Brett VerVoort Can't Stop Buzzing

Austin is a town rife with com­ings and goings in the com­e­dy com­mu­ni­ty: careers being born, tak­ing off, a con­glom­er­ate of spread­ing wings of humor. In this week’s on loca­tion inter­view, Valerie Lopez sits down with rel­a­tive­ly recent Austin arrival, already build­ing a pres­ence in the scene, Brett VerVoort.

Ver­Voort is a Hous­ton native, but you’d be for­giv­en for think­ing she hailed from the Mid­west; as she read­i­ly admits, ​“some­times a word will sneak in there” and her fam­i­ly’s roots out­side of Texas become quite clear. As do her ear­ly roots and inter­est in per­form­ing, with Ver­Voort cre­at­ing her own short film in mid­dle school, and div­ing deep into act­ing in all forms in high school and beyond, seek­ing to build the chops to ful­fill her dream of direct­ing. ​“I was told to be good behind the cam­era, you need to learn to be good in front of the cam­era”, she tells Valerie.

With mem­o­ries of an ear­ly obses­sion with the famous BBC series Black Adder–front­ed by leg­end Rowan Atkin­son – and a wan­ing act­ing bug, Ver­Voort even­tu­al­ly found her­self being drawn into the allure of comedic per­for­mance and cre­ation. Her inter­view also marks a unique first for Com­e­dy Wham: when a piv­otal moment for a comic’s jour­ney came in the form of a gift­ed Groupon. (Lis­ten to the inter­view to hear more on that.)

When she calls stand-up and improv the ​“per­fume she drench­es her­self in”, you tru­ly can’t miss the excite­ment and love of the craft that Ver­Voort exudes. Her dri­ve led her to get­ting into the scene any way she could, includ­ing doing tech duty at 616 Lava­ca, and mov­ing into her own first stand-up sets.

Today you can see Ver­Voort in show­cas­es all around town, nur­tur­ing twin pas­sions for stand-up and improv. She’s not quite ready to pick a favorite of the two: ​“I’m going to try and par­ent them both and see which one…slams the door in my face and talks about me in ther­a­py,” Ver­Voort says.

In addi­tion to her work on the stage(s), you may have heard Ver­Voort co-host the excel­lent behind-the-scenes com­e­dy inter­view pod­cast Lead­ing the Blind with Arielle Nor­man. She’s also part of the improv troupe Eggs (and has the epony­mous tat­too to prove it), and shares with us some of the wild and unique ideas they have planned ahead; they sound fan­tas­ti­cal­ly mind-twisting.

Grab a bot­tle of your favorite scent­ed sub­stance and lis­ten to this week’s inter­view to hear more about how Ver­Voort’s brain works, and how she applies her­self to con­stant­ly exper­i­ment­ing, improv­ing, and becom­ing the best ver­sion of her­self. Then fol­low Brett Ver­Voort on Twit­ter, and get out to see her at some of her upcom­ing shows:

• March 3: Eggs per­forms at 616 Lavaca
• March 15: Ver­Voort and Eggs kicks off SXSW Com­e­dy at 616 Lavaca

And stay tuned to Lead­ing the Blind to hear Ver­Voort on the oth­er side of the pod­cast mic. Like our inter­view­ers here at Com­e­dy Wham, she loves to invite peo­ple in and trade secrets and tips, and it absolute­ly shows.