Stand-Up Comedy Champ: Yael Zinkow ’12

Name:
Yael Zinkow

Hometown:
Bexley, Ohio

Major: Psychology

Year: 2012

It is difficult to recount how genuinely funny someone is in just a few paragraphs.  Try as you might, the written word simply cannot capture the intonations, gestures, and facial expressions that make stand-up comedy hilarious.  It’s like retelling a joke and watching it fall flat, even though you just saw your friend nail the exact same joke a few hours earlier.  Sometimes, the humor is lost in translation.  
 
Knowing this, I worried: how would I be able to do justice to Yael Zinkow, two-time winner of Yale’s annual Last Comic Standing competition, in just a short article?  Thankfully, the night before the interview, Yael made my job infinitely easier.  
 
It was Halloween night, so everyone who was anyone with a spirit for fun and mischief was out and about causing trouble.  I first ran into Yael at Mory’s Pub, where sexy animals, sexy vampires, sexy video game characters, and sexy Hermiones abounded.  Yael, casually sipping on a beer with a few friends, came as a Solo cup.  I think that pretty much sums up her refreshingly original comedic style.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is the effortlessly hilarious Ms. Yael Zinkow.
 
“I just painted a garbage can and cut out the bottom. It was no big deal, really,” Yael confides the following morning.  She has always been somewhat of the class clown, even in her all-girls school before coming to college.  It wasn’t until a friend in her acapella group, Mixed Company of Yale, suggested she try stand-up that Yael ever considered it.    “The thought of it scared me so much,” Yael admits. 
 
But, when the opportunity arose sophomore year, Yael performed for her very first stand-up audience. Even though it was a small audience, maybe twenty people, I was terrified,” she laughs.
 
If this is true, how did she cope with a jam-packed Woolsey auditorium?
 
“Well, I get really nervous, no matter who or how many people I’m performing for.  Right before ‘Last Comic Standing,’ I grabbed one of the other comedians and asked him why I do this to myself.  All of my anxiety just melts away, though, once I get my first laugh.  Then I’m in the zone.  It’s almost a trance.” 
 
Before she performs, she tests her set out on her friends, family, and acapella group.  These friends, she explains, are the very source of her jokes.  “It’s not like writing a paper.  Writing comedy is impossible to compare to anything else…it is a process that lasts many weeks.  When I’m putting together a show, I see topics in my everyday life kind of randomly.  That’s what observational comedy is, I guess. You see it first, then you make fun of it.”
 
When I ask her what her ideal audience would be, she responds without hesitation, “Mixed, but majority girls.  That being said, I feel like my comedy appeals to both men and women.  There’s really something for everybody.” 
 
Unsurprisingly, her biggest comedic influences are also women.  Tina Fey and Ellen Degeneres, to be exact. “Everyone should watch Ellen’s ‘Here and Now’ for a reference point to life,” Yael notes, “It applies to so many situations.”
 
After Yael graduates, she sees herself doing something or other in New York City.  So, if you’re looking for a laugh next year, head to the Big Apple.  In the meantime, you can see Yael performing with Whim-and-Rhythm, Yale’s all-women senior acapella group, or at The Record’s stand up comedy open-mic, “The Cucumber.”
 
Alternatively, you could just look for the giant Solo cup.
 
Check out a few videos of Yael doing stand-up!