Meet Dale Dymkoski of Hollywood

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dale Dymkoski.

Hi Dale, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I had recently turned 40 and thought, “What’s the scariest thing I could do that doesn’t involve jumping out of a plane?” (I’m afraid of heights.) So, I started doing standup comedy. I took a class that concluded with a showcase at the Hollywood Improv. From there, I got asked to do shows. One of my personal philosophies is “say yes to everything.” I kept getting asked to do shows and I kept saying yes.

I had been an actor for a long time. I had always been a writer. I have boxes filled with journals, and I have written a few TV and film scripts over the years that never sold. It never occurred to me I could be a standup comedian. I’m an introvert, not someone people would describe as super funny, naturally. But I’ve always been a pretty good writer. I’ve always had a keen insight and distinct point of view. Those qualities combined with a desire to perform and an obsessive need to edit and refine my material helped me improve fairly rapidly. The secret about standup comedy is nobody is good, at first. It takes years to become competent.

I recently hit the 10-year mark in comedy and decided it was time to do my hour. So, I organized the material I accumulated and looked for a “through-line” or a theme to emerge. I found my material around identity labels worked consistently with diverse audiences. It was also the material I felt most connected to. A lot of it is deeply personal and allows me to express my political and philosophical beliefs, all in service of a good laugh.

Laughter is the one thing that unifies us across identity and belief systems. I found the ethos and structure of the Hollywood Fringe Festival to be the perfect outlet for me to showcase this work. The name of my show is FEMINIST ASS MAN. It’s a standup comedy and variety show (I play a song) about a Gen Xer’s struggle with identity labels. It’s kind of an antidote to “bro” culture in the current conversation around masculinity.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I survived a stroke in 2019. Does that count? Shortly after my stroke, the pandemic happened, which forced me to recalibrate and reconfigure my entire existence. For the better part of 2 decades, I’ve been a premiere personal trainer in Hollywood. At the time of my stroke, I was delivering a superhuman level of output – training 8-9 clients a day, working out myself, doing comedy shows at night, and traveling occasionally for comedy festivals.

One of the enduring effects of my stroke is I no longer have an endless supply of energy. Adequate sleep and rest is critical for me to function in a way it wasn’t before my stroke. Now, I work no more than 3-4 hours a day training, I’m able to wake up every morning without an alarm, allowing plenty of time each day to write and play music. In actuality, the pandemic was the best thing to happen to me because it forced me to stop and formulate a sustainable plan. Without the forced work stoppage, I don’t think I would have been able to resist pushing myself physically. The slower pace and more free time has allowed me to flourish creatively.

I’m also hard-of-hearing and wear hearing aids. While I don’t consider this an obstacle, it makes me unique and has allowed me to brand myself “the world’s deafest, fittest stroke survivor.”

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My TikTok bio says I’m a “standup comedian, fitness expert, and political opinion-haver”. I started my pursuit in the entertainment industry at a time being multi-hyphenate was frowned upon. Early on, I met a producer who asked me, rhetorically, “are you an actor, or a trainer?” Being a trainer is literally in my blood. I was a Division I college athlete (baseball, University of Connecticut). I had always been a weightlifter and fitness fanatic. I could train people in my sleep, it’s that second-nature to me. But I always wanted more. I wanted to be a performer. So, I took tons of acting classes, I wrote, I learned to play music. I was a Political Science major in college and was raised to be engaged politically and socially. I was taught to use my privilege as a white male to speak out in support of marginalized people and equal rights for all. For me, standup comedy has been the amalgamation of all my talents and beliefs in one place. My show FEMINIST ASS MAN is the product of my life’s work, of which I am very proud. I can’t wait to share it.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Human rights, human dignity, and equal rights for ALL people. Injustice infuriates me.

Pricing:

• $20 tickets Fringe Festival
• June 7, 13, 22, 28
• Upstairs @ El Centro

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/11999?tab=tickets
• Instagram: @daled33
• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/dale33
• Youtube: Show Sneak Peak: https://youtu.be/L2Yn2I3zFFA?si=TatbfZih4eGeM0D2
• Other: https://TikTok.com/daled333

Image Credits
Bradford Rogne Photography