Jenny Yang is on strike and on tour — at the same time
There was that time when a union member threatened to throw a chair at Jenny Yang. In hindsight, her transition from labor organizer to stand-up comedian has been a breeze.
“Not having people laugh at a joke,” she says, is much easier than ducking a flying chair.
What has not been so breezy is going on strike alongside her fellow screenwriters in their ongoing dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Yang spent the first few weeks of the strike in May walking the Writers Guild of America (WGA) picket line, protesting paltry residual checks, the looming specter of AI, and other workplace issues.
Now she’s on the road, hoping to earn enough income from a brief run of East Coast shows — including one at the Crystal Ballroom in Somerville on Wednesday — to weather a potentially prolonged work stoppage. Eugene Mirman will appear as a special guest.
When an unnamed studio executive revealed in a recent Deadline story the Hollywood producers’ strategy to “allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” Yang and her colleagues were taken aback. They’re girding for the long haul.
“They really showed their [intentions], didn’t they?” she says with a laugh. “Every writer and actor is like, ‘Little do you know, not working for long stretches at a time is my superpower.’”
You may recognize Yang as the voice of Carissa on the animated series “The Great North.” She is set to appear in the upcoming Netflix series “The Brothers Sun,” which stars Milearned
‘Being able to navigate American culture was my first lesson in the power of connecting with others.’
JENNY YANG, labor organizer turned screenwriter and comedian
chelle Yeoh. As a writer, she has contributed scripts to the awardwinning animated show “City of Ghosts” and the Tim Allen sitcom “Last Man Standing.” In stand-up, she has opened for Maria Bamford and Margaret Cho.
When attacks on Asian Americans rose during the pandemic, the irrepressible Yang took to the streets of her adopted hometown, Los Angeles, with a sign that read “Honk If You Won’t Hate-Crime Me.”
Born in Taiwan, the youngest of three siblings, Yang says her experience as the most fluent English-speaking member of her family proved to be excellent preparation for both of her careers.
“It’s a very common immigrant story,” she says. “By the age of 7, I was like the family translator. I was hyper independent, hyper responsible. I had to make sure I made my parents’ immigrant journey worthwhile by being a good student, a good kid.
“Being able to navigate American culture was my first lesson in the power of connecting with others.”
Those skills — communication and diplomacy — served her well when she fell into labor organizing, after studying public policy at Swarthmore College. As a kid, she recognized instinctively that her mother’s job in the garment industry was fraught with indignities and inequality, but she didn’t know how to express all that. In college, she the words to name it.
Her first taste of performing was not in comedy but as a poet, on stages around LA. When she realized how her poetry was impacting others — they laughed, they cried — she decided to leave union work in favor of stand-up.
”By then I was really burnt out in this labor union,” says Yang, who is 32. “I was afraid I was going to punch somebody in the face, and I thought, ‘Let me not do that.’ So I took a comedy class as an outlet.”
Since returning to the stage post-pandemic, she has been presenting a show called “Self Help Me” around LA. She’s a longtime devotee of the self-help genre, she says, from Brene Brown’s work on shame and vulnerability to Adrienne Maree Brown’s intersectional “Emergent Strategy.”
Her new stand-up show, called “Fiance Energy,” explores Yang’s unapologetic elation over her recent engagement.
“I grew up thinking I would not get married or find someone who would propose to me,” she explains. Everyone has been asking whether the couple have set a date for the wedding, she says, but that’s not the important thing right now.
“To me, it’s not the actual marriage. It’s the fact that I found someone I could really love, someone who would love me back in healthy ways. Wow! What a coup.
“It’s a kind of energy that anyone can apply to their own life,” she continues. “Like, propose to yourself. Desire yourself.” Asked whether she might like to host one of those bachelorette parties on a pedal bar, she laughs.
“Oh my God, I’m obsessed with those booze bikes,” she says. “You hear a gaggle of cackling women coming around the corner in denim shorts, and they are so drunk.
“I want to live that kind of a carefree life all the time. Those headbands with the little sparkling penises! I want that kind of life.”
She and her husband-to-be may not have the wedding planned yet, but rest assured there will be a party or two.
“Listen, I am an extrovert, and so is my fiance. He used to work in nightlife as a DJ and a club promoter, and a marketing guy for alcohol. We love a party.”
Her mother, Yang says, never threw a party for herself.
“My mom is one of those women who lived her entire life for other people,” she says. When her father declined into dementia, Yang’s mother was his primary caretaker. After he died, her mother asked, “What do I do now?”
“I said, ‘Um, you can have a life [of your own],’” Yang recalls.
Last year she took her mom to Europe for the first time. Earlier this month, Yang and her mother explored New York City together. Her mother brought along her adult coloring books, she says.
“She’s getting to enjoy the fruits of my labor,” she says, “just as I am the fruit of her labor.”