Paula Poundstone: Aspen welcomes wit with acclaimed comedian 

Stand-up comedian Paula Poundstone will perform from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 29, at the Wheeler Opera House, and the tickets are going fast. 

With 46 years of comedy under her belt, the iconic Poundstone seems to have done it all: touring at theaters around the country with her stand-up, voice acting in movies, having her own television show twice, penning books, hosting podcasts, and more.

Yet, at the heart of it all, she’s a stand-up first and foremost, and it’s her quick wit,_, improvisational style, and genuine connection that win the hearts of audiences again and again.

“My favorite part of the night is just talking to the audience,” she said, “I do the time-honored, ‘Where are you from? What do you do for a living?’ And in this way, little biographies of audience members emerge, and I use that from which to set my sails.”

She enjoys the audience as much as the audience enjoys her, partly because it helps her refine her jokes and hone her craft.

“Telling a story or anything in front of an audience is like bowling with those gutter bumpers. You have something saying, ‘No, not here. No, that’s too far to the left,'” Poundstone said.

Some people have a performance mode and an “on” switch, but she is the type of person who comes up with sparkling one-liners in any conversation because that’s who she is. 

Despite being one of the top-tier comedians of her generation, she is disarmingly approachable, down-to-earth, open-minded, and an activist.

She’s a comedian’s comedian, greatly admired by her peers. Famed comedian Margaret Cho noted to The Aspen Times how Poundstone is one of her biggest inspirations, and NPR host Peter Sagal has been quoted online calling her, “the funniest human being I have ever known.”

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Poundstone’s comedy career started in 1979, when she performed at open mics in local clubs in Boston before heading to the San Francisco comedy scene a year later. By the early 1980s, she began appearing on late-night talk shows like “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night with David Letterman.” 

Earlier this year, she was a guest on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

In 1989, she won the American Comedy Award for Best Female Stand-up Comic. Then, in 1990, her first HBO special, “Cats, Cops, and Stuff,” made her the first woman to win a CableACE Award for stand-up.

She went on to report live from national political conventions and from the backstage of awards ceremonies, like the 1993 Emmy Awards, and she has been credited with setting the standard for reporting for future award shows. 

Poundstone has also performed at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen several times over the years. In 1992, she performed there despite other celebrities boycotting Colorado due to Amendment 2, proposed anti-gay legislation.

“Aspen has their head on straight,” shse said of town at that time.

She chose to use all of her earnings from that show to buy billboards to protest the discriminatory legislation.

Her most recent scheduled performance at the Wheeler, in 2020, was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The multifaceted performer is also an author, having penned “The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness” in 2017. She became a semi-finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor and a finalist for the AUDIE Award for Audiobook of the Year.

She’s also voiced animated characters, including Forgetter Paula in the well-received movies “Inside Out” (2015) and “Inside Out 2” (2024). It’s one of her goals to do more animated projects in her future.

“I’m really pleased I got to be in those, even in the smallest of roles. I wouldn’t care if they just had me in one and I only got to just gasp; I would still consider it an honor,” she joked.

Currently, the Los Angeles-based Poundstone is playing theaters across the country, hosting a weekly comedy podcast titled “Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone” and is a panelist on NPR’s “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” 

Through it all, she continues to consider stand-up “the greatest job in the world,” and after nearly five decades, she’s as passionate as ever about making people laugh. 

“I’m so lucky to still be doing it,” she said.

The Wheeler Opera House is located at 320 E. Hyman Ave. For more information and tickets, visit TicketsforPaulaPoundstone.