The up-and-coming Philly comedian you should know
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Rekha Shankar, middle, onstage at Dropout Panel Changer during New York Magazine's Vulture Festival. Photo: Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vulture
Rekha Shankar is Philadelphia's smartest comedian — and if you're smart, you'll remember her name.
Why it matters: Shankar is among the nation's biggest up-and-coming comedians to watch — one "you should and will know," per Vulture's 2024 list.
Driving the news: Shankar hosts streaming service Dropout's "Smartypants," where comedians present PowerPoints on farcical topics like how vegetables aren't real and which cartoons should be invited to "the cookout."
- The show wrapped filming on its second season last month and is expected to debut in early 2025.
- Consider the format "the smartest way to convey a dumb idea, or the dumbest way to convey a smart idea," Shankar tells Axios.
How she got here: Shankar, the daughter of Indian immigrants, moved to Philadelphia from Connecticut when she was 9.
- In high school, she attended medical research camp at the University of Pennsylvania, hoping to become a doctor. But she quickly realized that wasn't her calling.
- "The idea that someone like me could be somebody's doctor and be so ambivalent about it, I was like, 'That's scary,'" she told Axios. "'You're doing this thing that could save my life because your parents wanted you to? Oh, my god.'"
Soon after, she was introduced to improv comedy while attending New York University's Tisch School of Arts.
- She met classmates who had performed at the Philly Improv Theater, known as the "PHIT" — a world she says she missed out on because her "high school was super-academically focused."
- After college she joined an improv troupe. And having grown up loving television shows like "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," she imagined a future as a comedy writer.
But her path was full of rejection.
- Her improv troupe got booted off the stage by a group of rowdy high school kids who were expecting a magician.
- Her YouTube channel, where she'd post comedic bits she edited on iMovie, had no subscribers.
- And a script she wrote for a pilot show that got rave reviews from people she trusted was ultimately rejected.
The time Shankar did get in front of producers, they immediately asked unrelated questions about her experiences with racism.
- "I'm like, 'I just met you. What are you trying to mine weird, sad stories out of me to see if I'm viable to add to your diversity slate?'"
Yes, but: She waded through the muck, and it eventually paid off.
- Shankar, who now lives in Los Angeles, landed gigs as the executive story editor for Andy Samberg and Neil Campbell's "Digman!" on Comedy Central and as a staff writer for "Animaniacs" on Hulu.
- She has been a regular contributor at Dropout — a platform that allows her to flex her bingo ball machine of a mind, popping out the most random, cerebral thoughts with ease.
- And she's played roles on hit shows like HBO's "Hacks."
The bottom line: Those early struggles — rejected projects, depressing nights editing true-crime programming, dead-end jobs with titles like "junior assistant editor" — make Shankar's rise that much sweeter.
- "You have to fail 850,000 times first, and then you realize each one of those times you lived," she says.
Her advice to young comics: "Don't say no to yourself. Let other people do that."
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that Shankar joined an improv group after college (not during).