Interview: Nikki Glaser brings The Good Girl Tour to The Fox Theatre on April 27

Last time I spoke with standup comedian Nikki Glaser, she was prepping for a big New Year’s Eve show at Stifel Theatre. The show would serve as a sendoff to 2022 and welcome in 2023. Since then, not much has changed for Glaser, other than she is still one of the top standup comics in the business.

“I still live in St. Louis,” Glaser said. “I’m still constantly on the road every weekend, pretty much. I shot two new seasons of the reality show I host, F-Boy Island and the spinoff series Lovers and Liars, which comes out on April 11 on CW. I shot a special in December that will be coming out in the Spring on HBO. That was a lot of work and preparation.”

The special will be Glaser’s fourth TV special, second for HBO.

Glaser said she compares her specials to babies.

“You’re kind of aware of it nine months before,” she said. “The last four months are pretty torturous. For the last month it’s like, remind me never to do this again because it’s so hard.”

Standup comedy has been in Glaser’s blood since she was a teen. Glaser, who attended Kirkwood High School, went to University of Kansas, honing her craft at Kansas City area clubs.

“The thing that draws me to standup is the live element of it,” said Glaser. “When you’re done you can leave it and you don’t have to look back on it and critique it.”

The comedian confessed she does not like to watch herself on camera.

“It’s just a performance that everyone was there for,” she said. “I don’t like to analyze myself and what I did. I just kind of like to live in the moment, so it’s a deeply uncomfortable process to have something that is going to live on forever somewhere.”

While Glaser admits filming her fourth special wasn’t an easy process, she is proud of the upcoming special.

“It encapsulates where I am at this point in my life,” said the St. Louis native, who is turning 40 on June 1st.

Glaser said her performance at The Fox on April 27, could feature a bit of material from the upcoming special, she also said some of the material may not have been written yet.

“I’m in the process of generating some new material,” Glaser said. “I never know what I’m going to do. I don’t really plan for it. It kind of depends on what mood I’m in that night, but being in St. Louis, I will be in a great mood, because I’ll be home.”

Glaser welcomes being in front of a hometown crowd.

“It will be nice to be up the street from my apartment and have my family and friends in the audience,” she said. “It’s a new type of comfort level, but still an immense amount of pressure, especially as I graduate to a bigger level at The Fox.”

In the past, Glaser has played The Pageant, The Factory, Stifel Theatre, and now she will be at The Fabulous Fox Theatre, the biggest theatre venue.

“I don’t really need to get any bigger than this,” Glaser said. “It’s a huge, huge room. It’s a gorgeous room. That’s the perfect size for comedy. I’m really reaching the pinnacle of what I would want to accomplish by playing The Fox.”

Early in 2024, Glaser was performing shows alongside SNL-alum David Spade. Spade, who is known for his SNL days, movies alongside the late-Chris Farley, and his past sitcom roles, is quite the accomplished standup comedian, something that he doesn’t always get credit for.

“He’s the funniest person that I will ever know,” Glaser said. “He’s someone who’s just naturally funny in conversation, even when he’s not trying to be.”

Glaser credited Spade for being influential in her comedy career.

“His was one of the first standup specials I really got into,” Glaser said of Spade’s 1998 special, Take the Hit. “I played the hell out of that thing. When I watch him perform a lot, I start to take on his cadence and rhythm. He’s been famous since I can remember. He’s still in the same business that I am and worried about the same things.”

Even though Glaser has achieved national success with her standup comedy, reality shows, and even a hit podcast, the comedian confesses she is still not comfortable.

“You never get comfortable,” she said. “I don’t think we would want to get comfortable, even if we could. There’s always something more to achieve, something more to prove. Comedians are unstable people, who desperately seek approval for some kind of love their inner child never got. It will never go away. It does inspire greatness, but it never ends.”

Much like for musicians, influencers and athletes, social media is a big part of the success for standup comedians today, when it comes to social media acceptance such as likes and followers, Glaser said she quit paying attention that those things a long time ago.

“I don’t really follow that stuff very closely because I don’t want it to become a measure of who I am,” said Glaser. “It’s hard not to. It’s a very competitive business and it’s exhausting.”

The F-Boy Island host did say she is grateful for the friends she has been afforded to make because of her success.

‘I always say that’s one of my greatest achievements in comedy, the people I’ve become friends with, who I am a fan of,” Glaser said. “It’s really cool to be able say.”

With so much on her plate, one may wonder if Glaser might eventually step off the standup stage and do something else such as film, like many of the standup have done. But the comedian was adamant that standup is her passion.

“I really get off on the idea of making people feel less alone with the weird thoughts that they have,” Glaser said. “They just feel seen in some way that they didn’t know they were. I also feel seen for sharing things that I thought that only I thought were funny and interesting about me. It just really makes you feel good inside.”

