In her new show the First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows, Abby Wambaugh performs seventeen different beginnings—seventeen starts to shows that could exist, but don’t get a middle or ending. It’s a funny and heartfelt look at beginning a show and then starting over three minutes later without worrying where it will end up.
There is something delightful about the reset where Wambaugh explores the power, awkwardness, and possibility of starting over. “The show is about trying and beginnings,” says Wambaugh of the production that is directed by Lara Ricote, is presented by Hannah Gadsby, and produced by Jenney Shamash. “And the joy of doing this show is getting to try and begin again and again each night with a unique audience.”
The idea for the First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows came to her in 2023 when Wambaugh attended the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. “I went to clown shows, improv shows, theater, classic stand up, a lot of alternative comedy,” says Wambaugh who lives in Copenhagen with her Danish partner and their children. “And I would walk out of these shows so inspired and with a new idea every time.”
Eventually, Wambaugh realized she could try doing a little bit of all of them. “I knew for sure I would want to tell the story of how I started doing stand up after my miscarriage, but I didn’t find out that that was the throughline for the whole show until I had been working on it for a while. It is a really wild experience to find out what your own show is about from working on it.”
After a sold-out run in Edinburgh, the First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows is now playing at Dixon Place in New York City. “Every audience feels different,” Wambaugh says as she presents her most delightfully joyful, honest and vulnerable self. “But the overwhelming feelings I get from each are playful and open and so, so generous.”
And Wambaugh continues to be moved how the audience gets on board. “I have been floored by how people show up for an hour of anything with their hearts open wide,” she says. “I mean, I am a pretty hopeful person to begin with, but getting to see what a room full of people is up for every night blows me away.”
Jeryl Brunner: What inspired you to become an artist?
Abby Wambaugh: Only recently have I accepted calling myself an artist without giggling. I have always made stuff but it has always felt playful and silly and haphazard. But I think that is what I like about what I make, and it’s also what I like about other art, so I might as well count myself as an artist if I want those people to be called that too.
Brunner: And what about becoming a comedian?
Wambaugh: I already had two kids when I had this miscarriage, and my whole life I’ve been having ideas and making things; writing rhyming research papers, shadow puppet theaters in big windows, carnival booths with Scare the Banana from my show. But I also knew that for me, being pregnant and having little babies was a time where all my creative impulses were used up just kind of getting me through the day. So when I was pregnant with this third baby I think I had this thought that I would not beat myself up about that, and I could really return to making art after this baby was out of diapers.
And then after the miscarriage, when I was high on anesthesia, I think my mind kind of synthesized what was happening with that little thought into, ok, no baby, now we start something new! Something crazy! Stand up comedy! Which honestly, is not how I would be advising my friends to grieve. But somehow, when I sobered up and the drugs wore off, I was of course really sad, and let myself feel it. But I hung onto this idea that also I was going to try stand up now. It was like when I got that surgery a railroad switch got flipped and now I was on a track heading down another tunnel. And I’m grateful that I got to mourn this big loss, but I also listened to myself about this.
Brunner: How did winning the ISH Comedy Award for Best Newcomer at Edinburgh change things for you?
Wambaugh: I made this show in front of audiences of like three people at a time, in a little room above a bar in Copenhagen. I really did not know how the show would be received in a comedy festival. I hope that the awards and acclaim will make me trust my instincts on the next thing I make, and maybe trust a bit more that people will come this time.
Brunner: During the show you talk about living in Copenhagen. How does the locale nurture you?
Wambaugh: My partner is Danish and we moved there when I was pregnant with my second child. I am able to be an artist at the same time as being a parent because I live in a country where my family has healthcare and subsidized housing and free childcare and all our basic needs are met. I really miss America, but when I lived in New York I did not have anything left in the tank after work and hustle for creation. Sometimes I joke that I started doing stand up after I moved to Denmark because I missed feeling anxious.
Brunner: How did Hannah Gadsby become part of the team?
Wambaugh: Hannah and Jenney, Hannah’s wife, who is a key producer on this show, came to my show in Edinburgh. I didn’t know they were coming, but I stand at the door and say “hi” to everyone when they come in. And of course I recognized Hannah because I am a big fan.
Luckily the show was really fun and Hannah and Jenney have been an unbelievable support since. It’s like that dream I had when I was a kid where I would be singing in the shower and I imagined that the Spice Girls or Boyz II Men were outside my bathroom door and asked me to join the group. That’s how unbelievable it felt to me. Only the bathroom was a theater where I was selling tickets.
Brunner: So many people dream of writing and performing their own show, but feel they don’t have the confidence nor resources to succeed. What would you advise?
Wambaugh: The best thing about doing your own show is that you have to start out a few minutes at a time. And the scariest part of doing comedy is the first time. But if you can get yourself to get up there that first time, and not worry too much about how it goes, just that you do it, you will learn about 50% of what you need to know about doing comedy in that first go. Stand up is actually weirdly achievable as a parent if you have another caretaker in the mix. Because you are doing this work five minutes at a time, and that’s mostly what is available when you have kids.
Brunner: What is the joy of performing at Dixon Place?
Wambaugh: Dixon Place should actually be called “Magical Perfect Ideal Place.” I haven’t felt this silly or at home in a theater since high school drama club, and I am falling in love all over again with everything that can happen on stage and backstage and in the lobby. I am so grateful to Dixon Place. Get over there.