She’s cute but she’s dangerous: A veteran at 10, Nicole Lauren is a genuinely funny performer with killer timing who’s appeared in clubs in Florida and New York. A member of the Screen Actors Guild, she’s done TV pilots and student films and has acted on stage, most recently with the West Coast Players’ One-Act Play Festival in Fate. She’s also a member of MENSA — and she knows Tae Kwon Do.
It all started with a cruise ship talent show: “Instead of doing something like hula hooping or jump roping, I wanted to do something memorable. So I decided to do comedy.” She was an immediate hit. and for the rest of the cruise people were asking for selfies and autographs. “I think it really helped that it was all old people.”
Honing her craft: She adapted her early material from joke books, but she had to learn to keep it short. “You make jokes that are too long,” she observes, “and people are going to forget why they’re sitting there.”
Comedy runs in the family: Many of her jokes are derived from actual conversations with her parents: “I asked my dad the other day why I was an only child. And he said, 'Smart people learn from their mistakes.'”
I’m going to call you Bob: She likes to address a single audience member during her performances as Bob. “You have a cat, Bob? Well, I have a cat that’s so dumb she swallowed a whole ball of yarn. Sixty-three days later she gave birth to — wait for it, Bob — mittens!”
How’s a 10-year-old get gigs in NYC clubs? “It’s called really good parenting,” says Nicole. “Mom’s like my manager.”
And NYC has other benefits: “I love MOMA [the Museum of Modern Art]!”
But there are rules: Her mom, Karen, specifies that if Nicole is appearing on a bill with comics whose material is adult in content, her daughter has to be first up so she doesn’t have to listen to the risqué stuff. Once, though, comics in one club didn’t want to follow her, so during their routines Nicole had to sit in the kitchen wearing noise-cancelling headphones.
The competition can be rough: When she was 7, she won a standup contest against 12 adult comics at Snappers, a club in Palm Harbor. Some of the other contestants weren’t too happy about it. “You want to talk about cyber-bullying?” asks Karen. She didn’t let Nicole see any of the online comments.
What “It” is: “People tell me I have the ‘It.’ I still don’t know what ‘It’ is, but I’m guessing it’s good.”
Her next gig: Thurs., Aug. 20, 7:30 p.m., at Snappers Grill & Comedy Club, 36657 U.S. 19 N., Palm Harbor, deliciouslyfunny.com.
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2015.