the afternoon of Nov. 25. Participants will explore their \u201cpersonal experiences, opinions and overbearing family members to find funny material to bring to the stage,\u201d as well as setting up a \u201cpunchline joke structure and what it means to find a comedic voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

For anyone a little nervous about trying to seek out that voice, Glazer said, \u201cI adore nervous people, so I really encourage especially those who are, to come to the workshop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glazer encouraged readers to check out her website, dearlizglazer.com<\/a>, and send her \u201ca nice email! I would love to hear from you!\u201d<\/p>\n

For tickets to Glazer\u2019s workshop and any Chutzpah! performance, visit chutzpahfestival.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liz Glazer headlines the Nov. 24 Chutzpah! event Celebrating Queer Jewish Comedy. (photo from Chutzpah!) Lawyer-turned-comedian Liz Glazer shares the Rothstein Theatre stage Nov. 24 with the Holy Sisters, Israeli drag queens Ziona Patriot and Talula Bonet, in the Chutzpah! Festival event Celebrating Queer Jewish Comedy. The evening is hosted by multidisciplinary artist and performer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[31,5278,21907,19895],"class_list":["post-39894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-chutzpah","tag-comedy","tag-liz-glazer","tag-standup"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}