b'family vacation and discoveringtheir househadbeen robbed.Theirrap-portontheshow (Episode 32 of the RelativelySane podcastishighly recommended) givesyougreatin-sight into their up-bringingboth the joys and pains.Iwasntthink-ing that I would be aperformeroran artistinanyway, saysKirson,when asked if she had as-pirationsofbeing acomediangrow-ingup.Herauto-biographicaldetails serve as an organiz- Jessica Kirson with her stepbrother Zach Braff. They likened ingprinciplefortheir family to The Brady Bunch on an episodeof Kirsons herwork.KirsonRelatively Sane podcast.hasfourdaughters and lives with her wife in Long Island.SOPAC during a full weekend high-Youll hear her talking about being alighting LGBTQ+ artists is deeply im-proud Jewish lesbian, and shell bringportant to her.heralcoholismandstruggleswithI am a very proud, lesbian gay per-weight into her show. What led meson. I have four daughters, and its very into comedy was a lot of pain, sheimportant to me now more than ever, says in her podcast. says Kirson. Weve always had to fight But perhaps most vital to her per- for our rights, but right now theres a formancesisherextremelysophisti- war on our community and it is in-catedcrowdwork.Shehasgarneredcredibly upsetting to me whats hap-roughly450,000followersonsocialpening [] I mean, the drag commu-media outlets that show examples ofnity, the trans community I could her stunningly agile impromptu backlist 100,000 things that are going on and forths with audience members. Itsveryhardtogetintocrowd work because its very scary to kind of go off script. I started hosting early on because it was a great way to get into the clubs in New York, says Kirson. I just love talking to people and finding out about them and I realizedoh my Godwhen you talk to people, theyre really funny. They give you funny an-swers, and you can get a lot of mate-rial just from talking to them. She is currently working on a comedy special focused solely on crowd work. Its like [strengthening] a musclelike going to the gym. I got better and better and Im very comfortable with it.Kirsonhasanotherreasonsheis passionateaboutperformingtheseJessica Kirson is stunningly agile with her showsinNewJersey.Performingatback and forths with audience members.feature story /27'