by Sarah Tiana has appeared regularly on @midnight, and previously on the panels for E!’s Chelsea Lately and CMT’s The Josh Wolf Show, but as she notes on her website, those are perhaps the only things you know about Tiana.
She also has written for many Comedy Central Roasts, for Jeff Ross’s The Burn, and finished runner-up in Montreal last July during Comedy Central’s first televised Roast Battle competition.
That’s what finally got her invited back to Just For Laughs this year to perform her own headlining show, albeit one night only, Thursday at Katacombes.
I’ve seen Tiana multiple times in recent years at various festivals or in Los Angeles at The Comedy Store, but never her full hour before now. Tiana is one of those LA-based stand-ups who often works comedy clubs on the road, but all too rarely in New York City.
So watching her last night, I kept thinking about Ari Graynor’s character on Showtime’s I’m Dying Up Here. Because just like Graynor’s Cassie, Tiana is Southern (from Georgia), not wanting to be judged on her looks or as a girlfriend, rather wanting to be measured like one of the boys or able to joke like them, and deep down having the right stuff and something worth saying onstage.
And Tiana told me she did audition for that role.
As for what she has to say?
After some 15 years of single living and working in comedy in Los Angeles, she struggles to identify with or translate her life to her relatives and old friends back in Georgia. She finds her outlook and expectations about dating and finding a mate much different in her late 30s than even her mid or early 30s. She’s just as happy watching football or Law and Order, and eating cake as doing anything else. And as a single woman in America in 2017, she has a lot of perspective to share with both the men and the women on what still needs to be changed to achieve progress, if not also outright parity. Because we still have a lot to learn.
Here’s a signature bit of hers about dealing with dick pics.
You really should check out Sarah Tiana when she comes to a club or theater near you.
