Michele Balan’s 20-Year Overnight Success Story

Anyone who watched Michele Balan on the hit NBC talent show Last Comic Standing in 2006 learned some things about her through her many live routines. For one, she’s a true New York comic - with an attitude and wit that can only come from being born and raised in the city. Secondly, she’s hysterical. Michele made it to the final four of her season and beat out every other female comic in the competition. And last but not least… Michele is a lesbian – although some fans may have missed that little detail about the veteran comic as she only mentioned it once in a short and humorous reference to her boyfriend’s being angry with her for being gay. But Balan doesn’t hide that part of herself from her audience, she just has a lot of material that doesn’t relate to sexuality or appeal only to lesbian crowds – which is why she has seen her career expand greatly among all groups since her time on the reality program. She doesn’t just write about any one specific subject more than another and she can entertain various different types of people with her talent. When Cherry Grrl met up with the comedian recently in her hometown of NYC though, she did have one particular topic on her mind above all others. Sadly, she had just lost her 11-year-old dog, Lucy, and was clearly upset and exhausted from the emotional ordeal. Her love of dogs is one thing about Michele that you wouldn’t have learned from her time on Last Comic Standing. You also most likely didn’t realize in watching the performer that she was once climbing the corporate ladder working in an office every day or that she’s such a determined comic that she has performed immediately after a car accident – from a wheelchair. One thing that both the TV Michele and the Michele that took her time to talk to Cherry Grrl over lunch definitely do have in common though – besides their sense of humor – is how nice they are. New York attitude is present but so is a genuine kindness… even if it’s mostly just about dogs.

As is the story for most comedians who have struggled in the very competitive industry, success didn’t come overnight for Michele Balan. After years of working at a computer company and reaching the level of Account Executive of Sales, Balan quit to begin her career as a comedian. When discussing the important decision to leave her high paying job Michele seems to have no regrets. “ I just didn’t like – honestly – working in an office. I was there a long time and I started doing comedy and people were like, ‘wow you’re funny – you should do it.’ But I was like, ‘how do you make a living at this shit?’ But I wanted to get out of my company anyway and - I don’t know – I had a moment where I just couldn’t see myself 9 to 5 going in every day for the rest of my life.” What she describes as her “twenty-year-overnight-success story” began with her doing lip- syncing impressions of Bette Midler. From there she worked the bars and clubs and paid her dues among other up-and-coming talents including Suzanne Westenhoffer. She describes the difficulty of getting stage time and having to bring in audiences as being among the challenges of the trade but recalls some creative ways to get what she needed. “I used to go to AA and grab people to bring them to my shows. I told them I would drink if they didn’t come. I was like ‘I’m gonna pick up if you don’t come!’ I got like 10 people.” Although, she adds that she also went to AA to get clean and sober, not just to get audiences. “ I stopped drinking for 14 years, but I now drink again. I say that ‘I used to be a friend of Bill’s, now I am an acquaintance!’”

Things didn’t seem to get that much easier for Balan even after the bookings started coming in. With her new career came a decreased sense of security. As she explains, “now I’m in a different place where you don’t know if you’re going to work and you may never work again. And if I don’t work – I don’t get money. You don’t get sick days. If you don’t show up, that’s the end. I once had a gig and I had a car accident on the way so I went in a wheelchair. These people that hired me expected me to be there, so I went. In pain. On drugs. So I said, ‘fuck it – wrap it up. I’m going.’ And I had to go to two different places that weekend and they were rolling me around in the airport wheelchair where it was like, I was in real pain, and the guy was like, ‘where ya going?’ and I was like, ‘I gotta go do comedy!’ Of all things.”

Throughout the ups and downs of her career, however, Balan has established her strong persona as a New York comic. Born in Brooklyn and currently living in Manhattan, her style and routines are definitely influenced by her surroundings. When asked about what keeps her in the city though, her response is less about the many wonders of the Big Apple and more about her dislike of change. “I’m still living here because I don’t like change. I’m very bad with change. Anything can happen really - even a minor change just bothers me. I like things staying where they are – nobody move. I mean chances are if I was born in Indiana I think I’d still be in Indiana. Although I don’t know if I would be a comic in Indiana. I wouldn’t have that ‘what happened in New York’ to me. But I mean I congratulate people who can get up and leave their hometown and come here, to this crazy life. And I tell ya – people do it all the time. And I’m like – I moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan. That was my big escape. I was born in Brooklyn, I came to Manhattan. That was it. That’s how courageous I am.”

