Jewish stand-up comedian, actor, and pun maker, Matthew Broussard, is coming to Cincinnati on Feb. 20 and 21. He is performing 2 nights in 4 shows at the Commonwealth Comedy Club just across the river in Dayton, Ky.
Broussard’s journey to stand up was an unlikely one. He grew up the son of two scientists and has a degree in mathematics. He didn’t start doing comedy until after college, when he was working as a financial analyst.
“I started doing open mics after work,” he said. “Stand-up comedy is a thing that anyone can get into. You just go to a local bar, sign up, and try to be funny. And I just started doing that every night after work because I didn’t know what else to do with my life.”
Deciding to give up his stable career to pursue comedy was something that Broussard said his parents, specifically his mother has difficulty understanding.
“My mom still doesn’t like it,” he said. “She doesn’t like the instability of it.”
He feels fortunate to have gotten into comedy in 2011, because he sees how much more difficult it is to make a living performing now.
“There were a lot of different income sources when I started that are now cut off,” he said. “So looking back, it feels like the ladder I climbed up just disappeared.”
Along with his comedy and acting career, Broussard started an app called Monday Punday. Drawings that he makes that evoke a pun. To him, it is another way to have fun with puzzles.
“I started posting once a week just because it seemed like a good output and made it into a website, made it into an app, and am doing a little online game show with it now.”
Broussard is also a private math tutor through the BEAM (Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics that helps students from low-income communities study STEM.
“They find kids who are just phenoms, coming from areas where they’re not gonna get the support they need,” he said. “And we start middle school, start tutoring them in middle school, help them with college applications, scholarships, all the way through job placement. So it’s really somewhat narrow but has a very high impact.”
Stand-up comedy is currently going through a boom; the other side of the ever-expanding stand-up scene is a further splintering of audiences. For Broussard, that is just an opportunity to find his audience.
“I write the jokes to find the crowds I want,” he said. “I don’t need everyone to like me. I don’t need the biggest crowds. I just like whatever, maybe 200 to 800 people in a city, like what I’m trying to do. And that’s plenty.”
“That’s better than just making the most generic, broadly palatable, rather than narrowly loved.”
Broussard has always incorporated his Jewish identity into his act. He grew up in the South, attending private Christian schools.
“I lived in Texas and Georgia, and both were predominantly Christian,” he said. “It was the feeling of being an outsider while ostensibly blending in. I think that is kind of the Jewish-American experience of getting to fit in if you want to, but knowing deep down that you’re different.”
“It gives you an appreciation for kind of both the inside and the outside. And I’ve loved that, being able to be in something and then step out of it and also see myself from the outside.”
In the years since Oct. 7th, there has been a dramatic rise in antisemitism in the United States and around the world. And Broussard said he has noticed that certain parts of his act, specifically when he talks about his Jewishness has gotten different reactions. He said there is a huge difference in how people react online versus in person.
“It’s changed a lot. It’s not as fun to talk about,” he said. “The Jews are certainly excited to hear themselves represented, but there’s a nervousness about people potentially shouting things that have happened. It’s still mostly okay.”
His comment section is where he sees the majority of negative reactions to his Jewish material: “You can’t mention being Jewish without a cartoon brawl breaking out in the comments.”
Despite some of the negative reactions, it hasn’t stopped him from talking about his Jewish identity on stage. In fact, it has made him bolder.
“It makes me kind of want to be louder about it because I am insolent and really don’t like being told what to do,” he said.” So if you tell me I shouldn’t talk about being Jewish, it just makes me want to be more on that.”
This is Broussard’s first time coming to Cincinnati. The city has been going through a comedy revival; there are stand-up shows seven days a week across Cincy. He has some advice for folks interested in trying comedy.
“Do it as much as possible, write as much as possible,” he said. “You don’t have to make a full-time living[with comedy] to be a comedian. And people are coming into it with that mindset right now. That’s really, really hard to do. That’s gotten much, much harder since I started. If you’re doing it, you’re a comedian. That’s it.”
And some words of encouragement for the Jewish community.
“For Jews right now, it’s understandable to feel hurt and to feel scared,” he said. “I would ask that Jews remember that our greatness has been in coexisting with others….I think that’s why we have the wonderful people and wonderful culture that we do, and to not sink into isolation.”