Kira Soltanovich has been doing stand-up all over the world for the past decade. The comedian, based in Los Angeles, has performed for the troops on USO tours, she’s been to Japan, Australia, South America and all over Europe and made college students laugh on campuses all across North America.
She’s played in gorgeous legendary theaters and in dingy basements in the Midwest and headlined some of L.A.’s most popular comedy establishments.
Now the 41-year-old said she absolutely can’t wait to film her new, self-produced special right here in Orange County.
“I specifically chose Orange County because whenever I perform there, the people are just more real,” she said during a phone interview. “I’ve done shows at the Coach House as part of the Funniest Housewives for several years now. I’ve done the Brea Improv and the Irvine Improv, and the people just feel more authentic. They have real lives, real jobs, kids. They’re not in the business, and they’re civilians – which is what comics call people who aren’t comics – but they still have really full lives.”
Soltanovich will be taping her set at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Mother’s Day, which is fitting since she’s also eight months pregnant.
“I guess I am crazy, but I also have a 4-year-old son already,” she said. “I performed up until about a week before I delivered him, so I don’t mind performing pregnant. I’ll be doing the special during my third trimester, so I might need to stop and eat a snack. Maybe I’ll bring a sandwich with me up onstage.
“I bring up the pregnancy right away because one of the things I don’t want people to be like is, ‘Whoa, lay off the burritos and maybe slow down on the beer.’ I’m pregnant, it’s OK. I’m not just walking around with this huge gut, completely unaware.”
Aside from doing stand-up, Soltanovich is also a writer, producer and actress and has her own comedy/parenting podcast at thekirashow.com. She wrote for the late Joan Rivers on the TV Land reality series “How’d You Get So Rich?” She appeared on Oxygen’s “Girls Behaving Badly” and lent her voice to the long-running “Free Photo Booth” gag on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
In 2011, her first half-hour comedy special, “Here Comes Trouble,” aired on Showtime. While she was grateful for the opportunity, Soltanovich says, she also had to give up a lot of creative control, which is why she’s currently running a crowdfunding campaign via Tubestart.com.
“When I shot the Showtime special, I wasn’t involved in the editing or any of the promotion,” Soltanovich said. “They Photoshopped pictures of me and gave me like one boob in one of the pictures, and they totally changed my jacket to some purple leather jacket. I mean, who am I? Eddie Murphy in the ’80s? You can get misrepresented very easily.
“That’s why things like YouTube have really flourished over the last decade, because people are creating and editing their own content. And then crowdfunding comes along, and it puts the power back into the artists’ hands. I think you’re going to get something different and more interesting when that happens.”
To keep things spicy, Soltanovich added a variety of perks on her crowdfunding page, including the basics for smaller amount donations such as autographs, T-shirts, hats. She had one fan take her up on the offer to customize a joke and perform it during the taping for $2,500.
As the amounts get higher, she decided to get more creative.
For a $20,000 donation, you will be named as an executive producer of the special and Soltanovich will let you pick the middle name of her soon-to-be daughter.
And for a $30,000 donation, you can get all of the other perks, a producer credit, merchandise and more, plus Soltanovich will let you be in the hospital room when she gives birth. You can also cut the umbilical cord.
“I know, it sounds insane,” she admitted. She also noted that her husband, Mike, is totally cool with giving up the task usually reserved for the father since he already cut the cord for their son, Brayden.
“When you have a kid in a hospital, they let so many people in that you’re so unaware of anyway,” she said. “They have students and residents, nurses, the guy refilling the vending machines, the parking attendant even comes by while your feet are behind your earlobes. If this was my first kid, I’d never do this.
“Some people may think ‘Wow, you’re a bad mom,’ but if someone is willing to be that generous, it’s a great story and it will help me out tremendously to produce the best comedy special, which in turn will help my kids and my career.
“It is insane, but it’s so unlike me and has taken me so far outside of my comfort zone that it’s pretty funny now.”
Soltanovich was born in the former Soviet Union, but her parents emigrated to San Francisco when she was 2.
As an adult, she began cutting her teeth in L.A. comedy clubs, and when she started auditioning for television and film roles, she was frequently asked when she’d be changing her name.
“It’s just like Malkovich or Brockovich,” she said. “Soltanovich is my last name – it’s mine, I was born with it. I once told this woman, ‘Look, John Malkovich has a great career and no one has a problem with his last name.’ She said, ‘Yes, but he’s famous.’ Well, he didn’t come out of the womb that way!”
Sure, she could have waited until her daughter was born to film her next special, but Soltanovich said she felt like now was the perfect time, before she’d have not one, but two little ones to attend to while also balancing her demanding career.
She joked that one of her son’s first full phrases was “conference call” since she’d repeatedly tell him that’s what she was up to. Since she spends so much time in the car with him, she also runs some of her material by him first to see if it gets a laugh.
“His sense of humor is off the charts,” she said. “We were in the car and this woman in front of us hit the curb really hard with her tires and from the back seat, my 4-year-old goes, ‘Nailed it!’ He has great timing.
“But I do struggle with balancing it all, and I do the parenting podcast with other comics who have kids about how they can (mess up) our careers. It’s that feeling of, I don’t want to resent you because I love you and I brought you into this world and you’re a brand-new person, but at the same time, Mommy still has some dreams I don’t want to let go of.”
Contact the writer: 714-796-3570 or kfadroski@ocregister.com
