Commedus Interruptus: Asher, Finn, Hannah, Kamryn and Nathan… but together we are Commedus Interruptus!
That is an introduction that USC sophomore, Kamryn Tate, will give 15 times this semester.
Every Friday at 1pm, dozens of students passing Tommy Trojan’s home on Trousdale are drawn to this upbeat energy. They stop in their tracks to become audience members for a comedy troupe called Commedus Interruptus, which Kamryn joined her freshman year.
Commedus Interruptus: It’s improv… and it’s free! Free! Free improv!
While Kamryn loves to put on a good performance for the crowd, she also finds that being a Black female comedian at USC “is comedic in and of itself.”
Tate: This is not a place that I historically belong, yet here I am, right? I kind of take this experience and use it to influence my comedy by essentially stating the obvious and what not, the things that people can see but don’t feel like it’s necessarily correct to say out loud. And I find that hilarious in itself because, well, we all see it, so why not say it?
And she has a lot to say about race, identity and the lack of Black women in comedy here at USC since her arrival.
Tate: So I came on this campus and said, hey. There are improv auditions. Why not? I stepped into those audition rooms and I did not see too many faces that looked like mine. In fact, I could count on my hand. Two. And I have made great relationships with those people, so it did bring out something great, but it definitely did strike me in a sense of, well, where are all the Black people in USC comedy? Is it that we’re not interested? Which I’ve learned is not the case.
Kamryn believes the real case is that Hollywood is responsible for decades of obstacles that Black female comedians face. Academy award winning comedians Quinta Brunson and Ayo Ediberi’s historical 2024 Emmys victories mark just the second and third awards for Black women in their comedy categories.
And USC is just Hollywood’s backyard. Those obstacles start on college campuses and grow larger as aspiring comedians become working comedians. Mattie Bayne, USC alumna and current story editor for ABC’s Not Dead Yet, shared her experience with race and gender inequalities in college comedy.
Bayne: Just like a white man who just refused to acknowledge that I was in charge of him. And sometimes I would trick him by doing the things that I wanted to do by asking my friend who was another white man, to ask him to do the things I needed him to do. Because all the time he pushed back he’d be like, Mattie, blah, you’re a tyrant. And I was like, I’m not. I’m affable. But I was like, I’m tricking you. Like, you can’t even really tell how misogynistic or racist you are.
Emmy award winning actress and comedian, LaNisa Renee Frederick agrees. She says this isn’t just a one-off, this is a common experience many Black female comedians face. She calls this form of obstacle a “white man in a flannel” who thinks he rules the comedy world.
Frederick: I think one of the reasons why we see a discrepancy is because we have to think about who is behind the camera, who is in the boardroom, who is sitting at the table making the decisions. So, there are some days that I just say, ‘Oh, I wish I was an accountant and had a nine to five and I give up because this is some BS.’ And then there are some days that the part of me that stays in that is fueled by the challenges, that’s fueled by the fact that you keep saying no to me. So that makes me wake up every morning and go harder.
And Kamryn is running on that same fuel. Even when it gets hard, she isn’t giving up. She’s facing these conflicts head on.
Tate: That gets tiring and constantly trying and trying to be that bound, barrier breaking person. Like, can it just be normal? But on the other side, I was like. Wait. This is a lot of fun though, cause I love being the person where everybody thinks, what is she going to say next? Because I hate being predictable. Being predictable isn’t fun anymore. You’ve got to be something else. And I find the joy in being that because it brings joy, it brings laughter. It makes me happy. It makes my peers happy. And so that’s what I’m trying to conquer.
And the key to conquering these challenges is reclaiming comedy that uplifts Black joy. That’s what Tylre Sinclair believes. She’s a working screenwriter and former director’s assistant for Right of Way Films.
Sinclair: I feel like black women in general have been kind of the butt of the joke most of the time, instead of the ones making the jokes. And yet at the same time, it feels like black women in general, the way that we talk is taken by other communities. The jokes that we say. It’s like, we can say the joke kind of quietly under our breath, only the people around us will hear it, but then someone else of a different skin tone says it louder, and then they get all the credit for it. And so I think in general, I feel like it’s time to kind of almost reclaim comedy in a way.
Commedus Interruptus: Did you rhyme, rhyme, rhyme? Did you rhyme, rhyme? Doo doo, yeah! I drive a car, it’s a van. Doo doo, yeah! And I’m banned. Doo doo, yeah! And it’s sand. Did you rhyme, rhyme, rhyme? Did you rhyme, rhyme? I’m Jody Foster and this is Silence of the Lambs!
And that’s exactly what Kamryn Tate is doing with her campus comedy career. In fact, she even founded her own sketch comedy troupe.
Tate: I’ve started my own, POC led sketch comedy group called Three Fifths Comedy. Someone’s got to do it. Because if I’m amongst people like me, nobody’s the token here. We’re all equals in this space, right? We sit down, we have writers meetings, we write down pitches and ideas. We film out, read them, see what sticks, and we develop them further and we post them online.
Maybe the key to changing the industry is making more space for Black women in comedy before they enter it. Kamryn is making steps towards that future. That’s an award of its own.