Comedian Laurie Kilmartin on #TimesUp in comedy and ‘Dead People Suck’

Comedian Laurie Kilmartin has been performing stand-up for more than 30 years, and has been a writer for ‘Conan’ since 2010.

Last year, after the New York Times revealed Louis C.K.’s history of sexual misconduct, Kilmartin wrote an op-ed for the Times titled ‘Being a Female Comic in Louis C.K.’s World.’

So when C.K. did an unannounced set at a New York comedy club last month, Kilmartin had some thoughts.

She tells us about what a path to redemption in the age of Time’s Up might look like for C.K., and why his surprise appearance probably isn’t it. She also tells us about the challenges to female comics that still exist in 2018.

Kilmartin also talks to us about incorporating a very personal subject--the death of her father--into her comedy.

Her father went into home hospice in 2014, and while visiting him, Kilmartin started live-tweeting his about final days with a hearty dose of gallows humor and compassion. Kilmartin’s dad ultimately passed away from lung cancer. As she grappled with his loss, she started workshopping some material on stage. That evolved into a stand-up special taped in late 2016 called 45 Jokes About My Dead Dad.

Eventually, Kilmartin put some of the lessons she had learned into a book called ‘Dead People Suck’ that was published earlier this year. Kilmartin shares with us some of the stories from her book, including the experience of watching the Oscars with her father’s corpse, and why companies should offer “morternity” leave when an employee’s parent dies.