7 minute read
Road Comic
from July 2022
ROAD COMIC
By Elizabeth Owens-Schiele
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REENA CALM NEVER IMAGINED BEING A COMIC ON THE ROAD—IT JUST HAPPENED. BUT DOING WELL IN COMEDY IS WHAT WILL LEAD HER TO OWN PROPERTY SOMEWHERE THAT MAKES HER HAPPY.
22 days, comedian Reena Calm drove 2,000 miles, headlined nine shows at seven venues in five states and squeezed in five open mics along the way.
That’s life on the road for a comedian.
Calm has been traveling as a comedian for the last seven years. She gave up her apartment three years ago to go full-time on the road, living first in her outfitted Toyota Prius. She averaged about 5,000 miles every month, doing five to 10 shows every week until COVID-19 hit the industry hard and Calm harder—she was unemployed, homeless, survived a car accident and needed to buy a new engine and transmission. In March 2021, she let her Prius go to hybrid heaven with 270,000 miles on the odometer.
But life is looking a little brighter for Calm this year. She just bought a 2017 Toyota Sienna minivan and set itup as her green room on wheels, complete with an office, bed, wardrobe and storage. Although it doesn’t have a bathroom or kitchen, she has a cross-country network of friends providing showers and couch surfing. Along the way, Calm is getting booked at comedy clubs across the country.
For a depressed kid who only wished to grow up to be happy, Calm is “living the dream,” albeit in her own way. Her wild journey has taken her to comedy clubs in 48 states. A woman of many goals, her first task is to perform in all 50 states—only Hawaii and Washington remain. Then, she’ll release her first album, #Calmedy, July 1. Her future may include a book of her travels, a dream to create a show with Jon Stewart exploring mental health, owning a home and eventually fostering a child.
But for now, Calm is taking it one day at a time, juggling the logistics of living and working on the road—which include eating vegan—while trying to avoid decision fatigue. She jokes about her travels —and escapades—on stage and takes it all in stride.
Her show
Calm loves a good word play and relies on it often in her 45-minute sets. She describes her show as “an auto-biographical stroll through the mind of a traveler and a little bit inappropriate.” She said her goal is never to make people uncomfortable but admits she did get some pushback in the Bible Belt.
“Part of what got me touring the most was going places that I especially felt like women weren’t talking enough about women’s sexuality,” Calm said. “Most comics have an opportunity to talk about sex, but it’s coming from a man’s perspective. To be able to go to some of these places and speak from a woman’s perspective—I’ve gotten such incredible feedback from women who appreciate it so much more than someone who’s living in a big liberal city ever could.”
Her backstory
Born in Israel, Calm was raised in Sharon, Massachusetts. She jokes she was the souvenir after her parents spent one year abroad before returning to the East Coast. The oldest of four, Calm was raised Jewish and attended a Jewish Day School. Although she feels like she missed out on a lot of pop culture, her parents did allow the popular television comedy show Saturday Night Live every weekend.
Her youngest brother, Moshe Calm, 31, who hosts his sister frequently in his home in Waukesha, Wisconsin, remembers those weekends well.
—REENA CALM
“She did a good job trying to entertain us,” Moshe said. “She tried to make us laugh. It’s always been in her blood.”
Their parents divorced when she was 11 years old, and soon after, Calm said she was hospitalized with depression and mental health issues. Later, she attended an alternative high school where a friend introduced her to Strangers with Candy, a comedy television series starring Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris—alums of The Second City in Chicago. A friend who worked at the club encouraged her visit. Calm moved to Chicago in 2004 at the age of 21, started taking classes at The Second City, and waitressed there and elsewhere before she realized she desperately needed to get out of the bar scene.
When she made a birthright visit to Israel, Calm discovered she was the funniest person on her tour bus. She returned to Chicago for improv and studied at the Annoyance Theatre, only to go on to start a stand-up comedy open mic in the back room at Will’s Northwoods Inn on March 6, 2011, and that’s where her career began.
Kevin Kruse was the manager at Will’s Northwoods Inn at the time.
“I was there from the very beginning. Seeing the transition from where she was then and where she is now, I’m not surprised,” said Kruse, 52, of Chicago, who hired Calm as a waitress. He knew her heart wasn’t in waitressing but instead behind the microphone.
“She had a passion for comedy, and I encouraged her to go out and do it—I wanted her to live her dream,” Kruse said. “Think of how scary that is to go on the road, sharpen up your skills, live in your car to do this and pursue this—that’s scary. But she pursued it 100%.”
Calm’s comedy tours started small with trips to the suburbs but then grew to renting cars to visit family in Indiana, Ohio, Massachusetts and Texas, stopping at comedy clubs along the way.
“I decided I can make it to wherever doing these comedy trips,” she said. She discovered small towns with little comedy scenes are just about everywhere, and she became a regular at many.
“I love going places where they don’t get a lot of people passing through,” Calm said. “Am I a famous person yet? Not in Los Angeles, but in Bryan, Texas, I’m a pretty big deal, and West Virginia loves me.”
Her brother, Moshe, tries not to worry about his sister being a road comic but admits he’d like to see her settle down, be happy and successful. That is his sister’s end goal, too. “I would like to be happy. I spent a lot of my life very unhappy, and comedy is not a comfortable lifestyle,” Reena Calm said. “But the reason I do comedy is because I want to make people feel good.
“I’m excited for whatever adventures this new van brings, and I’m nowhere close to figuring out which of these places I’ve been that I’d want to actually live in,” Calm said. “It feels like the road is calling, and I am not done listening to it.”
CALM PUNS
~ “I’m vegan, but I still eat eggs, because I’m also pro-choice.”
~ “Road gigs don’t always bring in a ton of money, but at least I’m making a leaving!”
~ “Instant gratification is very popular because these days everyone’s trying to lose wait.”
~ “The unsuccessful snake charmer has a-reptile dysfunction.”
~ “If you need ‘liquid courage,’ you have dilutions of grandeur.”
