Comedian Jay Jurden opens his two-night, four-performance standup at The Comedy Arena on Friday, Nov. 3.
Comedian Jay Jurden is ready to be your new favorite
RICH LOPEZ | Staff writer
rich@dallasvoice.com
Before reading this piece, go right now and watch Jay Jurden’s standup on Instagram and TikTok. The gay comedian delivers rapid fire jokes about hookup apps, straight men, Southern hospitality and sports — and he does it with swagger.
Jurden brings the jokes to McKinney on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 3-4, for four performances at The Comedy Arena.
While standup is Jurden’s fame game, he’s also a writer on the Emmy-nominated The Problem with Jon Stewart. So while on tour, Jurden was also part of the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) Strike which had just ended prior to this interview.
“We are back in production, and it’s been nice to get back to work on some new episodes,” he said. “I’m happy for the gains we’ve made but also going back to having a regular semi-comforting job again.”
Onstage though, is where Jurden kills it.
His standup isn’t just loaded with laughs, it’s organic whether with the audience or himself. Jurden drops personal stories so quickly that his jokes finish more with sucker punchlines because they come so fast. And he’s brazenly gay without it also being a gimmick. His authenticity easily shines.
“Audiences are fun when they feel comfy enough so they are aware of where they are, but I can take anything and turn it into humor,” he said. “I get to make jokes about sports, queer stuff, Black millennial stuff, Black politics. And I just get to filter that with my lens.
“At the same time, I find my balance with the audience that’s still a positive relationship.”
Jurden discovered comedy while studying at the University of Mississippi. He was originally on the acting path at Ole Miss, but when he had a standup assignment, that all changed.
“There was an autonomy there. I loved the amount of creative control it had,” he said.
In 2015, he moved to New York and didn’t quite make an immediate strong impression. So he filled his time and bank account with personal training and acting. But he was committed to humor.
He also had an obsession with the X-Men, the popular Marvel mutant team comic characters.
The X-Men have always been a queer favorite because characters often hid their mutant powers from the general public. The closet was a reality for them as it is for many queer youth. Jurden liked that while it’s not a perfect metaphor, it was good for being both queer and Black.
“I think in retrospect, it helped me affirm my own identity. I fell back in love with them when I moved out to college and continued that to this day. I talked about them on podcasts or interviews all the time,” he said.
The comedian talked about them so much that Marvel Comics reached out to him to write an X-Men story for Marvel Voices, a series which lends itself to diverse stories by diverse authors, including a Pride issue.
Needless to say, Jurden was ecstatic about writing a story centered on the gay character Iceman and the Black weather goddess Storm.
“These were the two perfect characters for me to write about, so I was overjoyed,” he said.
But this weekend is all about serving laughs while slaying the audience.
“I’m glad that this aspect of my career is going strong, and everyone seems to be enjoying it,” Jurden said. “But I’m really excited when fans convert where they kinda know me to I’m now their favorite.”
For tickets, visit JayJurden.com/gigs.
