Comedian Luz Michelle Wants to Keep Lewisboro Laughing
Jessica Jafet
LEWISBORO, N.Y. – For a New York comedian, moving to Lewisboro presented an exciting opportunity to spread laughter in her new hometown.
After settling in the area in 2016, Luz Michelle, a stand-up comedian, realized that the local community might appreciate more open-mic and comedy shows. As the host of Hard Headed Comedy Inc., a company that produces live and streamed showcases, she approached a very convenient neighborhood venue where a lineup of comics could perform.
“I met with the Lewisboro Library and they were 100 percent on board; they were motivating and insanely supportive,” Michelle said of her 2018 pitch to hold a comedy showcase fundraiser. It became a huge success and will take place once again on June 17 at 8 p.m., where six well-known comics will be featured to riff on parenthood and much more, for a Father’s Day “Nightclub” that will support the library.
Michelle was born in Bogota, Colombia, and was then adopted, she said, by “two Eastern European Jews who raised me in the forgotten borough of New York – Staten Island.” After meeting her husband and living in Brooklyn with their growing family, they began looking for a house in the suburbs. The mother of two school-aged children never expected to settle in such a bucolic setting as Lewisboro.
“The further we got away from the city, we realized that we could have so much more and we knew it was going to be a better quality of life for everyone,” she said. “But when we moved up here, my friends were like, are you sure about this, are you going to be okay? And I was like, no I don’t think I’m going to be okay — but it’s for the family.”
Joking aside, Michelle said that she was immediately struck by the tight-knit aspect of the community, where people are friendly and neighbors are there for each other.
“When we moved in and people knocked on the door with cookies or a bottle of wine, it was like, wow, this is stuff I see in the movies,” she said, adding that “it is very mom-strong out here and moms voice their opinions and say what is needed; there is a lot of support throughout the school system.”
The almost 42-year-old comedian got her start after having studied fashion and then earning an undergraduate degree in media communications and art, which was followed by a diverse string of jobs. She worked as a teacher, a nanny, a waitress, a hotel cleaner, among other things — always with an underlying itch to try her hand at comedy. With some improv classes under her belt, she decided to pursue stand-up, and has now been performing for 11 years at venues like Caroline’s, the Stand, Dangerfield’s, Lucy’s Laugh Lounge, and other clubs and festivals throughout the tri-state area.
Describing her style, Michelle calls herself a storyteller whose material comes entirely from events that have actually happened in her life — with much of it currently involving her reflections on parenting. “I am very raw, I am very myself as a mom; I might drop an F-bomb here and there, I might not do the laundry for a week. It’s to be able to talk about that it’s OK that I’m not perfect.”
Beyond the June show at the library, the comedian is excited to present a monthly comedy show at Jazz on Main, the new jazz venue in Mount Kisco, in addition to “Queer-larious,” a show that will be performed as part of Lewisboro Pride Day at 6 p.m. on June 26.
“We have to create more comedy — us comedians are fully aware of what we are giving and the importance of mental health,” Michelle said. “It is so important to laugh, and I feel like a big lesson that we learned during that pandemic is that we still had to find a way to laugh.”
