For 26-year-old Boston native Giulia Rozzi, making people laugh comes easily. This self-proclaimed “Smile Promoter” moves with utter ease onstage, whether writhing on a food-covered stage during her one-woman show Stupid Foreigners or sharing jokes about the gym, sex or her boyfriend. Rozzi performs all over town, doing her solo stand-up material, producing comedic storytelling series Brutal Honesty, teen angst memory-fest Mortified and organizing college speaking engagements, all with as big a smile as she can summon on her face.
How did you get into comedy in the first place? Do you remember your first stand-up gig, and if so, can you tell me about it?
I have always liked performing (I was a lip-syncing goddess back in 1987) so in junior high and high school I would audition for musicals but never got cast. When my high school drama club organized a cabaret night in a church basement, I decided to try stand-up. I can’t really remember what I said except I know I had some jokes like “What’s up with Mr. Brady being an architect and only making two bedrooms for six kids?” and “Why do The Bradys sometimes have a dog and sometimes they don’t?” (I was really into TV as a kid). Maria, who was the lead actress in every show in high school, belly laughed out loud at everything I said, which led me to believe I was pretty good at comedy. She later became my best friend and one of my number one fans.
From that time until the present, how has your sense of humor and stage presence changed? Are you getting your material from the same areas of your life?
Aside from those first brilliant Brady Bunch jokes, I talk a lot about my Italian immigrant family. I really admire Margaret Cho and her hilarious honesty about her upbringing and I wanted to be that kind of relatable comic. After a few years of doing comedy in LA, my family stories began to lose their flare and authenticity as I got caught up in trying to make my story sitcom-friendly in an effort to create the best ethnic thing since my My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Between moving to NYC and growing up a bit I feel like I recently found my true voice. I talk about my family in a way that is more genuine. I have always liked talking about gender and sex, particularly my long-term relationship with my boyfriend. I comment on things I see every day, people I meet, pop culture, adolescence, and everything in between. My favorite thing is to talk about stuff that is uncomfortable and even sad and try to make it funny. Rather than write jokes, I usually just jot down notes before a show and talk about whatever is on my mind that day.
Your latest project is running the New York edition of Mortified, where people read from teenage diaries, love letters, homework assignments, and perform jokes, songs and other creative work. What was the inspiration for the show and what have been some of the highlights?
My friend Dave Nadelberg created the show in LA after finding a love letter he had written in high school. I did the debut show back in 2002 and was absolutely delighted to share my teen angst with the world. I have always kept a diary and have always been amused by adolescence. When I moved to New York last year I asked Dave to let me produce the show here. I am so honored that he agreed. Now I am producing Mortified monthly in New York and soon will be producing Mortified in Boston as well. The best part about Mortified is everyone can relate to someone on stage; the audience really gets into the show and so do the readers. I love that people come up to me after the show inspired to go home and dig up their own mortifying pieces, regardless of whether they ever audition the piece for the show; just going back and revisiting your teenage self is such a cool thing to do. I also love that you don’t have you be an actor or comedian to do the show. Some of the best readers are regular folks who simply have the balls to share their dorkdom with a room full of strangers.
Out of the people who’ve performed so far, were most of them geeks or nerds in high school? What’s been the most memorable performance?
People of all popularity classes have been in Mortified, the diversity is what makes the show so great you hear how much the math nerd and the popular cheerleader actually had in common. There’ve been lots of obsession-focused pieces—obsessions with a crush, with Jesus, with food, with celebrities, with identity. I like obsession pieces—they’re weird and so exposing. Honestly, I cannot pick a most memorable performance as each and every single person who has done Mortified has added his/her own special something to the show.
What do you look for in the auditions? What would make someone’s piece stand out as particularly "mortifying?"
