Eunji Kim
Deadpan stories of adult burnout, immigrant moms, and dodging high expectations.
2 specials · 2023–2026
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Eunji Kim performs from a place of deep, unapologetic fatigue. She holds the microphone like she wishes she could sit down, delivering grim premises before pausing to let the room catch up. She builds bits around the exhaustion of adult life, undercutting her own status at every turn. In one routine, she interrupts a story about doing drugs in a public bathroom to point out that her companion doesn’t need to brag about a psychology degree while they are sniffing powder off the same house key.
Specials
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Comedy Dynamics
On stage
She is a fixture of the Chicago scene, anchoring club lineups at The Lincoln Lodge while mounting solo runs at Steppenwolf. Her past work as a senior writer for Cards Against Humanity makes sense of her stage persona. She has a sharp radar for hypocrisy and a complete willingness to look terrible in her own anecdotes.
Kim uses her background as a Korean immigrant to bypass the polite rules of progressive culture. She will patiently describe her twenty-something friends earnestly dissecting generational trauma, then pivot to her own mother, who identifies Kim’s friends entirely by their ethnicity and their worst physical flaw. She leans into playing a disappointment, explaining that she defeated the model minority stereotype simply by smoking weed instead of studying.
Turning points
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Solo Show In Bad Taste Premieres
Kim wrote and performed her sold-out solo show In Bad Taste as part of Steppenwolf Theater's 2022 LookOut Series, exploring her personal taste, motherhood, and queer identity.
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Release of Live From The Raven Room
Kim released her comedy special Live From The Raven Room on YouTube, recorded live in Chicago and produced with Four by Three Productions.
At a glance
- Style
- standup, storytelling, improv
- Breakout
- Live From The Raven Room
- Topics
- Elsewhere
- Website, Wikipedia
Podcasts
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2 Kims 1 Pod · co-host
A weekly comedy podcast examining relationships, politics, culture, personal victories, and failures from the perspective of two queer Korean comedians.
Also on screen
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- Best in Dough
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- Work in Progress
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- Chicago Med
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- Chicago Fire
A clip to start with
Eunji Kim was not trained to be a parent in the pandemic