Boyish Girl Interrupted

The crowd at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre gives Tig Notaro the standing ovation she both intimates and deserves. The audience’s roaring laughter ends Tig’s one hour set for her HBO special, and, sure enough, concertgoers rise and applaud, an example of Tig’s ability to connect to her fans through a sharp, dry wit and the hilarious payoff of her deadpan jokes.

The special, Boyish Girl Interrupted, is now the follow-up album to Tig’s Grammy-nominated sophomore release, LIVE; available through Bentzen Ball Records, the comedy imprint Tig curates through Secretly Canadian.

Known for her distinctive storytelling and offbeat sense of humor, Tig, at first, draws highly on personal experiences, speaking frankly and incisively about her fight with cancer, the death of her mother, her family and her wife. Notaro then seamlessly lightens topics with stories about one particularly terrible performance in Vegas; a search for the perfect Santa Claus; her favorite laugh noises; introducing her wife to some overzealous Mississippi relatives; TSA screenings; flying in a small plane; unusual public signs; and — again — standing ovations; and much, much more.

“…make no mistake: Her work is meticulous. Like a master magician, she gives the audience members the illusion of control, while pushing their buttons the whole time.” — The New York Times

“Notaro plays with the space between distance and candor—between a veneer of severity and a puckish sense of fun—and makes it look effortless.” — The A.V. Club