The Real Stephanie Thoreson
⤏ COMEDIAN STEPHANIE THORESON ON POP CULTURE, BEING BISEXUAL IN THE CITY, AND HER COMEDY SHOW, GETTING ALONG
⤏ IN CONVERSATION WITH HANNAH BENSON
⤏ VIDEO BY HANNAH BENSON
Stephanie Thoreson is a 90’s enthusiast and we are all better for it. Her living room features a collection of neatly organized —by distribution company— VHS tapes, a Symphonic television, an X-Men vs. Street Fighter arcade game and a poster of Showgirls. The nostalgia wave hit me so hard that it was difficult to feel anything but comfort around Stephanie. A comedian from Austin, Texas, Stephanie now helms the Operations Director position at The Elysian Theater, where she recently did a run of her new show, Getting Along.
The 90’s sitcom-inspired show follows Stephanie’s character, Gale after she leaves her fiance at the altar and navigates a new scene and brings new meaning to being bisexual in the city. Getting Along features guest stars, the occasional musical number and a reminder that it’s possible to critique media while also being silly, kind, and kinky.
HANNAH BENSON: Your show, Getting Along is absolutely wonderful. I wanted to know about the creation of your show and what ideas spawned it.
STEPHANIE THORESON: I had an idea based on this TV Guide (Whitney Houston’s on the cover, duh) right here. I started thinking about what I wanted to do for my next show, because I knew I wanted it to be completely different, and it started by thinking about the marketing weirdly enough. I thought that would be such a cool angle (90’s TV Guide style) and then I thought, ‘That’s a ridiculous seed for a show–to think about marketing.’ But then I reverse-engineered it and I started thinking about all the tropes I grew up with in television in the 90’s and early aughts, that were very biphobic and included a lot of bi-erasure and that was the real genesis of [Getting Along.] I was thinking about how do I take all those tropes and then also take iconic moments and the feelings from 90’s television and how do I reverse them, while also acknowledging them.
It took me a year to write and I started out just writing a series of sketches and I thought it was gonna be sketch-sketch-sketch and then I thought, ‘What if I did a whole Season One of a sitcom, like a play?’ Then I started incorporating Linzy’s [Beltran] wacky neighbor character and Spencer’s [Turrubiarte] empathetic waiter character and then from there things just started falling into place. It was a lot of trial and error to get the script done and I wanted to sprinkle in things that were slightly absurdist that were less grounded to make it playful (yes, there’s a noir scene).
HB: The opening of Getting Along shows you running into a room in a wedding dress in a very ‘Rachel from Friends’ style. It made me wonder, as you were embodying it, what does ‘wedding dress acting’ mean to you?
ST: I had to go to maybe 25 thrift stores to find that dress. I was so fixated on the ‘Rachel moment’–running in with the big dress. And it’s really funny because it’s a ‘swoosh and a drag’. For the headpiece, I ordered one on eBay and for the original run of the show, two days before, I realized the shipping had been cancelled, so I said, “JoAnn’s fabrics, here I come!” The visual of that was so important to me.
HB: You just had to.
ST: Exactly. The play says, “Gale runs in dragging her train behind her.” Something about slapping down a giant gown, you know? Just harrumphing in a giant gown is so 90’s.
“I started thinking about all the tropes I grew up with in television in the 90’s and early aughts, that were very biphobic and included a lot of bi-erasure and that was the real genesis of [Getting along.]”
HB: Can you tell me more about the pop culture referenced in the show? You show direct references to bi-phobic moments when your character watches TV. Did those scenes take you aback when you first saw them? I famously have a Gen Z sister and when she has walked by me watching those 90’s shows, she’s appalled by what she sometimes hears. I wanted to know how you took those moments that should upset us all and turn them into something silly?
ST: It’s funny that you mention Gen Z, because Babe Motel —a very iconic triple threat sketch group that you can catch at The Elysian— played the train conductors in the video (shown after various scenes of 90’s biphobic moments). We were filming that at a train museum, and I gave them all little sides with actual quotes from 90’s and early 00’s television, and they said, “ I don’t want to say this, this is wrong.” And weirdly, as someone in my thirties, it made me feel validated to think the younger generation is seeing these things that I grew up with as the norm and for them to say, “This is not okay.”
I then said, “You know what? It’s not and you’re right. Now say it please.” Because the whole point is trying to rewrite those moments. I didn’t necessarily grow up watching all of these shows, but I did revisit them at different points in my life, most notably Friends and Sex and the City. There is the typing with the cigarettes. I also really wanted the crazy next door neighbor trope. I said, “Linzy, whatever you want to do with it, whether it’s a Jack or a Kramer, however you want to play with it.” And she nailed it. Everything is very particular. Everything in the set is an Easter egg and every moment is meaningful. The Cher playing through the end is a reference to ‘The Real Me’ which is an episode of Sex and The City, it’s one of the three episodes where the diegetic music plays through the credits instead of the theme song coming back. So much of this television really did lay a foundation for what came next and is important and iconic in its own right, so that’s why it was fun for me to take all the things that felt comforting and full and nostalgic and then inject something that felt fresh and different.
