SAMANTHA RUDDY: T E C H N I C A L LY F U N N Y
The life of a modern comic NATALIE WIESNET SHELTON
BY: BARBARA BROOKS
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amantha Ruddy ’13 is one of Brooklyn’s funniest people— and, in a borough where countless aspiring comics jockey for attention, that’s saying a lot. Brooklyn Magazine gave Ruddy that nod in 2016, just two years after she began performing standup comedy at clubs around New York City and across the country—and three years after she left Syracuse University with stage presence, contacts in the field, and technical skills that could help her succeed. Now 27, Ruddy has already performed at the New York Comedy Festival, San Francisco Sketchfest, and Boston’s Women in Comedy Festival. She is represented by the William Morris Agency, and last year she headlined at Caroline’s on Broadway. In October, she got another huge break: She recorded a segment for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
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Ruddy said she draws much of her material from living in New York—“an insane place where streets are spilling over with people and objects and everyone’s on top of each other. Funny things happen all the time.”
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My friend was bragging to me about how her apartment in Wisconsin has a porch. She said it was nice to have a place to take your shoes off, play some music, and have a drink. She was like “you don’t have anything like that here in NYC.” I was like “Duh the subway.” Over the years, Ruddy has built 45–60 minutes of material that she considers “really solid.” She maintains a “giant database” of every joke she’s written since 2013 and, with skills in HTML, CSS and basic Java Script, she built and maintains her own website. People reach out to her by email and Facebook for bookings. And she tests the seeds of her jokes on Twitter (@samlymatters), where she also offers a
THE iSCHOOL @ SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
steady stream of promotions for her upcoming shows. She also promotes her fellow comics and pokes kind-hearted fun at her family, her friends, and her home state of Pennsylvania. has the Hershey t Pennsylvania chocolate factory and the Crayola crayon factory. We’re like the number one exporter of stuff you don’t want your dog to eat.
“I was obsessed with social media in college,” Ruddy said, “and now it’s a big part of me gaining traction as a comic. When I had 5,000 followers, if 20 people favorited or shared a Tweet, I figured the joke had merit.” Now, with 22,000 followers, she shoots for 100 or more signs of encouragement. Her jokes are usually clean though a bit dark; often self-deprecating and sometimes genderrelated. As an openly gay woman with a long-term partner who lives in New York, she takes extra care to be broadly relatable.
