Straight-shooting LA comic Amy Miller set to headline B4UDie Comedy Festival

After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the B4UDie Comedy Festival is coming back to Alaska April 6-10.

The brainchild of Anchorage-based comic Kass Smiley, this triumphant return features 17 shows with more than 55 comedians from Alaska and mostly down below. In 2019, well known comic Kyle Kinane wore top billing and three years on, B4UDie continues to draw big names, with the plus-sized comedy of Amy Miller taking the Koot’s mainstage Saturday, April 9.

“It looked like a fun festival, I had a couple friends who had done it in the past,” Miller said from her home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, three days ahead of a trio of sets she has booked in New York. “They emailed me one day. I said, ‘how much?’ and they said a number and that was that.”

Originally from Oakland, Calif., Miller made her big breakthrough in the Portland comedy scene, winning the Helium Club’s Funniest Comedian contest and was named the Willamette Week’s Comic of the Year for 2013 and 2015.

In 2016 she released a comedy album called ‘Solid Gold’ that, according to laughbutton.com is ‘filled with treasure.’

All this set the stage for her breakout showing on the ninth and final season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing in 2018 where she earned the praise of judge Keenan Ivory Wayans, who said she told the “fiercest jokes he had ever heard.”

“I did the final season and hopefully I didn’t ruin it,” Miller joked. “It opened me to other comedians and I had so much fun I didn’t think much about the competitive aspect… It definitely helped me. It opens you to a broader audience.”

Last Comic Standing’s ride into the sunset happened in concert with the meteoric rise of comics hosting personal podcasts, a trend Miller jumped all over and one that exploded out of necessity during COVID lockdowns.

“It almost can’t be overstated. It changed things massively just as far as how you can make money in comedy,” Miller said of podcasts. “Comedy clubs might say if you haven’t been on major TV or movies, ‘we don’t know you; you have no draw,’ but now people have their loyal followings through podcasts and they sell out theaters… It’s always fun to poll people after shows about how they know me and you can’t understate how much podcasts have helped. If people like your stand-up, or they like you on the show, they stay in touch every week.”

Miller said conditions have improved for female comics in her 11 years in comedy, but as a ‘plus-sized’ comic, she still sees plenty of room for improvement.

“It’s not ever a conversation around ‘plus-sized’ men. Men talk about being fat and no one cares — they succeed no matter what; succeed on TV and get to be the King of Queens. Nobody asks about why they talk about their bodies; they just do it. They got hot women who are thin to play their wives, from Jackie Gleason to now,” Miller said, “Dismissing the notion that the mythology of the fat, laughing Buddha is more the result of that than institutional body-shaming of women. “I think it’s just regular misogyny and an ongoing attempt to control women by making us change our bodies. It’s a distraction, constantly focused on beauty and spending money on it — whatever it means to stay in the industry. It makes is a lot harder… I think, in reality, yes, it is getting better, but I still always have to answer questions about it.”

‘Being plus-sized in LA’ remains Miller’s most watched segment on YouTube, but, as she points out, that’s only a small, albeit intentional, part of her body of work.

“That’s not the backbone of my material, but I bring it up because I like to talk about shit that makes people uncomfortable,” she said. “When I start those jokes people assume I’m being self-deprecating, that I don’t like myself in some way. But my goal is that I’m on top of the situation by the end of the bit and, yeah, call out a lot of the hypocrisy around things like plus-sized women.”

The B4UDie Festival will mark Miller’s first trip to Alaska, and when she’s not working she hopes to spot some whales.

“The whole festival is going to be really fun,” Miller concluded. “But if you want to see whimsical, stand-up comedy delivered by a charming and beautiful woman, then come on out and see me.”