Lara Smith
Lara Smith
A couple of years ago I was at a show, watching a newer comedian absolutely kill on stage. He was describing his small hometown in a joke and I kept thinking, “This sounds too familiar.” Then the comic says, “Port Neches, Texas,” and there it was…the small town that was only about five miles from my hometown. This was my introduction to Andrew Dismukes. I knew, then and there, I loved his comedy and I HAD to interview him.
Starting around fifth grade, Dismukes remembers writing skits in the Boy Scouts to perform around the campfire, and as if it were life’s great foreshadowing, this is his first memory of showing an interest in comedy. Wanting to pursue comedy and screenwriting, Dismukes enrolled in The University of Texas Austin’s Radio-Television-Film program. It was in his first year of college that he decided to try his first open mic. It went well enough to be encouraging, but he knew his stand up needed work. While his original goal of writing was still important, Dismukes found the immediate audience feedback you get from stand up really helped him improve his skills as a writer dramatically.
As a young writer and stand up, Andrew Dismukes seems to write to a broad audience. In preparing for his interview, I was discussing Dismukes with seasoned comic, Matt Bearden. Bearden noted the maturity of Dismukes’ joke writing, stating, “He’s not filling sets with references that don’t reach beyond his peer group…” which lends to sets that appeal to all.
By the next year he was already being booked on The Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. Dismukes attributes a lot of his momentum to his placement as a finalist in Funniest Person In Austin in 2015. By 2017, he would be one of the New Faces at the Just for Laughs Festival.
Moving to Los Angeles to complete his final semester of college in January 2017, Dismukes was perched in a great spot to launch the next stage of his career. Little did he know how far that launch would take him. By September of the same year, he was moving to New York as one of the new writers of Saturday Night Live.
If all of this wasn’t exciting enough, Andrew Dismukes has a film coming out, Call Me Brother, co-starred and written by past Comedy Wham guest, Christina Parrish. The pair recently won a special jury award for their performance in the film at the Florida Film Festival.
Check out the interview to hear more about his start and this exciting first season with SNL. After the surreal feeling of graduating and wrapping his first season with SNL all in the same year, one can only imagine what is next for the incredibly talented Andrew Dismukes.
Lara Smith
Lara Smith