Page Hurwitz moved to San Francisco to come out, and in the process found love in her life and laughter in her career. Now she’s moving to Los Angeles, where she has two TV comedies in development, but not before she performs in Funny Girlz: A Smorgasbord of Women’s Humor on June 9 at the Herbst Theatre.The transplanted New Yorker had been working at the San Francisco Tennis Club when friends pushed her to perform at an open-mike night at Josie’s Cabaret. “It sounds so corny,” she said recently, “but I got out on the stage and felt so at home. I knew it was exactly what I should be doing with my life.”That was three years ago, and within days, Hurwitz had committed herself to a life as a comedian. She’s worked steadily, both in gay and lesbian situations, and with general audiences who find that her openness about being a lesbian doesn’t mean material that is narrowly focused. Hurwitz considers her comedy something of a hybrid. “Any comic uses some observational humor,” she said, “but mine isn’t observational in the tradition of Jerry Seinfeld. ‘Don’t you hate it when you get peanuts on the airplane…’ I think for the most part I’m an anecdotal comic. I tell stories, personal and humiliating stories, and then weave in observational stuff. I build digression into my routine, and that allows me to be a little more spontaneous.” Sometimes she’ll digress into a mention of her girlfriend or some other gay reference, and even for that she must pay a price. “As soon as you start talking in your act about the fact that you’re gay, and even though it may not be the focus of your act, you’re immediately funneled into certain venues,” she said. “I find that sort of annoying. However, I never considered not coming out.” When Hurwitz moved to San Francisco from New York six years ago, she was so ready to come out. “When I got here,” she said, “I was constantly walking around with, like, smoke machines at a disco, because it was just such an amazing time and just to feel free and liberated and do things I had never done before.” She has been together with her partner, a San Francisco attorney, for four years. “We were both dating other people when we met and we became best of friends, so we had a really good foundation when the time came when we were both single,” Hurwitz said. Her impending move to Los Angeles will force them into a dual-city relationship, at least for a while.
