There’s something familiar about L.A.-based comedian Leah Rudick because, during the pandemic, Rudick went viral on TikTok with characters like “Wealthy Woman,” combining a rich person’s clueless sense of entitlement with deranged inner turmoil. If you’re on the app, you’ve likely seen her.
In one “Wealthy Woman” skit, Rudick’s character asks, “Where do regular people shop when they get sad?” The answer, of course, is Target — or, according to Rudick, “Rodeo Drive for people who wear generic Uggs.”
Rudick, who performs at Olsen Run Comedy Club & Lounge in Eugene Dec. 19, grew up in Ohio and started in sketch comedy in New York before moving to Los Angeles to do standup about 10 years ago.
Rudick says TikTok jump-started her standup career, a springboard to touring worldwide as a headliner.
“I got on TikTok during the pandemic because I couldn’t perform live,” Rudick tells Eugene Weekly in a phone call from L.A., and “Wealthy Woman” was the first thing to hit, she says.
“I will have an audience because of this,” Rudick thought, as those clips went viral, “and that ended up being the case.”
Remembering her childhood, Rudick adds, “I was born in Youngstown, Ohio, which is a strange place.” One of her characters, Joanie — which Rudick calls a “Midwestern menace” — “comes from a heightened version of some of my relatives,” Rudick says.
Meanwhile, “Wealthy Woman’s” point of view is similar to the rich people Rudick worked for in the past in New York and L.A., but also her mom’s boundless optimism. She “sees everything through rose-colored glasses,” Rudick says.
No matter which character she does, a bit like comic Maria Bamford, Rudick has everything under control on the outside. But inside, she’s a fingernail-width away from disaster.
Viral skits aside, Rudick does more than just character work on stage. She talks about her life with a certain wide-eyed, every-person quality, like a funny friend you can tell your problems to because she’ll not only relate, she’ll do you one better, and you’ll leave smiling.
You can let down your guard and laugh because, in Rudick’s world, you can tell the truth about parenthood and life’s other challenges without judgment. Rudick’s material will resonate with grownups who feel like kids in adult clothing — and let’s face it, that’s most of us.
One Rudick bit, “Platonic Girlfriends,” examines how some female friends can be physically affectionate with each other, which Rudick doesn’t understand, “just like two women from a yogurt commercial,” she says.
She also does crowd work. When an audience member tells her vasectomies are a sensitive topic, Rudick, of course, polls the audience on whether he should get one. Rudick’s material, she explains, is “about my life, my marriage, and my family and social anxiety,” an affliction many performers face.
“I was painfully shy when I was young,” she says. “Being on stage: I realized at a very young age that that was the thing that brought me out of my shell.”
From character to crowd work, no matter what style of comedy, Rudick says the stage is a place where she can let her imagination run wild and “say the craziest stuff.”
“It makes me so happy to have that freedom,” she says. She’d never act like she does on TikTok or stage in real life, she says, “because I’d get locked up!”