Cover story
Our writers pick local artists in various fields who are on the verge of making it big. Pictured is actress and comedian Irene Tu.
Irene Tu
Age: 25 Lives in: Berkeley
What she does: Irene Tu is an actress, stand-up comedian and comedy producer.
Career highlights: Tu has appeared with comedians including W. Kamau Bell and Anthony Jeselnik, and performed at SF Sketchfest and the Bridgetown Comedy Festival.
On the brink: Bell, the Berkeley comedian and TV host had a good feeling when he met Tu.
“I met Irene at the East Bay Book Festival, and she was introduced to me as a comedian,” Bell recalls. “I asked her if she was funny. She immediately said, ‘Yeah.’ So I booked her, without ever seeing her act, to open for me.” The risk paid off. “She was right. She is hilarious,” he says. “She is confident onstage and offstage. Her caring demeanor belies a dark side that I can relate to.”
A caring demeanor, a dark side and hard work are defining characteristics for Tu, who moved from Chicago to the Bay Area a few years ago. Tu says she was lured to the Bay Area by the weather, the diverse comedy scene, a gayfriendly populace and one more reason that she swears is not a joke.
“Third Eye Blind. They’re from San Francisco,” Tu says, remaining deadpan about the band, whose popularity peaked when she was a kindergartner. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’m sure I didn’t think I was going to meet them. But it must be this really cool place, because my favorite band is there. And it’s warm.”
Tu has an earnestness in her delivery, where she eschews one-liners for comic storytelling that builds and gathers momentum. In one recent rapid-fire set, she joked about her boyish looks and being mistaken for being Korean (she’s of Chinese descent) before wrapping three or four subjects together to rising laughter from the audience.
Tu hosts or co-hosts four comedy nights, including Man Haters on the fourth Thursday monthly at the White Horse bar in Oakland and Millennials Ruin Everything on the second Friday monthly at El Rio in San Francisco.
Tu grew up in Chicago, then moved to the Bay Area to finish college at UC Berkeley. On the engineering/science path as a young girl, she approaches comedy analytically.
“When you figure out how to get someone to laugh, it’s like you finished a puzzle in your brain, and you can do another puzzle,” Tu says. “It doesn’t feel like a full-time job because it’s interesting and fun to me.”
Tu’s biggest comedy hero is Ellen DeGeneres, another gay comic who worked the San Francisco scene in her 20s. Like her hero, Tu is selfeffacing, without seeming needy or pitiful.
“I don’t know if I can put it into words,” Tu says. “I’ve just loved her since the first time I saw her. She is really funny and likable, but it doesn’t seem like she is trying to get you to like her.”
That’s a pretty good description of Tu, whose dream is to some day star in a TV sitcom, but knows it will be more hard work to get there. Bell will be rooting for her, whatever path she takes.
“Her perspective as a lesbian, Chinese-American, Millennial, hipster, butch is way overdue in Hollywood,” Bell says. “Or maybe I just like her because we are both from Chicago.”
Power to the people? Tu doesn’t talk politics very much on stage, but when the subject of Berkeley comes up, she taps into a comedy vein. “I think it’s crazy that all these protests and stuff are happening. It’s just weird,” she says. “You can protest for evil now?”