We're All Dads Here

Natasha Vaynblat wants the perks of fatherhood without the biological toll of maternity. Recorded at Union Hall in Brooklyn, her debut special frames adoption as the perfect loophole—a way for both partners to secure the role of dad while avoiding the physical changes of pregnancy.

The special, which initially debuted as an audio album in late 2023 before its YouTube video release in April 2024, captures Vaynblat at a transitional point in her career. A former writer for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she spent the era weighing her ambivalence toward motherhood, a theme she would continue to develop in her subsequent solo shows.

On stage, Vaynblat leans into a poised style of storytelling that easily shifts from observational humor to absurdity. She details her decade-long marriage, her childhood emigrating from Russia after the Soviet collapse, and her parents’ baffling interactions with American culture, like trying to pick fights with locals over the weather. She relies on dry writing and a willingness to get weird, at one point mimicking a coworker secretly eating carne asada on a Zoom call.