WICF Spotlight: Stripped Stories at ImprovBoston

Giulia Rozzi, co-host of Stripped Stories

Stripped Stories fits the Women In Comedy Festival’s schedule perfectly – it uses a variety of comic formats, including storytelling, music, and even an interactive game. It deals with a basic issue, looking at the serious and silly sides of sex. And its co-host, Giulia Rozzi, is a Boston native.

“We are a show produced, created and hosted by two women,” says Rozzi. “We have a nice mix of male and females on our show as well as a mix of male and female fans, so I think we've done a great job of creating a female operated show that celebrates both genders and all sexual orientations. We are a show that is empowering to women and men.”



Rozzi and her co-host Margot Leitman have been performing Stripped Stories in New York City, where they are based, and sometimes taking the show on the road. It’s an interactive show, and it’s hard to think of a topic more universal.

“We enable audience members to laugh at their own sexual misadventures via the brave guests who bare their souls on stage,” says Rozzi. “We open every show telling the audience that ‘this is a safe zone’ meaning what's shared at the show stays at the show. Some people may assume because the show is about sex that means it's just a bunch of vulgar sex stories, and sure sometimes the stories get dirty, but it's also vulnerable, sentimental, and of course hilarious.”

And now, abruptly, two questions:

Who are you looking forward to seeing at the Festival?

We're excited to see/meet new comics and familiar faces.

Why should people come to see your show?

It's fun, inspiring, touching, interactive, entertaining , positive, and very different from your typical comedy show. (Also, people have been known to find romance at our show, so you never know...)

Women In Comedy Festival - Stripped Stories: 11:3oPM, $16. Mainstage. Starring Giulia Rozzi and Margot Leitman, with Kurt Braunohler. ImprovBoston, 40 Prospect Street, Cambridge, Ma, 02139. 617-576-1253

Giulia Rozzi flies solo at Mottley's

Boston audience are used to seeing Giulia Rozzi telling personal stories onstage. She’s done at as an east coast producer for the show Mortified, and with her own show, Stripped Stories. She still helps out with Mortified, and does Stripped Stories once a month in New York City and occasionally tours with the show.

But tonight and tomorrow at Mottley’s, you’ll see her by herself, headlining the show. “My stand-up is personal, revealing,” she says. “I share stories about my family, my life, the only difference is you get me-all me-for 40 minutes.”

The Belmont native left for college in 1996, but started comedy at open mic nights at Nick’s Comedy Stop when she came home to visit. She started stand-up in earnest in 2001 when she was living in Los Angeles. She’s currently working on a one-woman show she says is about “marriage/love/divorce.”

Here’s a sample of her stand-up:

Stripped Stories at Mottley's Comedy Club Tonight

We may like to think that there are no taboos anymore, that we’ve become desensitized to sex and everything else that used to shock us. The one thing that can still make us laugh and cringe, sometimes at the same time? Honesty. Which is what Giulia Rozzi and Margot Leitman have been looking for since they started their show, Stripped Stories, in 2007.

The show, which they host regularly in New York City, features comedians, writers, and just plain folks telling stories about their sexuality, the more true, the better. As Ms. Rozzi points out in this e-mail interview, the stories don’t have to be wild – they don’t even have to be graphic. They just need to be true, and honestly told. Rozzi and Leitman bring their show to Mottley’s Comedy Club tonight at 8PM, with Jessica Sutich, Tim McIntire, and musical guest Mindy Raf.

What inspired you to create Stripped Stories?

We created Stripped Stories after realizing that most of our conversations with both each other (since the show began, between the two of us we’ve experienced marriage, divorce, singlehood, break-ups, and more) and other people seemed to always lead back to sex. We wanted to create a forum where people can speak honestly and humorously about sex without judgment, hence the creation of Stripped Stories.

How do you find the guests?

Either people approach us after seeing the show with stories or we invite folks to send in story ideas to strippedstories@gmail.com.

Are people generally nervous before they go on? Does anyone ever back out at the last minute?

Yes! Although we often have experienced comedians/writers on the show, some still get nervous as this is a very revealing show and some may not be used to such a personal level of performance. We love getting people to challenge themselves and share these stories onstage. Everyone who has sone the show has agreed it’s been a unique and positive experience.

Have you ever had someone tell a story that thought was wild and embarrassing that turned out to be kind of normal? I’d imagine the threshold for what people consider brave to reveal can change kind of drastically.

Well, stories don’t have to be “wild.” The show is now about sharing your craziest experience, the show is about revealing the humor and perhaps the heart behind sex. Stories range from tales of first kisses to wild orgies and everything in between. So it’s not about how extraordinary one’s sex life is, it’s about their honest sharing of that sexual experience and how they felt about it, what they learned from it, etc.

How many stories do you and Margot have? Do you still have new material after hosting this for two years?

Every time we think we’ve run out of stories we remember more. Like I said, the story could be tame or wild, so whether it’s me sharing my thoughts and experiences watching porn last week, or me sharing my experience of a wild night I had last year, we find stories all the time. We also sometimes retell our favorite stories. The story needs to have an element of sexuality, it doesn’t need to be about literal sex.

How has the show changed since the first one?

The show hasn’t changed much as we have changed. When the show started, Giulia was engaged and Margot was going through a break-up, then Giulia got married, Margot gota boyfriend, Giulia got separated/single, Margot got engaged, now Giulia has a boyfriend and Margot is married. Who knows what’ll happen next year?

Do you always do an after party? Is that usually a fairly casual affair?

It's us drinking post show at the venue or a nearby bar. It’s a great time and audience members tend to come up to us wanting to share stories with us.

Random Notes

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Random Notes

Mortified is back in Boston tonight, this time at Mottley’s Comedy Club. The show features people (sometimes comedians, sometimes civilians) telling embarrassing stories from their childhood. Show starts at 8PM… News from Eugene Mirman. Mirman looks to have a busy February. He’ll be touring in support of his new book, The Will to Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life, which comes out February 10. He’ll be reading from the book, which Zach Galifianakis likens to “having a tiny Eugene riding on your shoulder and whispering his advice in your ear,” February 25 at Brookline Booksmith. Mirman is also back on Flight of the Conchords, which kicks of Season Two on HBO January 18th, and on a new live action series on Adult Swim called Delocated, in which he plays a Russian hitman and stand-up comedian. That premieres sometime in February… Erin Judge and Ailin Conant will bring their show, The Meaning of Wife, to the Comedy Studio February 2. The show is an exploration of marriage in both a modern and historical context (and, for Judge and Conant, in a personal contect). Proceeds from the Studio performance will benefit arts programs for children in Rwanda ... and Dan Crohn will bring Doug Stanhope to the Hard Rock Café May 15. Sean Sullivan will host, and Crohn and Dave McDonough will also perform.