Off The High Dive With Arielle Norman

What does it take to be a come­di­an? I don’t know. I’m not a come­di­an. Arielle Nor­man is, and from what I’ve learned from her inter­view, it takes willpower.

Nor­man was a Mor­mon who grew up in Hous­ton to devout par­ents. This means her expo­sure to com­e­dy grow­ing up was extreme­ly lim­it­ed. In fact, her ear­ly influ­ences were her Dad’s puns, a boot­leg copy of a Bill Cos­by album and Garfield and Friends (Man, that Ner­mal was some­thing). It was­n’t until she turned sev­en­teen that Nor­man found the good stuff thanks to Yahoo and as you can guess, Pan­do­ra’s Box was opened.

Arielle Nor­man’s life has been much more com­plex than her con­ser­v­a­tive reli­gious upbring­ing. She’s strug­gled with OCD, which peaked dur­ing her teens and ear­ly 20’s. Reli­gion, OCD and oth­er ele­ments have forged an amaz­ing back­sto­ry that is best told in her own words. For­tu­nate­ly, our intre­pid inter­view­er, Valerie Lopez, got it all on audio:

Arielle Nor­man: The Past

After criss­cross­ing the coun­try in a way that looks like Michael J. Fox draw­ing on an Etch-A-Sketch, Nor­man and the love of her life, Katie, set­tled down in Austin. Katie farms, Arielle does com­e­dy and they love it. In the year and a half they’ve been in Austin, Arielle Nor­man has locked down a show every Sat­ur­day night at the Hide­out The­ater. Locat­ed in the upstairs the­ater, Off Script starts off at 10:30 PM.

Arielle Nor­man: Current

The Umbrel­la Show is unique since it’s com­prised of four small­er shows. Depend­ing on which week it is, Nor­man is either host­ing Riff Raff, A Heck­ling Show, Crowd Worka­holic, or Direc­tor’s Cut. The mini-shows all have a sin­gle com­mon theme: teach­ing come­di­ans to think on their feet. Arielle Nor­man uses this quote for both the come­di­ans and the audi­ence, ​“Out of the head, and on their toes.” Yes, it’s a late show, but it’s worth it.

Arielle Nor­man can be found in a pletho­ra of places on the bina­ry sea that is the World Wide Web. The cen­ter of the web is her site, Off Script Com­e­dy, which is where you can find out about her upcom­ing shows and appear­ances, and see if her brand of com­e­dy tick­les your fancy.