Comic and actress Ilana Glazer is really into her stand-up right now, and Houston audience can catch her for a one night only gig at 713 Music Hall on Tuesday, June 23.
Glazer, who conquered TV comedy with her 2010s sitcom staple Broad City, has been refocusing on her jokes and stories and feels like that focus is really paying off.
“I have been a comedian for 20 years,” she recalls. “When I was 19 years old I started doing comedy in New York City and every single night I was getting out there doing stand-up, sketch or improv. Then when Broad City, my show, took hold I was focusing on that a lot more.”
“But when we were writing Season 4 in 2016, that’s when I started taking stand up really seriously and focusing on it by creating a system around it for myself. I’ve really been focused on it the last ten years, which is really different than getting up whenever and fucking around onstage. This tour right now is probably my 7th time touring around the country, but it feels like my second time.”
Now laser focused, Glazer previews a number of topics on her mind at the present. “It’s a new hour of stand up talking about baby life and going to the gym and therapy and parenting, like the whiplash of being a millennial parent who loves my life in the context of billionaires trying to destroy the country and the world.”
She laughs this sadness off, but then does pivot to a hopeful outcome for her refusing to avoid addressing the state of the world these days. “I guess I am an optimistic person, perhaps foolishly, but it really feels like these shows where we are laughing at it all to get beyond it and be able to change it. What is happening in our country right now, what is on our side is that’s so stupid that the American people are seeing it plain and clear for what it is. Which is more in our control than the people in power would like us to believe.”
While the Emmy and Tony winning Glazer has mastered comedy in a few notable forms – she admits that stand-up has been easier to fall for than say, improv comedy. “Honestly, I am not good at improv,” she admits. “I can’t let go enough in a pretend world in front of other people to be good at it, I am just not good at it. I just love how real it is. The instant gratification and the raw connection with the audience.”
Talking through her process, Glazer is meticulous and has great recall for where and when material has altered. “I do seasons of stand up, so I am not constantly on the road. But now ten years in, I am getting the hang of it. But this tour has turned it out so good, I just know I am not going to be able to take as big of a break as last time.”
“For this hour, I had done a Broadway show last year, and when I was done, I took a few weeks off, I got back onstage with all these notes that I had been organizing since I started that show. So these were the notes from the past couple of years, so. I went on stage two nights in a club for like an hour and talking through the messiest notes onstage. I had written 17 pages of material out. And I didn’t stand and read the pages, but it was just messy and funny and raw and real.
That was in July ’25, then in October I started getting up on stage and forming these ten minute bits. Really focusing on them, writing at the computer, focusing on them. Getting up three nights a week, and I would do two shows a night, three nights a week to work this out. I had pretty much an hour of material in January when I did a show, a college show. In February I did a show in Florida, and in March and April I was doing one club show a week, really honing this material. By May I was in theaters on stage. My process continues to get refined, but I would say this has been the most efficient process and the clearest one so far.”
Writing seems to be ever-evolving, but Glazer isn’t cruel to her jokes. They get second chances even if they fail to fly after the first push out of the nest. “Every audience is affecting the material,” she clarifies. “ I do like constant little tweaks across the entire hour and listen to the audience for what makes sense and what doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean I’ll throw out a joke.”
“Like I have this very silly joke that my husband pitched about grocery shopping stoned. For the first time in like 15 years, I’m grocery shopping sober, and it’s so different. My husband and I were just talking about some bits and were talking about standing at the tuna and asking if today’s the day I’m gonna buy tuna from a glass jar. My husband tried to pitch the line: ‘Am I the type of person who will spend money to make money?’ But people weren’t getting it yet! I just loved this fucking joke and the fact that David pitched it, like I can’t lose it yet. And the way to make it work was to add a couple more lines of context: ‘Am I sophisticated enough? Am I ready? Am I the type of person who spending money to make money?’ And now it works! It’s not a throw it all away, but every night shapes the material, absolutely.”
Among the impressive items most recently on Glazer’s growing resume is co-starring opposite George Clooney in his Broadway debut of Good Night and Good Luck, an adaption of his 2005 film about McCarthy’s Communist Witch Hunt. Glazer, who balanced humor and genuine drama in her role as Shirley Wershba.
When asked about how the dramatic requirements of that production have changed her solo work in comedy, the actress is revelatory. “Oh my gosh, the drama, that is so interesting,” she says, pausing. “What I had experienced was the comfort of having performed in theaters. When I stepped into that theater I said ‘Thank you Black Jewish Jesus’ that I was performing so many shows for anyone from 1,000 to 3,000 people. Because I was not nervous! Like genuinely, I’m not bragging, I’m not nervous. I could not believe that.”
“Now what you’re saying is so interesting I had not thought about that yet. Now coming back to performing in these theaters after performing for 1,600 people a night and you know George Clooney is bringing in sold out shows night after night. I was – you’re totally right – this is blowing my mind! I hadn’t thought about it. I was more comfortable holding the dramatic heft. Holding that set up before the punch line. That has totally affected me and I didn’t realize it until you said it. It’s wonderful! I used to be so nervous and had to break the tension – this is why I’m a comedian! I would have to break the tension in my everyday life. Then I realized, oh I can make this my career and there is a business here. But I am so enjoying more than before this holding tension because of acting night after night in Good Night and Good Luck.”
Glazer’s performance is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23 at 713 Music Hall, 401 Franklin, Suit 1600. For more information, visit 713musichall.com. $40-63
