Good comedy is hard to find, and notoriously even harder to find at Winterfest Weekend. Yet Rachel Sennott, Ziwe, and all-talented moderator Cat Crawford quickly disproved this, bringing sass, class, and show-stopping red tights to the Kodak Hall stage.
While both comedians have risen to main-stage fame through their recent projects, Sennott and Ziwe aren’t exactly new to the craft of comedy. Sennott is known for her work in films such as “Shiva Baby,” “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” and “Bottoms,” (the mention of which garnered one of the largest applauses of the night). Ziwe is known for her self-titled Showtime talk show and preceding web series “Baited with Ziwe.” Though they haven’t worked together, the pair stated that they’ve known each other for a long time. “We were in the gutter of Brooklyn, New York,” Sennott stated of their humble beginnings — an era of performing stand-up comedy at one-star restaurants and sobbing at parties between sniffs of poppers. “[Sennott] was into poppers before any straight woman was,” Ziwe joked. They then reminisced about Sennott’s short-lived Twitter addiction, which acted as a cautionary tale to take a step back from the internet before you end up with a stalker as Sennott unfortunately did (as she stated, a girl always remembers her first).
Although the girls’ humor, wit, and admiration of “Shrek 2” was a through line in the conversation, it was entertaining to hear about the growth both of them went through to reach where they are now. They discussed further the pitfalls of the internet, the importance of taking 30 seconds for oneself before making decisions, and, of course, why they should’ve gotten married in college.
Ziwe used her trademark word-twisting charisma, and Sennott her indulging humor. They portrayed their personas and demonstrated why they are so beloved. They even came up with a few inside jokes within the short hour-long show, like Ziwe proclaiming that “‘Shrek 2’ is the best American comedy,” or Sennott joking about “George Bush, my least favorite nepo baby.”
Ziwe and Rachel Sennott, when asked about their respective college experiences at Northwestern and NYU, described surviving the growths and pains of college, and gave the audience of college students advice from past experiences. Both of their separate lives taught them lessons on networking, success, and failure. Rachel Sennott divulged her experiences acting in student films, sending awkward emails, and the realities of modern-day networking. Both Sennott and Ziwe gave stirring speeches about how the people who matter most career-wise are the ones who surround you every day.
They then talked about the projects they had coming up. Sennott mentioned a movie currently in the works that takes place in the 70s (although she did not specify, it is presumably “SNL 1975,” a depiction of the birth of Saturday Night Live in which she will portray comedian and first-season cast member Rosie Shuster), and Ziwe discussed her recently released book “Black Friend: Essays,” soon to be out in paperback. Despite the funny, lighthearted atmosphere, they managed to give genuinely good advice –– especially Ziwe’s about how to best communicate with a certain recently-expelled member of Congress (hint: not via FaceTime from Kodak Hall on a random Friday night).
