Nikki Glaser, on tour coming to Fox Theatre: 'It's gonna mean something' (2024)

After paying her dues both locally and nationally, comedian Nikki Glaser reaches what may be the pinnacle of her career with a tour coming to the venerable Fox Theatre.

Glaser headlines at the Fox on April 27 as part of her “The Good Girl Tour,” her first appearance since a 2022 show at Stifel Theatre.

She knows the Fox Theatre isn’t the largest venue in St. Louis where comedians have performed. A-listers from Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle to Kevin Hart to Adam Sandler have packed the much larger Enterprise Center and “that would be cool some day.”

“But that's not my goal. I don't feel like that's a comedy venue. I think that for me, the Fox is just as meaningful,” says the 2002 Kirkwood High School graduate, who left her New York City home early in the pandemic to move back to St. Louis, where she currently lives.

Glaser has performed locally at the Factory, Stifel Theatre, the Pageant and before that the Funny Bone and Helium Comedy Club.

“The reaction you get when you tell people you're performing at the Fox Theatre, it's a next-level response.”

Additionally, she points out, the Fox Theatre has a certain historic importance to St. Louis some of the other rooms don’t.

There’s also the memories she associates with the Fox Theatre, such as seeing a screening of “Pocahontas” in the fifth grade that proved key. A news channel was there interviewing people in front of the theater, and it marked her first time on television.

“They asked how I liked it, and I lied and said I loved it. I always wanted to be on TV at that point and be seen. It was an unmet childhood mood. I got that fulfilled that way. It wore off immediately.”

More recently, she saw the touring Broadway musical “Funny Girl” there with her mother, and before that opened for Tom Segura there in 2022, when she got a sense of the room for the first time from a performer’s perspective.

“It felt so large and so intimate at the same time,” says Glaser, who never allowed herself to dream that one day she would headline there. “To think I’m gonna be here, and it’s going to be filled up. This is a big achievement, and it’s gonna mean something.”

Glaser, who lives near the Fox Theatre, says she sells more tickets in St. Louis than any other city. She loves that she can perform here and see people from her exercise class or neighborhood coffeeshop or grocery store.

“I feel like I’m performing for people who root for me,” she says.

She calls the new tour “an honest take on my life and how it is right now,” on brand for Glaser, whose stand-up shows bask in how personal they are. She's known to focus on everything from her boyfriend to her parents to her body parts and sex life.

“I’m turning 40 June 4,” she says. And with that she’s exploring new things about herself including what that means emotionally. What stands out about it for her is she’s not feeling like an adult yet.

“I don’t own a home. I don’t have a car. I have a boyfriend of 10 years. I have an apartment, and a career that’s unstable. The joke is I haven’t settled yet. But people tell you to never settle. Which is it? I’m someone who has never been comfortable with that. I feel the pressure more than ever,” says Glaser.

“I still don’t want kids. I don’t want a family. I took my money to freeze eggs and bought Taylor Swift tickets,” she says.

Glaser says coming out of COVID and getting back to normalcy still doesn’t feel normal to her. She struggles with depression, intimacy, jealousy and envy, and she explores that on stage.

“It’s not a message of hope. It’s more of a grappling with the fact I don’t know if I love myself. Most people can relate to that. It’s more of me just being honest with the things I bring on stage, things I probably thought I’d never reveal to anyone,” she says of the new material.

She’s closing the St. Louis show with a special music performance, further flexing those chops she started honing a few years ago. Her band will be made up of St. Louisans including her vocal coach Michael Rocchio, who’ll play bass. Her father E.J. Glaser is on guitar, and she hopes her mother Julie Glaser will sing backing vocals.

Tim Convy, the brother of her boyfriend, Chris Convy, will open. He’s a stand-up comic, a member of St. Louis band Ludo and and radio personality at 106.5 the Arch.

In addition to the tour, Glaser has a new, just-announced comedy special titled “Some Day You’ll Die,” out May 11 on HBO. The special looks at the idea that “most things suck and celebrating that, knowing when you get down, some day it’ be over. Death. Most fear it. I look forward to it.”

She taped the special in December, and it’s her second HBO special following “Good Clean Filth” in 2022. There’s overlap between the material from the special and what she’s delivering on the road, though because she’s been on the road since the taping, she says the jokes are even better now live.

While on the road, Glaser is seeing the premiere of her new show “Lovers and Liars” which she hosts. The dating reality show debuted April 11 on the CW, and is a spin-off of her “FBoy Island” with a gender flip. It was originally titled “FGirl Island.”

“FBoy Island” ran for two seasons on HBO before it was canceled, then relocated to the CW where its third season aired.

The original concept was about a trio of women seeking love from a group of men while at a tropical locale. Half of the men are looking for love as well; the other half are “FBoys,” men just looking to be paid and seeking TV exposure. The women are tasked with weeding out who’s who.

Flipping the focus from trio of women looking for love to a trio of men works from the standpoint “people wanna see girls.”

“Are they there for the relationship or are they there for money? It’s so funny. It’s a comedy show,” she says of "Lovers and Liars," which pulls from “Bachelor in Paradise” and “Love is Blind.” “I’ve been dying for people to see it. It’s all fun, and I know when something is really special. Things happen you’ve never seen before.”

The new show was filmed last summer in Malibu.

Meanwhile, the fate of a fourth season of “FBoy Island” is uncertain.

“Let’s be completely honest. ‘FBoy Island’ was huge with HBO. Then it went to the CW and no one watched. People didn’t know how to find the CW, and it didn’t do well, and that’s OK. There are a lot of things to watch and it’s truly a great show.”

She laments her E! reality series “Welcome Home Nikki Glaser?,” on which she starred with her parents and boyfriend, was only given a single season. She misses it, and believes the show, which looked at her life since she returned to St. Louis, could have found its footing and viewers if given time.

“It takes a season for normal people (like her family) who aren’t dying to be on camera to adjust to being on camera,” she says, figuring many TV series take a least a couple of seasons to really catch on. And if a show isn’t a hit right out the gate, it’s discarded.

“TV is too treacherous right now. It didn’t get a chance. It’s sad.”

But that doesn’t mean it’s the last time you’ll see Glaser and her loved ones together in a reality show format.

“I still think there’s a future in which my life and the people around me will be fodder and entertainment for people,” says Glaser, adding her “naturally funny” parents are a hit when she includes them in her Instagram content.

“There’s more that I can give in that realm. There’s layers I’m still uncovering.”