Daily life brings plenty of laughs for Lipscomb professor
Assistant professor of film Brinn Daniels Heidebreicht is a stand-up comedian who plumbs her own life for her on-stage routines.
Janel Shoun-Smith | 615-966-7078 |
Brinn Daniels Heidebreicht is a typical wife and mother of three, living in a Nashville suburb, and she thinks that is really quite funny.
Her life may look average on paper, but for her, daily life with a husband, kids and a job teaching at Lipscomb is comedy gold!
The assistant professor in the cinematic arts program is also a producer with the Clean Comedy Collective and a local stand-up comedian who brings laughter to audiences by riffing on growing up, online dating and motherhood. In September 2023, she was the winner of the Nashville Comedy All Stars Clean Comedy competition.
While involved in entertainment and film production throughout her career, Daniels didn’t add “comedian” to her resume until after the Covid-19 pandemic.
She came to Lipscomb by way of New York University's (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts and the University of Southern California's graduate film program. She has been a freelance director, cinematographer and editor for 22 years and moved to Nashville to work in production 16 years ago.
2019 was a big year for Daniels: she became an adjunct professor at Lipscomb’s George Shinn College of Arts & Entertainment, she was dating her soon-to-be husband and she decided to take the plunge into stand-up comedy.
“I had always loved comedy,” she said. “I was around a lot of comedy at NYU, but I was too scared to try. Then, when I got into my 30s, I thought, Well, it’s now or never! I don’t care what others think of me, I’m gonna do it.”
She and her then-boyfriend enrolled in a local comedy course, but of course, in an ironic twist, the pandemic put her comedy dreams on hold. However, she kept working on her routines, getting bookings where she could, and in 2023, her comedy side hustle began to take off.
“My schtick is about family life and growing up in Florida, online dating, funny things about being a parent and stories about my upbringing,” said Daniels.
In the comedy class she took at Nashville’s Third Coast Comedy Club, she learned how to set up and refine punch lines, how to find her comedic voice and how to explain funny stories using as few words as possible.
“It’s really just about picking the right words,” she said. “You never know what will work for an audience.” So comedians try version after version with audiences, refining particular jokes, until they get the big laugh, she said.
“I run all my jokes by my kids,” said the mother of a 15-, 13- and 10-year-old. “So my older two have a lot of input, but my youngest is upset that I don’t have enough jokes about her, so we’re working on a few more. I have a rule in my house: If it’s funny enough, you won’t get in trouble, and I can have that rule because my kids are so sweet.”
“You do need to have a pretty thick skin, and not care too much what people think of you,” she said of the comedy biz. “You have to be ok with criticism and adaptable enough to change your material when needed.”
In fact, she has to be adaptable on stage, mid-performance, changing which jokes she offers—whether it’s mid-life dating to family jokes or online dating to working out jokes—based on what she sees in the audience. “If I see a lot of gray hair in the audience, then I know I’m doing Mom jokes tonight,” she chuckles.
In addition to Third Coast, Nashville has various producers who represent and book comedians for venues and events all over town, said Daniels. She has performed in venues throughout Nashville, in Alabama and elsewhere in Tennessee, plus churches often come looking for clean comics for various events, she said.
Daniels is committed to taking the high road in her on-stage act. “I like the challenge of trying to say something that is funny without shocking the audience,” she said, but she also works to be a Christian example backstage with her fellow performers.
“In performing in general, there are a lot of broken people and people who have been hurt by the Church,” she said. “My goal is to be that person in the green room who is a Christian and isn’t judging other people but is hoping people will open up to me when they are ready.”
