“No matter what happens, you are going to get mozzarella sticks after this,” Ali Kolbert says into the mirror before her set on the new show NBC’s Bring the Funny. Between TV appearances and performing nightly in New York City, the 25-year old stand-up comedian has made a name for herself on the stage.
Kolbert has appeared on The Tonight Show, Comedy Knockout, The Today Show to showcase her stand-up. She is a host of Build Brunch and a former writer for the satirical news site, the Onion.
“I always knew I wanted to be a comedian,” Kolbert explains. “When I was a kid, I remember watching Jerry Seinfeld’s special, I’m Telling You for the Last Time. I memorized the entire special and I would do it around the house. My goal as soon as I got to college was to start doing stand-up.” Soon after being accepted to NYU, Kolbert moved to New York and immediately signed up for comedy classes at Caroline’s on Broadway.
Kolbert started her career with “bringer” shows ,which would happen at comedy clubs around the city.Young comics could perform as long as they brought friends who would become the audience. Through bringer shows, Kolbert got to audition for the comedy booker at Broadway Comedy Club. The booker ‘passed’ her, which, in stand-up slang, means approved her to perform and get paid at the club. “Passed, it sounds like such negative verbiage for the most positive thing,” she jokes.“Looking back it seems like a really pretty small accomplishment, but at the time it made me feel like I was a real comic.”
Kolbert has now been passed at several clubs, including the prestigious Comedy Cellar, an experience she calls, “what I always dreamed of happening.” Kolbert performs most nights as a stand-up in NYC, but has also appeared on TV. Kolbert did her first late night TV stand-up set on the Tonight Show in 2015. “Going to the show and performing where I was once an intern, where I was a page, and then coming back as a guest and getting to do standup on that show was totally surreal and incredible,” she says of the experience. “I was so excited to tell my grandma that I got booked on that show because she just adores TV and celebrity.” Since her TV debut, Kolbert has gone back to the small screen several times, for TruTv’s Comedy Knockout, NBC’s new show Bring the Funny, and as a host of Build Brunch.
While much of her stand-up centers around a dark and irresistible sarcasm, her recurring role on Build Brunch shows a different facet of her comedy. The morning show, which airs live weekdays at 12 p.m. online, features pop culture based discussions and celebrity interviews. Build is an online streaming channel owned by Verizon Media. Kolbert got connected with the channel after her college roommate became a producer for Build. “It’s a really fun place to just get to banter and talk about things that are going on in the world and then get to meet cool people who are up to cool things,” she says. Kolbert has interviewed the Real Housewives, former child actors, celebrity chefs, Queer Eye’s Tan France and even Nancy Grace whom Kolbert jokes about, “Oh my God. She was terrifying.”
While she is working on an animated pilot and forever toying with starting a podcast, Kolbert’s first priority is always stand-up. “I really want to make my stand-up better.” She continues, “I would love to have an hour that I’m really excited about. So I am always trying to keep writing and add to my repertoire of jokes.”
Even though she is an accomplished stand-up, Kolbert never seems fully at ease with her career. “I’m just trying to stay alive in the stand-up before it eats me alive,” she jokes. “I think it’s hard in that I love it so much and you don’t always feel the love back and I get a lot of love so I should appreciate what I do get… I see a lot of people struggling in the stand-up comedy scene and it makes sense to me because you need at least some anxiety, I think, to fuel yourself in this space. It can be hard with this particular combination of rejection and exposure.”
