Nikita Redkar Finds Her Place in the World

When Niki­ta Red­kar sat down with Valerie to tell her sto­ry, includ­ing the spaces she’s inhab­it­ed, lit­er­al­ly across the world, some­thing imme­di­ate­ly res­onat­ed with me. Well, many things did, but one in par­tic­u­lar: her time in New York. She put into words things about being there, using lan­guage to describe it that I myself have often strug­gled to find. To the cre­ative mind, it’s an end­less buf­fet, the cul­tur­al equiv­a­lent of the choco­late con­vey­or belt that Lucille Ball had no choice but to attack with ferocity. 

Red­kar has crossed the globe in her trav­els from her orig­i­nal home in Austin before return­ing back to us. Besides New York, you’ll def­i­nite­ly be sur­prised to hear some of the places she’s spent her years. 

Fans (and those with even the most basic skills with Google) will have no doubt run across the many, many writ­ing cred­its Red­kar has to her name. And make no mis­take, she was first a writer, and one of the rare breed that makes the move from behind the glow­ing light of the com­put­er screen to the glar­ing lights of the com­e­dy scene. 

Fight­ing the stage fright that I think comes with most begin­ning (and many sea­soned) comics, she stepped onto her first open mic stage dur­ing her stint in New York. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t per­fect. Yet it set her off into her next expe­ri­ences with a tenet that is as old and true as they come: You may trip (she once did), you may fall (and yes she did, lit­er­al­ly), but you get up again and keep going. 

Red­kar and Valerie dig deep­er into how the mind of the writer has to approach and adapt when per­form­ing; the need to grab someone’s atten­tion from the imme­di­a­cy of the stage, and deal­ing with revi­sions when the audi­ence is your editor. 

Lis­ten to the inter­view, and catch up with Red­kar at the Playpen open mic every Tues­day at 8pm at The New Move­ment The­ater. It’s a show where only new mate­r­i­al is allowed, and any­one can sign up at Playpentnm@​gmail.​com. She’s also on Twit­ter and Insta­gram. Give her a follow.