Comedy Central Presents: Laura Kightlinger

Laura Kightlinger has a way of delivering bleakly funny, borderline-apathetic observations like she is reading a shopping list she didn’t want to write. In her 2003 half-hour special, she treats the stage with the cool, dry detachment of a veteran alternative comic, offering practical survival advice like how to successfully hang up on your mother. Her set relies heavily on deadpan, self-deprecating dark comedy, whether she is analyzing her rule to never look at a partner’s face during sex or explaining why she can no longer share a bed with her mom.\n\nTaped at the Hudson Theatre in New York City, this special caught Kightlinger at a busy juncture in her career. At the time, she was working behind the scenes as a writer and consulting producer on the NBC sitcom Will & Grace, where she also occasionally popped up on camera as Nurse Sheila. She was also concurrently directing Sixty Spins Around the Sun, an award-winning documentary about drug law reform. Though she is widely recognized as a writer’s writer in television, this 22-minute showcase highlights her distinct, cynical perspective on the stand-up stage. It demonstrates the sharp, dry writing style that made her a staple of the late 1990s and early 2000s Los Angeles alternative comedy scene.