In auditions I look for people who will be comfortable reading on stage. The word audition may turn people off but really it’s just the person coming in to read for myself and usually a few past Mortified performers (like Abby Gross, Brandy Barber, Sara Alloco, and Jen McNeil). I find that reading for a few people is easier than just one because it helps the reader find the moments in their piece to get laughs. The only time a piece doesn’t work if it is really well-written, if it is too incoherent or if it is really sad (like not “sad but cute”, but just plain out “the performer and audience may start crying” sad). But nearly everyone who auditions has a gem somewhere so I try really hard to work with people to find the humor in their piece and have even sat there digging through their diaries with them searching for something workable. It’s hard because it’s not like I am saying “You can’t do the show because your life isn’t mortifying enough,” it’s just that there is a vibe to the show and it really helps if a person sees the show before they audition so they can get it. The worst thing is when someone submits something they wrote as an adult or offers to write something for the show when the whole concept of the show is that it is people reading REAL things they wrote when they were kids or teenagers.
What were you like in high school, and has working on Mortified brought up memories from that time?
I was really concerned with finding a boyfriend and being popular. I didn’t know when it was appropriate to be funny so I think I came off as annoying and obnoxious. I wrote lots of poems and diary entries about how hard my life was and how unfair it was that the “cool kids” got everything they wanted but I also made it very clear in my diary that I was not a geek but “somewhere in the middle.” The more I work on Mortified the more flashbacks I have to boys who wouldn’t dance with me and that time I farted in study hall, so yes, Mortified is dragging up some heartbreakingly funny memories in Giulia-land.
In looking at your high school and teenage material, what do you most wish you could tell your teenage self? I remember how everything felt so incredibly life-or-death, and now I look back on those "problems" and am not sure whether to laugh or cry because "the real world" is so much more complex, intense and dire than almost any of my teenage woes, yet they felt so dramatic at the time.
I know! Everything was the end of the world, but once I went to college, I realized how much bigger the world was and after that the world kept growing and you soon realize that high school was such a small part of your life so why were we so stressed about it? I also feel like lots of those high school emotions stay with you—we all still want to be popular, pretty, and smart, but now the world is our high school. Gosh, nothing changes, huh? As for what I would say to teenage Giulia: “Be yourself ‘cause you are actually really cool and don’t be afraid to say what you want because you are a very smart girl. Also wax your lip and eyebrows, it really makes you look more cute.”
You’re also co-hosting Brutal Honesty along with Lianne Stokes and Becky Yamamoto, where storytellers dish on everything from drugs to obsessive crushes and, even within a comedic format, do share some brutal yet hilariously honest material. Why did you decide to start the series and what are some of the future themes? How is a story-telling night different from a regular comedy night?
I originally had an idea to do a show called “Walk of Shame” that would be a celebration of everything college in which people would tell college stories and I would do college-themed skits and games, but I wasn’t sure that theme could hold an entire show month after month. So I had invited Becky and Lianne to do “Comedy Rocks” which I produced with Claudia Cogan in Williamsburg for a few months and when no audience showed up, Becky, Lianne and I sat around talking and drinking and I told them about “Walk of Shame.” We talked and came up with Brutal Honesty which would have a new theme every month, the first being “ Walk of Shame: Tales From College.” Since then, the show has gotten a really nice following. Lianne, Becky and I have a really cool dynamic that comes across in what I think is a really laid back yet well-put-together show. We wanted to do something that still showcased our and our guests’ funny sides but without the pressure to be funny, but rather simply be honest, and the result is a mixture of laughter and simply listening. Some upcoming themes include “ Celebrity Encounters,” “My Biggest Fear” and “How Touching: Tales of Masturbation”
You’ve told me that you’re less interested in doing stand-up lately and more interested in special shows such as the above. Why is that? What are the limitations of the standup format for you?
I have a love/hate relationship with stand-up. I love the freedom, making people laugh, and being spontaneous, but I don’t like some aspects of the stand-up comic lifestyle—being in clubs late at night, the pressure to have laugh after laugh, repeating myself night after night. In an effort to “hone a joke” you have to practice it over and over again but end up feeling like a robot. Part of why I got into comedy was because it seemed less rehearsed than acting in a play. Stand-up to me is balls out speaking one’s mind and it cannot always be planned out. I also have lots of things I want to say that don’t ignite a laugh out loud reaction but still may be funny or thought provoking, and a club in which you are expected to provide X amount of laughs per minute is not always the best place for me to do my thing. My favorite thing about New York is the amount of shows that cross-breed “stand-up” with story-telling or readings with comedy, or whatever. Basically, I hate labels.
