Three years ago, Kat Cohen was lying in a hospital bed feeling hopeless. She suffered a mini-stroke — terrifying enough considering she was only 31 — and doctors discovered she had a hole in her heart and needed surgery to repair it, and it felt, for a brief moment, like the end of the world. But then Cohen, an actress, podcast host, and comedian known for her mix of cabaret and comedy, had an epiphany: This was amazing material. “It was really a spark,” she says. She started taking notes on her iPhone about what was happening to her, things the doctors were saying, and how her family was reacting — all elements, trauma aside, that were really funny, she says.
While she was talking on her phone after the stroke, she also saw some reassuring news. “I read that Hailey Bieber had had the same type of stroke that I had, and that was my first flash, ‘I’m going to be okay,'” she says. “She was actually fine! She had a baby, I got it together. I was scrolling through her Instagram, like, ‘This is going to be me.’
The experience eventually became fodder for her new solo show Broad strokeswhich she will perform at New York’s famous Lucille Lortel Theater from July 14 to September 5. Although she is a veteran of the stage, and the show will feature six songs in her signature style, it is her Off-Broadway debut and her first foray into working with a defined through-line narrative.
“The show starts with me discussing that I always wanted to be exceptional, to be the main character, until something very intense and story-defining happened, and I said to myself, ‘Fuck this shit,’” says Cohen, who premiered the show during a month-long residency at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year. “I’m discussing my recovery too, and the ending is open because I’m still really processing it.”
Cohen had dreams of being on Broadway (and “in the movies,” as she puts it) from the beginning. She grew up in Houston, Texas, and although she is half Jewish, she went through the traditional Southern experience of attending Christian youth groups. The East Coast eventually came, and I went to Princeton; She found her way into comedy after graduating and moving to New York without a clear path to screen work. “When I started, it was like I don’t know what auditions are, I don’t have an agent, I don’t know anything,” she says. “But you can write stuff and then get on stage anywhere in New York.” She studied the works of comedians she inspired, spent time at the Upright Citizens Brigade, began doing stand-up, and later settled into regular gigs at Joe’s Pub and Club Cumming (owned by actor Alan Cumming).
This work earned her a manager and the opportunity to start auditioning in earnest. Her first “real” job (Cohen’s words) was a 2019 episode of the HBO drama series High maintenancewhich began a steady stream of guest roles: Search party, What do we do in the shadows, Girls5evaand then a larger arc in the fourth season of Murders only in the building. She says the wait seemed endless at the time. “You’re watching people in your circle come out right away, and you go on Instagram and you’re thinking, ‘I want to do that, I want to go for that, why don’t I do that?’ And then you realize, ‘Okay, honey, why don’t you sit down and write something and then maybe someone will care. Stop being a bitch.’
After being released from the hospital in 2023, Cohen couldn’t stop writing. It was mostly flowing, but she was careful with the tone. “Since I had never dealt with more serious material, my fear was that I would be offended,” she says. “I’m bored every day! I felt it in the hospital too. But on stage, who cares? I was desperate to keep it light.” I participated in Mike Birbiglia’s podcast Work it out She told him that she was afraid to introduce something disturbing into her comedy that would alienate people. “He’s the master of the one-man show – Sleepwalking with me He was very good – and really encouraging that I would be okay.
Once it became clear that she had something very special and specific on her hands, she began looking for collaborators. She teamed up with producers Mike Lavoie and Carly Briglia who produced Oh Mary! Plus special performances by Colin Quinn and Mike Birbiglia. The pair were suggested by Alex Timbers, the Tony Award-winning director Moulin Rouge!also known as David Byrne American utopia, Gutenberg! Musical Nick Kroll and John Mulaney Oh hello!to lead the show. “Timbers reached out to me years ago to say I love your work and we should get to know each other, which was like a dream come true, and it was one of those things where there wasn’t a lot to talk about work-wise but it was nice to know,” she says. “But then we met again Broad strokes The connection was instant.
Cohen has released two comedy specials for 2022 Volatility…? It’s greatwith Netflix, and VEEPS 2024 Come for me. But this is the first time she has developed her work with someone else in such close collaboration. “I didn’t have anyone to talk through structure and storytelling. It changed my life, because the end of the show didn’t really work for me. He pointed out that there should be a song, and then I went and wrote it and it was literally fixed.”
At the same time Cohen was developing Broad strokesher on-screen career was just beginning to take off. Her audition strategy, she says, is to put herself on tape for literally everything. “I’m going across the country to audition, I don’t care.” This strategy landed her a small but memorable role in Joachim Trier Emotional valueplays Elle Fanning’s publicist Rachel Kemp. Her time on film even got her to the Oscars for the first time, an experience she describes as magical and more nuanced than her Instagram posts might appear. “I want people who saw I went to know, by the way, that I was there alone and that it was awkward,” she says with a laugh. Trier paid for the entire cast to get tickets to the big event, and the invitation arrived at the last minute (and without any extra invitation). After he missed Emotional valueAt the Cannes Film Festival premiere (“I was invited, but I had to pay for my own flight”), she decided to go despite the sometimes humbling circumstances.
“The Oscars were like, ‘You can do the red carpet, but you’re going to have to show up at 1:30 p.m.,’ which meant she was the first to arrive and then waited hours for the show to start,” she says. When they won Best International Feature Film, I watched with a nosebleed. “Elle made sure to tell me that I won, and I got to go on stage with everyone, because she’s the best, but I was in the mezzanine and had to step back,” Cohen says. “I was like, ‘That’s so sweet of you to think I’m sitting so close to me.’ Honey, I’m a repellent.”
After the Oscars, she’s filming a romantic comedy for Prime Video, alongside Kiernan Shipka, Cole Sprouse and Megan Mullally (whom Cohen says she has as her dream career), and is pitching some pilot ideas to networks. She hopes to get a chance to photograph Broad strokes for a wider release on the streaming platform, and that its iconic venue attracts a few local celebrities. “I would love Sarah Jessica Parker to come and then I would want her to spread the word,” she says. Finally, Cohen is looking for new material for the next show. As her personal circumstances improve—her career is thriving, and she’s planning a wedding—her ideas of stand-up tend to diminish. “For a long time comedy has been about men having sex, and I don’t want to be a disaster just for the sake of the material,” she says. “The real question is, how do I make sure my life is going well, and I’m getting my foot in the door on things that are interesting and funny?”
