Spinning together vulnerability and punchlines, Viva Rose is standing up for more than just laughs this summer.
Carving out her own comedy niche, the theater alumnus is bringing her debut one-woman stand-up show to the Zephyr Theatre this June. Titled “Hidden Gem,” the hourlong set traces the trajectory of her early 20s, Rose said, exploring themes of mental health, sobriety and navigating life after college. Rose said the storytelling hour serves as a reflection on her growth as a comedian, offering a fresh, yet dark, perspective on identity and young adulthood.
“I had this idea of writing this show with an arc of why my material doesn’t really work anymore,” Rose said. “And then it sort of became this show about what I had been told about mental illness and what I’d been told about becoming an adult, and then the point of view of myself right now and how a lot of those things aren’t true.”
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Rose said her interest in comedy and storytelling first emerged in high school through her involvement in her school’s sketch comedy team, later evolving into a focus on stand-up during her time at UCLA. Bolstered by her acting professors, Rose said she immersed herself in an assortment of comedy-related pursuits, both in and out of the classroom, ranging from improv and sketch comedy teams to stand-up and storytelling classes. Although she initially sought a career in acting, she said UCLA’s emphasis on storytelling enabled her to mold her collegiate experience into her comedy career.
Previously hosting and producing a monthly stand-up show, Rose said her early comedic bits tended to revolve around anxiety, mental illness and the relatable frustrations of being a young adult in Los Angeles. Rose said her inspiration for her newest project stemmed from her inability to relate to her older material, as her perspective on the topics has changed over the past half-decade. Influenced heavily by her personal experiences, she said the longer-form show challenged her to hone into a singular narrative, creating an amalgamation of previous eight-to-10-minute crowd-favorite sets.
“Looking back at doing shows super early on and stand-up when you’re just starting out, you’re trying to just generate so much content,” Rose said. “A good takeaway is having a lot of content is good, but also it’s going to take like six months to get one five-minute set perfect.”
Director of “Hidden Gem” and fellow theater alumnus Ben Ellerbrock said the evolution of the show’s material from its early drafts mirrors Rose’s comedic maturation and development. As an intimate dissection of her life from childhood to adulthood through dark comedy, the narrative encapsulates Rose’s personal identity and growth as a comedian most innately in its honesty and humor, Ellerbrock added. As a proponent of storytelling-based comedy, Ellerbrock said his role in the development process was to support the show’s internal narrative, ensuring the hour remained focused and cohesive.
“When she started this show, I don’t know if she intended for it to come out the way that it did,” Ellerbrock said. “She set out to write an hour of stand-up that used some of the things she already talked a lot about … but I think somewhere in the writing process for her, it transitioned into this larger kind of overstory. And once that crystallized, there was no stopping her.”
As her first venture into long-form comedy, the hourlong show required a vastly different creative process to her previous sets, Rose said, as most LA open mics limit comedians to five minutes. Rose said she committed to writing an hour of material each day, testing small portions of it at a time at local comedy clubs. As audience testing is integral to the writing process, Rose added that she leaned on “Marathon Mic,” a long-form open mic hosted out of her garage, allowing performers 15 minutes on stage, in addition to opportunities for feedback from fellow comedians.
After meeting Rose in a storytelling class, co-collaborator and screenwriter Mahtub Zare said she invited Rose to perform as a guest on her comedy show “Gay Interrupted,” recognizing her natural talent for delivering relatable, story-driven comedy. Zare added that Rose’s commitment to her craft is evident as she is continuously workshopping her skills by taking classes, hosting mics and performing. Exemplified by her development within their shared storytelling class, Rose’s comedic strength lies in her ability to merge her storytelling and stand-up voices, telling honest stories that resonate with a diverse audience, Zare said.
“A lot of her material is so authentic and I think that’s why it’s so strong,” Zare said. “When she talks about family and her siblings and things she’s discovered later in life, she’s discovering it with you. She’s finding things out in real time.”
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Delving into a deeper discussion of mental health and sobriety, much of the show’s material stems from an exploration of her identity at the cusp of Gen-Z, Rose said. With the overconsumption and oversaturation of media coverage on mental illness, Rose said its effect is often a reduction of complex issues to therapeutic clichés. Reflecting on her evolving comedic journey, she said the pressure to develop a distinct comedic voice can be hindering, instead encouraging aspiring comedians to take creative risks and embrace the process.
“It’s kind of an ode to the people who are not immediately successful,” Rose said. “I think that’s a lot of us, and it can be kind of a jarring experience now with so much being on Instagram and online and constantly seeing all the successes that everyone else has. It’s about coping with being the underdog.”
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