Regardless of her fear of change, however, Balan was able to leave her life in New York and travel out to Los Angeles to take part in a television show that would put her in front of millions of people live once a week. She credits her time on Last Comic Standing as being a huge boost to her career but isn’t too fond of the structure of the competition - where comedians of all different styles and backgrounds are compared to one another. “I had tried out the year before and the year I got selected I didn’t want to go. I thought the show was stupid,” she explains. “I mean, being a comedian, it’s like apples and oranges. I mean my season it was me and Josh Blue, who has cerebral palsy. I mean how do you compare the two of us? He’s a young boy with CP and there’ s this older Jewish woman. I mean is that not an apple and an orange?” Furthermore, Balan feels that it wasn’t really the audience deciding the winners of each show and that she knew she was going home when she did because of the make-up of her fellow contestants who were still remaining. “I mean, my season you had Roz, me, Ty, Chris, and Josh. Roz was the first to go so you look at it – she was a black person. Certainly Ty couldn’t go the week after. You certainly can’t send away two black people. You can send away two women though –nobody seems to give a shit. So I went. Chris Porter, who I know had powerful management, wasn’t gonna go and it wasn’t going to be Josh Blue – we all knew from day one that he was going to win it all. So I knew, I mean just by looking around – well it ain’t gonna be Josh, it ain’t gonna be Ty, Chris is connected with his management – so I knew I was going when I went because that was the choice that it had to be. So I don’t know how much America really gets a vote.”

One group that definitely voted her way throughout the season though was the lesbian community. Following her not-so-big-reveal of her sexuality many women got the confirmation that they needed and began supporting the comedian. When asked whether or not it was intentional on her part to come out with that particular joke she explains, “Well it wasn’t that it was or wasn’t intentional. My material is pretty much all gender anyway. Even when I do the gay shows, I might have some stuff I throw in about the girlfriend or whatever but for the most part my act is my act – and it crosses over. I’m one of the few lesbian comics who does that. And I hate that term – ‘lesbian comics’ – to me lesbian sounds like a job. Which is it a lot of the time anyway if you ask me.”

Overall though, Michele is grateful to the show for helping her to cross over into more mainstream audiences. “I mean my career has completely doubled since Last Comic, especially with the straight market. Now I’m headlining comedy clubs and I’m doing cruises and casinos and it put me on the map. I already had a lot of shows in the gay community but it really helped me to break over to that other community. But I mean lets face it – doing a gay show is a lot more fun. It’s like a Jew performing for the Jews as opposed to the Jews performing for the Germans. You know what I mean? But, you know, it’s the career.”

And it’s a career that has taken her all over the world and to places that she says she never would have gone otherwise. “Last year I did a RSVP Cruise. It was a riverboat cruise up the Danube River to Budapest, Prague, Vienna, Bratislava – I mean when would I be in Bratislava? I mean seriously. And to get paid for it?” But the travel has its downside too, as she explains. “The traveling is ridiculous - especially now. I mean years ago they treated you with respect but now it’s like you’re cattle. A bunch of cattle going on the plane. And you can’t bring a bag, they don’t want you to bring a bag on the plane. It’s like – where do you think we’re going? Nudist colonies?” The worse of it came recently for her though during her trip to Southwest Funny Fest in Albuquerque, immediately following the heartbreaking decision she was forced to make to have her dog put down. “I had these shows and I get off the plane hysterically crying because I loved her to death,” explains the animal lover, who donates to various animal charities each month. “And I’m thinking – do you think I want to be here and have to do comedy? But I do it – because it becomes a job. You know, my job is to move away from my life and I did two great shows and then I just couldn’t wait to come home. And of course the plane that I was on had to make an emergency landing and it went off the runway and I didn’t get home for 14 hours. People were all scared. I was just pissed. I was like ‘I just want to get home. My dog died. I don’t give a shit about this fucking plane.’”

But there are no regrets for Balan in choosing her career and she definitely enjoys performing. “People come up to me and say ‘God, I really needed that laugh.’ I mean it really is a great feeling when the room is screaming and clapping for you. I used to get attention when I wore a bathing suit when I was young and good looking so now I can only do comedy to get that.”

So she plans to continue working and entertaining audiences for as long as she can or, as she explains, until she is collecting SSI. After that? “I want to open a place for dogs, ‘Michele Balan’s Red Woof Inn.’” With a continually expanding career that includes acting jobs and a possible reality show called Michele Balans Not on the D List – She’s Not Even on Craigslist, the comic hopes to make enough money to go off, relax, and have another dog like Lucy. “Lucy spoiled me. She came trained. She was like a self-cleaning oven - a self-trained dog. She was like a little human in a furry body. And my friends would say ‘you know, they are not all like that.’ She never even barked – I was like, ‘I don’t think my dog has vocal chords.’ And she never chewed anything. Except I was dating this woman who didn’t like dogs and we would go see her and Lucy would chew her stuff. Never chewed anything of mine but we went there and she chewed. She told me ‘no good’ - and she was right.”

For more about Michele and information on her upcoming performances visit her at http://www.comicbalan.com.

Last Comic Standing photo by: Chris Haston/NBCU Photo Bank.

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