You also wrote and performed the one-woman show Stupid Foreigners, about your Italian parents. You grew up in Boston, where you sometimes felt out of place because of your parents’ foreignness. How has your appreciation for your parents’ particularities developed over time?
When I was younger I would get frustrated because I didn’t feel like a “normal American,” whatever that meant. Like most kids, as you get older, you start to realize that your parents are real people and have an amazing history. In retrospect, being raised with such a strong cultural identity was pretty cool, but as a kid I was confused about how to identify myself. I think the part in Stupid Foreigners that best sums up how I felt is when I am filling out a school questionnaire and have to label myself as “Caucasian, Black, Asian, Indian, or Other” and I marked other and wrote in “Italian” because to me being Italian was remarkable and different. Now I adore that my parents are two of the loudest, overdramatic, paranoid, indecisive, hilarious, blunt, loveable characters I have ever met. Stupid Foreigners was my attempt to celebrate these characters. The show was lots of fun, but I am still looking for the best way for me to share my family’s story, maybe a book, screenplay, documentary, not sure. I started to film them every time I visit and I must say it’s all very fun stuff.
You’ve discussed your struggle with bulimia at Brutal Honesty and are about to embark on a series of college speaking engagements entitled Full. Can you tell me more about Full and your eating disorder experience? What’s the biggest misconception about bulimia floating around?
I first learned about bulimia in 1986 when I saw the made for TV movie Kate’s Secret in which Meredith Baxter Birney (aka the mom from Family Ties) played a bulimic woman named Kate. Kate would knock cake pans and cookie trays on the floor and shovel the fallen pieces into her mouth with her bare hands and then puke. Kate would go to the supermarket and steal cookies to eat in aisle five then go over to the dairy cooler and wash them down with a quart of milk before she vomited them up in the store bathroom. When Kate binged and purged, really scary horror movie music played in the background. I usually ate cake with a fork and spoon, I never stole cookies, and there was never scary music when I binged and puked, therefore I never thought I had a problem.
I have been attached to food, obsessed about food, binged on food, and off and on for five years purged my food. I stopped the binging/purging cycle in 2001when my body started to hurt from the abuse and when I finally was able to admit to myself I did indeed have a problem. For so long I didn’t think I had a problem because my behavior didn’t fit the protocol I learned from Kate’s Secret, YM magazine, or from health class, but the reality was I did have a disorder. The biggest misconception about eating disorders is that they can be neatly defined but in reality most people have what I call a “universal dysfunctional relationship with food,” which may be a little compulsive eating mixed with a little over exercising or a little anorexia with a dash of bulimia. Eating disorders are hard to define, so rather than focus on labeling behavior, I am going to travel to colleges and organizations with my speaking program called FULL, which stands for Filling Up on Laughter and Life, and use personal stories and lots of humor to talk about developing an overall better relationship with yourself, which in turn creates a better relationship one with have with their body and with food. I am also writing a new solo show all about food relationships that I hope to put up in NYC this winter and then take that on the road too.
How has comedy interacted with and affected your body image and sense of yourself? Does getting onstage make you focus more on what you’re saying and less on your looks or has it made you more self-conscious to have so many eyes trained on you all the time? Have you found that audiences are more comfortable hearing about such a dark topic under the guise of comedy?
Comedy has given me so much confidence. Having an audience relate to you, your ideas, and your weird thoughts is an amazing feeling. If anything, being on stage motivates me to take care of my body, because I want to be able to move comfortably and feel good in a healthy body. I am not super skinny, but I am not a big gal; I think I represent the average population which makes me relatable when I talk about body image and food on stage. Truth is funny, and my truth is that food and body image have been a big waste of my time for many years and I know lots of women (and maybe men) can relate to my story. It’s been really therapeutic for me (and hopefully my audience) to purge (pun absolutely intended) my issues on stage through comedy rather than in other unhealthy ways.
The comedy scene has typically been a male-dominated one, though I think the downtown scene you’re part of seems a lot more inclusive and possibly fairly evenly split between male and female comedians, and male and female-run shows. How would you compare the LA and Boston comedy scenes in relation to gender and how have you dealt with sexist comedians and promoters you’ve encountered?
