Today we’d like to introduce you to Gregory Virgin.
Hi Gregory, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in Seattle and I loved comedy from a young age. For some reason, I was always a few generations behind in my taste though. I remember watching my favorite sitcoms and seeing a lot of commercials for stair lifts. By high school, stand-up had become my secret ambition, which led to my first open mic at 19.
After college, I moved out to LA and I started performing a lot more. In 2019, I was a finalist in the US Comedy Contest. That was definitely the year that I developed the most as a comic. When live audiences became illegal, I started writing satirical articles for online humor publications, which has become one of my favorite creative outlets.
I recently got back into stand-up, so I’m looking forward to doing more shows this year. Plus, I’m working on some new articles, and I’m thinking of becoming the last comedian to start a podcast.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
The biggest obstacle has been myself. I’ve had issues with social anxiety throughout my life, which is charming of course, but it can also stall your progress. It’s a strange thing. I’m fairly comfortable on stage, but I haven’t always felt at home in the comedy community. Honestly, a lot of comedians kind of scare me. There is an aggressive energy that I can’t really relate to. So even when I have a good show, I sometimes still find the experience isolating. Once clubs started opening up again, I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to do stand-up anymore. I thought maybe I could be happy as just a writer. But that’s isolating too, and I found myself missing that connection with an audience.
So when a friend asked me to do a show last year, I agreed to it, not having been on stage in over two years and not having any material ready. That was an interesting challenge because the thing about stand-up is when you don’t do it for a long time, you start to wonder how you ever did it in the first place. But I just started going out to mics and I impressed myself with how quickly I was able to build a set. I also feel a bit more relaxed now, which has made everything better.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I consider myself a writer first. I’m meticulous with language, even in stand-up. I can spend hours obsessing over the perfect word or reference for a joke. In terms of subject matter, I veer toward the silly. I know a lot of comics who find their humor from baring their souls on stage. I think that can be very funny, but I’m far too psychologically repressed for that, so I choose more impersonal topics like Pepé Le Pew’s PR struggles and candy bar redundancy (“Why do we need the Milky Way when we have the Twix?”).
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
I would love for people to come to my shows and read my articles. You can follow me on Instagram for that stuff. If anyone wants to book me for a show, please reach out to my booking agent. Coincidentally, he has the same name and contact info as me.
As for other avenues of collaboration, I am all ears.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: instagram.com/gregoryvirgin
- Youtube: youtube.com/@gregoryvirgin
- Other: pointsincase.com/author/gregory-virgin
Image Credits
Weekly Humorist, The Philadelphia Satirer
