Maria Bamford

Maria Bamford is playing The Showroom on Sunday, December 13. If you've never seen her live, she's a stand-up known for deeply personal, experimental comedy centered on mental illness—a subject she's worked through across her stand-up and her screen work. It's not the kind of comedy that stays in one lane; it's often surreal and shifts gears without warning.

That surreal streak is a good way to get a handle on her other projects. She starred in Lady Dynamite, the semi-autobiographical Netflix series, and put out three unconventional hour-long specials: Weakness is the Brand, Old Baby, and Maria Bamford. She was also the first female comic to headline two half-hour Comedy Central Presents specials and appeared alongside Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, and Brian Posehn in the Comedy Central series The Comedians of Comedy. On the web, she created and starred in The Maria Bamford Show.

Beyond the stage, she's a prolific voice actor. You've likely heard her on Big Mouth, BoJack Horseman, Adventure Time, and Bob's Burgers. On screen, she played DeBrie Bardeaux on Arrested Development and won the 2014 American Comedy Award for Best Club Comic. Between the specials, the series, and the voice work, there's a lot of ground she's covered.

The Showroom is at The Gateway, 190 South 400 West in Salt Lake City. It opened in 2014 as Wiseguys Comedy Club's first Salt Lake City room, and the club counts Bamford among the top comics it's brought to Utah. The show is Sunday, December 13.