Today we’d like to introduce you to the members of the sketch comedy group FEMMEBOT PHD – Jessica Amal, Andra Moldav, Kate Rappoport, Nicky Urban, Julia Bartlett, and Kandice Martellaro.
Jessica, Andra, Kate, Nicky, Julia, and Kandice, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
We started as a team of three women – Andra Moldav, Jessica Amal, and Denisse Ojeda – who met in a sketch class at the Pack Theater in 2014. The three of us were tired of being on other sketch teams or in shows where our acting and writing talents were often overlooked. The opportunity to be in sketches was often given to our male counterparts instead. Not to say that those dudes weren’t talented, but we are funny too! Denisse’s friend asked her to perform a sketch at his show, so she reached out to all the ladies in the class. Andra and Jessica responded about doing the show and from there an indy sketch team was formed, which eventually became titled Femmebot PhD (PhD stands for “Perfect Hair Day,” which we honestly rarely achieve). Over the years the team fluctuated through various members. However, in 2016 we were offered a monthly show at the Pack Theater, where the current members have performed regularly ever since.
The team is directed by Curtis Rainsberry (The Midnight Show, The Late Late Show with James Cordon, Key & Peele, Tosh.0, Adam Ruins Everything) who has had a profound impact on our voice and general direction of where we are going as a team. In addition to our monthly hour-long comedy show at The Pack Theater, we have traveled together to perform at a variety of comedy festivals: SAC, Femme Fest, The Los Angeles Diversity in Comedy Festival at Second City, San Francisco Sketchfest, and others. We film sketches for the internet and release a new video every month, some of which have been featured on Funny or Die, WhoHaha, and Comedy Cake. We’ve even written, directed, produced, and acted in branded content as a team, specifically for the brand Peatos.
This may sound cheesy, but we feel super lucky that we found each other. It can be tough to find a talented group of people that simultaneously understands your exact sense of humor, values your individual voice, and can handle working well through the business side of things, but we have that as a group. We make each other laugh all of the time. It’s pretty rare and makes working so closely together not only easy but also a lot of fun. Additionally, we are more than just a comedy team, we are a support system for each other. Before every show right as we’re about to hit the stage, we have a ritual where we tap one another on the back and say “got your back,” and that goes beyond the stage. We’ve got each other’s backs.
Great, 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?
Femmebot PhD has been very lucky in many ways, but we’ve also had to stay diligent through many struggles as a team as well. The team initially formed without an established platform (such as a time-slot at a theater) and had to create the opportunity for ourselves by filming our own sketches and having to find shows/venues to perform live at. We created our own traction and reputation, which caused the very supportive Pack Theater in Los Angeles to offer us a monthly time-slot. However, the team spent years applying to every comedy festival we came across only to receive rejection after rejection. It was difficult to go through, but we never let it stop us and we continued to evolve and create new content. We are also grateful to have an encouraging director, Curtis Rainsberry, who always keeps up the team’s morale. As a result, Femmebot PhD did eventually get into comedy festivals and now we have a full schedule of festival performances and even started to turn some away.
Also, there are still some people that have a skewed perception of what an all-female comedy team is, and that the comedy will always be geared only towards females. We don’t deny that we explore that side since we are all cis-women; it’s naturally going to come out. But the majority of our work is universal to all genders.
Femmebot PhD – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from others?
The best way to describe our essence is that we are a female version of Kids in the Hall for millennials. We love being silly, irreverent, absurd, and often end our show with some musical spectacle. We have a slew of original characters, but also do impressions, and have so much fun playing all of the male characters in our sketches. Our shows are filled with dynamic videos, witty material mixed with poop humor, and just a dollop of feminism.
We also want people to know that we have a half-hour sketch comedy pilot that we put together this year. It’s a sketch/improv hybrid that mixes filmed sketches with unscripted adventures around LA. We had an official screening of the pilot in May and are currently pitching the show to networks.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Trying to figure out the one proudest moment of our career as a team is a tough thing to do, there are six of us and there are so many moments we are individually proud of. Having the pilot screened for the first time was a big one, like watching our baby walk for the first time. But there are little moments as well, like when Nicky Urban embraced the fact that she can queef on command (yeah, you read that right) and Julia Bartlett wrote a super funny James Bond sketch called “Pussy Farts Galore” to point out the way women are shamed for this bodily function. Or, Andra Moldav, who was at first terrified to sing and dance in front of people but who ended up playing Julie Andrews in a sketch and belting her off-key heart out.
The one moment that stands out specifically for all of us is when Dana Gould, comedian and former Simpsons writer, attended our show and posted about it on Instagram saying: “Femmebot has a monthly show at The Pack and it’s always sharp, clever, funny and surprising. Go!!” For all of us that grew up watching Simpsons and absorbed that show’s comedy style like a sponge, that was pretty damn cool.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.femmebotphd.com/
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @femmebotphd
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/femmebotphd/
- Twitter: @femmebotphd
Image Credit:
Photo Credit: Terry Bruce Herring II
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