TikTok star Leah Rudick brings ‘Wealthy Woman’ and stand-up to Tacoma Comedy Club
Comedian Leah Rudick’s favorite place to perform her brand of stand-up, crowd work and viral social-media characters is the Pacific Northwest.
“Because it’s, like, weirdos,” she explained in a phone interview this week with The News Tribune. “Those are my people.”
Rudick is bringing her jokes, characters and lively back and forth with the audience to the Tacoma Comedy Club for four shows Dec. 20-21.
The comic and actor has quickly risen to the upper echelon of comedy. Her comedy special “Spiraling” is on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+, and she has more than 1 million followers on TikTok and Instagram. She might seem like an overnight sensation, but it came after 18 years of sketch comedy and stand-up, Rudick said from her Los Angeles home.
Going viral
Rudick’s career blew up during the pandemic when her side jobs (assistant, baby sitter, waitress) dried up. With time on her hands, she began posting short videos of characters she created.
“It was really life changing for me,” she said. She’s now wracked up 30 million likes on social media.
One character, known only as “Wealthy Woman,” has gotten the most attention. Wealthy Woman travels via private jet from her villa in St. Tropez to the mundane places the rest of us inhabit. Like a giddy anthropologist making first contact with a primitive culture, she breathlessly recounts her adventures at dollar stores, campgrounds, Denny’s restaurants, office parties and “a place called Ohio,” all while wildly misinterpreting them.
Another, Joannie, recounts tales of dates gone wrong with fast-food workers. Still another character, the Love Coach, offers relationship advice that no sane counselor would give.
“(Wealthy Woman) is definitely the character that gets the most traction, and definitely the one that I’m the most known for,” Rudick said. “But I feel like Joannie is really coming up. She’s a little bit weirder, so it’s taken a minute for her to kind of catch on.”
The show
While Rudick will perform her set in Tacoma, her show includes a good deal of crowd work (interacting with the audience.)
“It keeps the performance exciting for me, and it forces me to be present as opposed to just going through the jokes that I’ve done so many times and being on autopilot,” she said.
Expect to see her characters on stage as well.
“I usually bring Wealthy Woman on at the end, and she does sort of a (bit) tailored to whatever city I’m in,” Rudick said. “It’s always fun to write something new based on where I’m going.”
Rudick’s work attracted the attention of comic Kevin Nealon, who filmed a recent episode of “Hiking With Kevin” with her.
“I was quite nervous to do it, but he is so kind and warm and lovely,” she said. “He immediately put me at ease, and I just laughed the whole time.”
If you go
Who: Comic Leah Rudick
When: 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. Dec. 20 and 21.
Where: Tacoma Comedy Club, 3829 6th Ave.
Tickets: $22.50, $27.50.
Information: tacomacomedyclub.com, 253-282-7203, leahrudick.com
This story was originally published December 14, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
