Career Alternatives, Law Professors, Law Schools

From Tenured Law Professor To... Stand-Up Comedian? An Interview With Liz Glazer

A law professor leaves legal academia to pursue her passion.

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Here at Above the Law, we occasionally profile lawyers who have left the practice of law to pursue other interesting endeavors. I recently interviewed Liz Glazer, who stepped down as a tenured professor at Hofstra Law to become a stand-up comedian, about her unusual path.

DL: You gave up being a tenured law professor, a dream job for many people, to pursue a career in stand-up comedy. Are you insane?

LG: Yes.

DL: Ha! Well, as someone who left a traditional legal career for something new and different, I can relate.

LG: Thank you so much for saying you relate. I appreciate that, because one of the things that is unsettling about making a choice to do something not a lot of people would is that not a lot of people would do it. Which at times makes me feel insane. Because it feels better, in a way, to do something that a lot of other people are doing or think is a sensible thing to do. Because it doesn’t feel as scary. But then I remember that I chose to leave my job because not doing that felt insane.

DL: So your interest in stand-up — how long have you been doing it?

LG: I’ve been doing stand-up since March 5, 2013. That was the first time I went on stage, at iO, which is a wonderful improv theater where I took classes and met Lyndsay Hailey, an actress and comedian who taught me improv when I took a class during the fall 2009 semester when I was a visiting professor at Loyola Chicago Law, where I taught Property and Law & Sexuality. Lyndsay and I kept in loose touch between 2009 and 2013 thanks to Facebook, where I kept up with (and, every now and then, would come to see) shows she was doing in New York and Chicago (she now performs and teaches in Los Angeles). She is an amazing teacher and truly changed my life by demonstrating how motivating it is for me to watch someone be truly free and herself on stage.

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Anyway, I found myself visiting in Chicago again during the spring 2013 semester, this time at Northwestern Law, where I taught Law & Sexuality and Transgender Rights, and reconnected with Lyndsay during that semester when I went to see her perform at the Annoyance Theater with Susan Messing, who is also an inspiringly talented improviser and comedian. Lyndsay and I talked after the show and I asked if she would consider working with me privately to make me better at improvising. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with improv, but I knew that I loved it, that I loved the way SHE taught it and did it, and that when I did it I felt terrified and nervous but that I had a feeling that getting over that feeling might be the key to my happiness. I was and continue to be really inspired by Lyndsay, and also to spending time with people who inspire me. I can’t get enough of people who inspire me.

We met over coffee in February of 2013. I told her how much I admired her and just went on for about 10 minutes when we first sat down. I tend to do that, for better or worse. Anyway, when I finally breathed, she told me she was in charge of booking for two shows at iO on March 5 and 12, and asked if I would go on stage for a few minutes as a part of each show. Instinctively and also immediately, I said no.

Lyndsay was really surprised, and now I can understand why. People — and now I — clamor for stage time. And here was someone I really admired offering it to me and I rejected it. When I did, Lyndsay was surprised but I told her that I hadn’t met with her with the intention of auditioning to be a part of her show, and that I had no idea what I would do on stage. She told me to trust her, and most of all to trust myself. Trusting Lyndsay was easy. Trusting myself has been a process, but I did go on stage on March 5 and 12, and the experience I had was what I have called my “professional orgasm,” which differed from a real orgasm because I was a hundred percent sure it happened.

DL: I’m sure some of our readers right now are thinking, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Can you describe for us those first two performances?

LG: Well, the first one started like this. First of all, I was incredibly nervous. Like, INCREDIBLY. I wasn’t teaching that day and I stayed home all day to make sure I was relaxed and in the right mindset for the show that night. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do that day but what I ended up doing was watching “Jerry Maguire,” which was something I did before every single set I did for about a year, until I started getting busier and realizing that at 2 hours and 19 minutes, the movie — while in my opinion AMAZING and very effective at getting me to open up — was a little long for me to watch before every single set. But I watched it that day and then I think paced around my apartment for a few hours. I wasn’t sure what I was going to talk about, which made me nervous even though I think I knew in the back of my mind that I would end up improvising my set, which is something I have always done and continue to do.

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To quell my nerves and also to ask for advice, I called my friend Abby Sher, a writer and Second City alumna. She asked me what I was thinking about most that day, and I don’t remember what led me to this thought but I remember delivering a monologue to Abby about how I believed that Linda Evangelista’s infamous statement from a Vogue article in 1990 that she doesn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 was misunderstood. I’ve always loved Linda and have thought that statement was honest and empowered and funny instead of entitled and bitchy. Anyway, I went on about this for a while on the phone with Abby and she told me I could deliver a monologue about that at the show, and that was what I was prepared to do. She also told me to begin my set by admitting something vulnerable about myself. I was still really nervous to go on but I felt better after talking with Abby, as I always do.

Anyway, my then-girlfriend Ilana and I were about to leave for the show and on our way out the door Ilana noticed that we had received a package. Now, Ilana is a beauty blogger and avid shopper and I am afraid of people ringing my doorbell so she gets lots of packages all the time and I won’t even order food to be delivered. So when Ilana looked down at the Amazon package and saw my name on it we were both surprised. I hadn’t ordered anything and didn’t know what was in the package. Because we were very early for the show I took the package in and got some scissors to open it, and then realized that I had been delivered an opportunity to be spontaneous and vulnerable on stage. I put the scissors in my bag and took the package with me to the show. When I got on stage, I explained all of this to the audience and proceeded to open the package in front of them. I didn’t realize that in there was not only an opportunity to be vulnerable but comedy gold….

DL: Okay, so now we’re all dying to know — what was inside?

LG: Inside the package were three packs of plastic covers for hangers that my mother had bought for me. See, a couple of weeks before the show my mother had visited me in Chicago and noticed that my cat Mona, who liked to sit on the top shelf of my closet right above my suits that I wore to teach, was shedding her white hair on my suits. My mom suggested that I buy plastic covers to protect my suits from Mona but knew that I would never do that even though I assured her every time we talked on the phone after she went back home that I would. So she ordered them for me. And I got to talk about my mom, and Mona and her hair, and my fear of the doorbell ringing, and plastic hanger protectors, on stage. It was exhilarating. I didn’t get to talk about Linda Evangelista, but I fantasize about being able to interview her one day and letting her know that I planned to talk about her during my first stand-up set, even though I didn’t get to it. That happens to me a lot — I’ll talk forever but not get to the thing I actually wanted to talk about. Thanks so much for interviewing me, David. I am so excited to be featured on Above the Law!

DL: Thanks for taking the time to share your unique journey with us, and best of luck to you!

Note to readers: on Tuesday, November 10, at the Experiment Comedy Gallery in Williamsburg, Liz will debut her solo show, “(Very) Early Retirement” (buy tickets here). Liz and and co-host Rhett Sever also run their free show “Say Everything” every Thursday night from 6-8 at Paddy Reilly’s Music Bar, 519 2nd Avenue at 29th Street, and then from 9-11 at the Black Rose, 117 Avenue A between 7th & 8th Streets. Glazer and Sever also co-star in the web series “Sizzle and Izzle,” which you can check out on YouTube.

(Very) Early Retirement [Ticketfly]

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