I honestly can’t compare Boston to anything since I am not there enough to witness sexism in comedy. But the thing is there are assholes in every city and there are really cool people in every city. In LA I did have more experiences in which I was the only girl in a line-up of 10 dudes and I would feel sort of left out when they would all talk about the cocktail waitress’s big tits. There were times where I was introduced by the male comic before me as “not only is this comic funny, but she gives good head, give it up for Giulia Rozzi” or the time this (I won’t mention his name but very famous) male comic went on before me for ten minutes about how “girls in short skirts deserved to be raped.” In those cases I went off on those guys, I didn’t care who they were or what people thought or if I was funny ,I just went off, and usually the audience would be on my side. For the most part, though, I don’t see too much girl vs. guy shit.
Having joked about your family, food issues, and boyfriend, is there anything that’s off limits? How do the people in your life react to being portrayed by you, such as your take on your mom in Stupid Foreigners?
Nothing is off limits and my family LOVES to be in my shows, they feel famous. My mom or dad will say something funny and then say “Oh great, now Giulia is gonna put it in her show, right Giulia? You ARE going to put this in your show?”
You run two blogs, both with a similar theme. The first is Giulia is Cute and Cheap in which you discuss one cute thing and one cheap thing, and what I like the best about your blog, and you, is that you have a relentless cheerfulness, which comes through in your comedy. Is being smiley and cheerful simply your natural way of being, and what do you have to work to find the silver linings in life?
I just don’t enjoy being angry or sad (who does?). When I do feel really bummed, I don’t believe in bringing other people down with me, so I tend to not do shows that night or go to someone’s party and bitch; instead I deal with whatever is nagging at me and move on. I do some work to be happy, I read the occasional self help book, I’ve done therapy, I keep a journal, I do yoga–whatever it takes to remind me that in the end whatever is meant to be is meant to be so why stress?
Your other blog is called Frozen Credit Card in which you actually stuck your credit card in the freezer and have been exploring ways of living on the cheap. How’s that going, and what’s been the biggest shopping temptation thus far? Has having the blog, written "by" your credit card, helped you in meeting your goals of saving and not spending?
Yes! I have not used my credit card since I started the blog in May 2005 and I want to encourage everyone else to freeze their cards too! Cutting up your card is simply throwing the problem away, put facing that card every day in my freezer reminds me what an asshole I was for getting into senseless debt. However I really miss charging my quarterly trips to Las Vegas.
Do you have any tips on living cheaply in New York? When I first moved here everything seemed extravagantly expensive but over time I’ve discovered that you can eat and find entertainment at a bargain, as long as you know where to look.
Wait for it to go on sale, whatever it is it will go on sale. My favorite example is Urban Outfitters, they have items that once sold for $160 in the bargain basement a month later for only $10! Venture out of Manhattan for cheaper restaurants and bars (like Williamsburg which has so many cheap places to eat and drink). Don’t get a gym membership until you have used every free trial coupon available. New York is not that much more expensive than lots of other cities, I think it’s that we walk everywhere so we literally walk by a store and find something to buy or walk by a show and pay to go in, whereas in other cities you are a bit more hidden from things to spend money on.
What’s next for you?
I am taking Mortified to Boston in January, and possibly touring to other cities later next year. I'll keep performing and producing. Traveling doing some stand-up and my speaking engagements .I want to get this new solo show done and get it ready for festivals next year. I want to be a talking head on VH1. I want to keep writing and eventually publish a book of short stories, maybe a screenplay. I want to just play and giggle for the rest of my life.
Find out more about Guilia at her website and her blogs, Giulia Is Cute And Cheap and Frozen Credit Card. Catch Giulia performing tonight at the Rock 'N Bid fundraiser for independent film For The Dishes at 6 p.m. at The Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, at Mortified on September 30th (Katrina benefit) and a "Pay-what-you-can" Variety Show October 2nd, both at Magnet Theater, 254 West 29th Street, and on October 26th at Otto's Shrunken Head at 538 East 14th Street at 9 p.m. for Brutal Honesty on "Google It Just A Little Bit."
