Middle Classy

Cristela Alonzo has finally achieved the kind of financial stability where she can afford dental work and health insurance, but she has absolutely no idea how to actually use her new benefits. Her comedy centers on the friction between her childhood spent in extreme poverty in South Texas and the strange milestones of her current life in her forties, like becoming a defensive plant enthusiast and booking her very first gynecologist appointment. The hour serves as the middle chapter of her class-focused stand-up trilogy, released on Netflix in 2022 after her brief hiatus from stand-up to work on community organizing and voting rights. That activist streak shapes the show, which opens with cameos from labor rights advocate Dolores Huerta and U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro. Alonzo is highly conversational on stage, building long-form stories about learning English from the pricing game Plinko on The Price Is Right and spending her birthday isolated with COVID-19. Page Hurwitz directed the special, which was produced by Wanda Sykes’ Push It Productions. The set features a custom-designed mural backdrop that reflects Alonzo’s roots, grounding an hour that critics praised for its warm, relatable, and relaxed approach to personal storytelling.