Like a lot of comedians, Glaser holds meet and greets after many of her shows, something that she enjoys doing.

“I think a lot of fans think of those as a burden, and there is a level of that, but I like having that moment, especially in St. Louis,” she said. “It’s cool to make friends at my meet and greets.”

In our previous conversation, I asked Glaser about ever wanting to host Saturday Night Live. With the show using more and more standup comedians as hosts, such as Dave Chappelle, Nate Bargatze and Shane Gillis, I posed the question to the Kirkwood grad again.

“I keep turning it down, just kidding,” she laughed. “I’d love to do it. I think you have to make a splash in another way for them to notice you. I would have to have some other career moment to get the nation’s attention. I do like how much they have been leaning into standup. It’s been awesome to see friends of mine start to host the show. So, it’s well within reach.”

Glaser said that along with her upcoming HBO special, there are some other things in the works for later this spring, that could get her name out there as a possible host of the show down the road.

“Some big stuff is upcoming,” she said. “So, if I make a big enough splash in those ways then SNL will come calling. That’s how it works, you just wait for them to call you.”

One thing that Glaser is always outspoken about is her love for Taylor Swift. We talked about Swift’s show in Kansas City last summer, as well as Swift’s current relationship with Kansas City Chiefs Tight End and three-time Super Bowl champion, Travis Kelce.

“I love them together,” Glaser said. “It’s just so cool to see her with someone who celebrates her for who she is. He seems really psyched about it. It seems like Taylor is in a place where she knows her value because she is with someone who is a valuable person, within himself, and he’s loud and proud about being with her.”

Glaser thinks that Swift and Kelce’s relationship is a great example to both men and women on who to allow into your life.

“I definitely think it’s changed the way I look at my relationship and who I let in my life,” she said. “I used to be attracted to people that I felt like I had to win over. We’ve never seen a female pop star with a man in her corner who is acting as if he’s, to be honest, the woman in the relationship. We’ve always seen the woman celebrating her rock star husband and cheering him on. I think Travis Kelce, because he’s so confident and secure in himself, he doesn’t need to get more attention than his girlfriend. He’s okay with her having the spotlight.”

Glaser acknowledges that people may groan and roll their eyes every time information comes out about Swift’s relationship with Kelce, but, she admits that people enjoy a love story.

“We love love,” she said. “There’s nothing lame about that. It’s been like a real-life rom-com, it’s so exciting. And then for him to win the Super Bowl, and her to win the Album of the Year and have this record-breaking tour, it’s the American Dream. It’s not achievable for us mere mortals, but it’s been fun to watch.”

Before I hung up the phone with Glaser, I wanted to ask her about dealing with online hate and trolls, something that as a new author, I’ve had to deal with myself.

“I really divorce myself from any of the feedback,” Glaser said. “The good feedback isn’t good enough and the bad feedback is all people who are jealous.”

While most performers and comedians are open to constructive criticism and will welcome it, if it improves their performance, Glaser said a lot of criticism is from people who don’t have the nerve to try to do something themselves.

“In criticizing and commenting, these are just people who are scared to ever put themselves out there in the way that performers, writers, or anyone does,” she said. “I am disgusted by comment culture. I am someone who is vigilant against having my opinion be swayed by dumb comments and even I get swayed by them. Comments are the scourge of society. It’s nice to get criticism and feedback from the people who you need it from, but certainly not from people who are not operating in the same arena as you and certainly people who aren’t professional critics, which I think is a noble and useful thing to have in society.”

Donald Trump and Joe Biden are gearing up for an election in November. While, Glaser is comfortable talking about sex and many other topics, politics is something that the comedian tries to avoid.

“It makes me so angry,” Glaser said. “It’s nice to tap into anger when you’re doing comedy, like the things that annoy you and the things you want to complain about, but when that anger is unbridled and I don’t feel like I have a good grasp on it, that’s what this current political situation brings out in me. If you listen to my standup, there’s no way you don’t know where I’m politically aligned, but I think both sides can enjoy my comedy. I really have no interest in lying to people so I can make more money. I don’t want to alienate anyone ever. It’s just a vibe I don’t want.”

The comedian even admits, she can’t even speak about politics with her family.

“I just don’t see myself going there,” Glaser said. “I feel no control over it, so it’s like, let’s just talk about anything but that.”

Finally, Glaser added that she has a special treat for the hometown crowd. The comedian wrote a song for her upcoming special that she will perform here in St. Louis on April 27.

“I’m going to be opening for myself with a band and singing some Taylor Swift songs,” she said. “If you’re a Swifty and want to sing some songs with everyone at Fox Theatre, that’s another incentive to come my show.

“And then you can hear me talk about the disappointment that is my sex life. There’s something for everyone.”

Tickets for Nikki Glaser at the Fox Theatre are available now by visiting https://fabulousfox.evenue.net.