Honestly, I think this show was weirdly another layer of coming out for me, because I didn’t come out until I was around 29 and that was to friends in private spaces and I started talking about it more openly and of course I think a lot of bi or pan or sexually fluid people experience “not gay enough,” “not straight enough,” can never fit in anywhere and you’re constantly questioning yourself. So it was really important for me to be myself through that character, but also have the journey. The Linzy scene is written in a very particular way of incorporating those questions that people ask, such as, “Don’t you think it’s a phase?” or “Don’t you think you’re just lonely?”
HB: What does it mean to you to be bisexual in the city, so to speak?
ST: I think part of the reason bisexual people don’t speak out more is based on stigma, whether that’s who you’ve dated in the past or who you’ve been intimate with or who you’re currently with. We’re pushing against these stigmas that somehow your bisexuality is invalidated if you don’t fit a certain criteria whether it's in the past or the present. When I started coming out, especially once I started writing about being bi, I felt more holistically myself than I had ever felt in my life and it just means feeling good about who you are not being ashamed of it. There’s a lot of shame that’s associated with owning being bi and or owning being pan, because of all those stigmas and stereotypes. I had someone come out to me after I talked about my show with them. This was about a year ago when I just started writing it and it was such a special moment and felt so honored to be a safe space. I genuinely think life is a spectrum and everything exists on a spectrum and whether it's sexuality or gender expression, there’s just a vast pool of possibilities.
“Through improv, I unlocked a part of myself that I didn't know existed, like a confidence and a joy that I didn’t know I had.”
HB: What’s your background as an artist and comedian?
ST: My background is kind of a roundabout way of getting into comedy, I started out as a musician. I played the oboe and piano and other various instruments and after college, I graduated into a recession. There were no jobs whatsoever, so I just popped around for several years. I was a stylist for a long time, I had a little vintage store. Mostly just working in restaurants. Then when I was 27, I had a friend of mine who asked me to take an improv class, and I said, “Absolutely not, never in a million years.” I had terrible stage fright which I knew intimately, because of my relationship playing the oboe. Two years later, she convinced me to take an improv class, because she bought me the ‘Level 1’ for Christmas as a gift.
I think through improv, I unlocked a part of myself that I didn't know existed, like a confidence and a joy that I didn’t know I had. So I got into comedy later in life, but once I found it, it was the only thing I wanted to do. And I’ve been doing it for about ten years now. I wrote my first solo show about six years ago and [Getting Along] is my third.
HB: What made you come to LA from Austin?
ST: In Austin, there is such a rich community and scene, but sometimes you feel like you’re playing the same shows, seeing the same people and you can sort of feel like you want to push yourself further. I got to a point where I knew I wanted to move to LA, I shot a spec sitcom and I was gonna do the whole festival route and then three days later, there was a lockdown.
Once we came out of lockdown, I packed my cat in the backseat of my car and I drove for six days. I love Austin so much, I just felt for me personally, to grow more as an artist and as a person, I needed to push myself to do something that I found really scary. LA is a totally different scene, it feels in a weird way like starting over completely, even two years in. Trying to break into this particular scene is really difficult, but I found a lot of great people and I hope I’m making strides in the right direction.
HB: It seems like it, you’re at The Elysian, which is kind of the hotspot right now. The people who perform there are good at being funny and good at being good. I go to a show there and think, ‘There’s not a predator up there.’ Which drives what I want to consume. That in itself–you found a safe space in Los Angeles.
ST: I think that’s so true and the one thing about Austin, when I moved here is the number of people that said, “Joe Rogan” to me. Everyone’s talking about Austin being a new hub for stand-up. To me, Austin comedy is not Joe Rogan and The Creak and the Cave and touring acts coming in with local openers. It’s types of theaters like the Elysian in Austin like Fallout Theater and Coldtowne Theater and spaces like that. They are so community-based and safe.
HB: Everyone who moves to LA seems to have a story about wanting to be creative and I never get sick of them. I think it’s so wonderful that part of the reason this city thrives is because a bunch of people have dreams.
ST: I know. Honestly, that made me emotional, I got chills.
HB: And it makes it easier to make friends, because everyone has big dreams and understands the ups and downs of chasing them. So, when you’re down, your friends can say, “Remember why you came,” and you can do the same for them when they’re down.
ST: Yes, the first year in LA is so hard. I know I’m pretty new, just a little over two years, but I’m always saying, ‘Just get through the first year and then the first year and a half and there’s a crack right around that time.’ You start to think, ‘Okay, I love it. I love/hate but I love it.’