Hey, It's Just Her, Paula Poundstone, Bringing Laughs To Peekskill

PEEKSKILL, NY — It's sort of ironic — and pretty funny — that Paula Poundstone has a weekly podcast called “Nobody Listens To Paula Poundstone.” She tours constantly and regularly appears on NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” She can also be found on Facebook, X, which was formerly known as Twitter, and TikTok, where she begins videos by saying, “Hey, it's just me, Paula Poundstone.”

Maybe all of that varied activity is why the observational comedian can come up with a whole routine just by asking an audience member where they live.

That is likely what Poundstone will be doing during her appearance Saturday, Aug. 12 at the Paramount Hudson Valley Theater in Peekskill.

Poundstone recently took a few minutes out of her schedule — she had just come from the actors and writers picket line in Los Angeles — to speak by phone with Patch about how and why she does what she does so well.

“My favorite part of any show is just talking to the audience,” Poundstone said. “It always produces so much information about the area.”

She said people come up to her afterward and ask how she knows so much about whatever town in which she is appearing.

“I’m just taking it in and responding to what the people say,” Poundstone said.

She was adamant about never doing research on where she is performing.

“That would take the ‘E’ word: effort,” Poundstone said.

Paula Poundstone is well known for her observational humor and amazingly spontaneous wit. She has starred in several HBO specials, including “Cats, Cops and Stuff” and “Paula Poundstone Goes to Harvard.”

She is perhaps best known for being a frequent panelist on NPR’s news quiz “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” And you can now listen to her on the weekly podcast “Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone.”

In 1992, she was the first female comic to perform solo standup at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Her second book, “The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness,” was a semifinalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor.

Poundstone has been a comedian for 44 years, starting out in Boston, and admittedly not getting very much stage time.

However, she went to the comedy clubs even if she wasn’t working, “so my name would come up in the minds of those who did the booking.”

Poundstone said she “learned a lot, not from watching stuff I liked, but from watching stuff I didn’t like.”

She said, if you watched a comic that you really like, you can’t steal from them, but you can learn technique.

“If the person is really good, you can’t tell what they are doing,” Poundstone said. “You learn more from watching OK comics who made some mistakes.”

One very important lesson she learned was to always respect the audience.

“They are my best friend,” Poundstone said.

Over the years, she learned people needed to be able to relate to what she was talking about.

A case in point is the topic of raising children.

“It can be oddly lonely,” Poundstone said, “and you are not in control of everything.”

She said being able to share that with an audience is amazing.

Poundstone said she worked the fact that her son was a video games addict into her act.

“At the time, most people didn’t know that could happen,” she said. “Here I was coping with that god-awful problem, and I would go on stage and talk about it.”

She found people would come up to her during post-show meet-and-greets and say, “Oh my god, you are raising my son.”

Poundstone found she wasn’t the only one with that particular problem and it was relatable to her audiences.

“We all need to be reminded we are not the only one,” she said. “That is part of the joy of being in front of an audience — or being a part of an audience.”

Poundstone admits she thinks she has the best job in the entire world, even though there are highs and lows.

“It’s such a privilege,” she said. “Anytime I can go on stage and talk about something and hopefully make jokes about it is so much fun.

“It makes you feel like a human being,” Poundstone said, “because people wouldn’t laugh if they didn’t know what I was talking about.”

If You Go

Paula Poundstone will be at the Paramount Hudson Valley Theater, at 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 12.

Tickets range from $37.50 to $55.

The Paramount Hudson Valley Theater is at 1008 Brown St. in Peekskill.