Natalie Palamides always grabs your attention, whether she’s portraying the iconic, eye-rolling Mara in Progressive commercials or lending her voice to beloved animated characters like Buttercup in “The Powerpuff Girls” or young Esther in Netflix’s “Haunted Hotel.”
Her unique vocal style, blending Aubrey Plaza’s dry wit with Natasha Lyonne’s husky tone, creates a fascinating mix of excitement, naiveté, and sharp disinterest. Her exceptional acting versatility and quick adaptability are key to her success, especially in voice acting. Matt Roller, creator of “Haunted Hotel,” once described her as a “Rolodex of emotions,” highlighting her broad expressive range.
Despite her achievements, Palamides remains humble. “I feel incredibly lucky to earn a living by making strange voices, something I’ve enjoyed doing since childhood,” she shared in a recent interview.
Yet, much like her performances, this introduction is a playful diversion. It’s truly on stage that Palamides shines brightest. Her shows are a wild ride—hilarious, boundary-pushing, delightfully disorienting, and subtly profound. Each production is a masterclass in controlled chaos, with Palamides diving headfirst into the most outrageous and unexpected moments.
Now, the 35-year-old Los Angeles-based writer and performer, Palamides, is making a significant splash in New York. Her 2024 show, “Weer,” marks the first extended engagement at the newly refurbished Cherry Lane Theater. This Off Broadway gem, now under the ownership of A24 (the acclaimed studio behind hits like “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Moonlight”), is a major platform. Such is her rising star power that “Weer” was extended even before its previews began, and its run, through November 9th, is completely sold out.
“Weer” is a playful nod to romantic comedies, a genre Palamides openly admits is her favorite. The play kicks off dramatically with a couple, Mark and Christina, caught in a heated argument on New Year’s Eve 1999. The narrative then gracefully rewinds three years to reveal their charming first encounter and the blossoming of their relationship.
Adding a bold stylistic twist, Palamides performs as both characters, her costume and makeup meticulously divided down the center from head to toe, reminiscent of the iconic villain Two-Face. One half of her embodies the mustachioed Mark, initially clad in cargo pants and a flannel shirt, while the other transforms into Christina, sporting a pink top, low-rise jeans, and voluminous 90s-era hair.
And yes, as you might expect, there’s even a sex scene.
While it undeniably sounds outrageous, “Weer” is a direct evolution of Palamides’s earlier work, particularly “Nate: A One Man Show,” which gained wider recognition through its 2020 Netflix special. The New York Times’s Jason Zinoman aptly called the live version of “Nate” “a startlingly unusual creation,” a description that equally applies to “Weer.”
In “Nate,” Palamides portrays the titular character, a mustachioed “bro” in an open flannel shirt, using the performance to boldly tackle themes of masculinity and consent. Nate’s interactions often involve him approaching audience members, subtly gesturing near their personal space, and asking a deceptively polite, “May I?” The show’s central tension builds around a deeply unsettling encounter with his art teacher, Miss Jackson (a store mannequin brought to life by Palamides’s puppetry), culminating in a deliberately uncomfortable conclusion.
“I adore those moments where the audience is roaring with laughter one minute, and the next, I pull the rug out from under them,” Palamides explained. “Whether it’s through shock, fear, a touch of sadness, deep emotion, or pure enchantment, there are endless ways to shift between intense humor and raw feeling.”
True to her style, “Weer” is a tragicomedy. “I envisioned a violent car crash at its core,” Palamides revealed. She recalled the 1960s hit “Last Kiss,” famously covered by Pearl Jam in the late ’90s, a song her aunt often played. “I was always captivated by its imagery of a man cradling his love as she bled out,” she added, highlighting the profound emotional inspiration.
This dynamic interplay between humor and sorrow is central to the art of clowning, a craft Palamides deeply respects—so much so that she feels she hasn’t yet earned the title. “I might have a touch of imposter syndrome,” she confessed. “Everyone else sees me as a clown, and it’s a role I truly aspire to embrace fully.”
Palamides’s calling began early in her Pittsburgh childhood. She remembers how, in middle school, classmates would often stop her to request performances of various characters. However, this natural talent didn’t immediately translate to formal clowning, as she discovered in a class at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Witnessing her struggles, her professor, Rick Kemp, issued a stark warning: “If you can’t be vulnerable and truly open yourself up, you’ll fail clowning.” Palamides noted the irony, as the essence of clowning is often to embrace failure. “Failing clown would have been a win, in a way, right?” she mused. Nevertheless, she dedicated herself to breaking down her emotional barriers and ultimately earned an A.
Her theatrical journey deepened when the Philadelphia-based Pig Iron theater company held a residency at her college. This experience allowed her to delve further into theater’s power to present a diverse array of characters. She eventually contributed to Pig Iron’s production of “I Promised Myself to Live Faster,” a play inspired by the life and works of legendary New York writer and performer Charles Ludlam.
“It was there that I truly found my passion for drag,” Palamides recalled. “The workshop, mirroring Charles Ludlam’s style, had us all portray characters of the opposite sex. We explored the delicate balance he struck between camp and deeply moving emotional resonance.”
However, Palamides didn’t remain with Pig Iron. After graduating, she moved to Los Angeles with her partner, where she began voice acting in animation. More significantly, she joined John Gilkey’s “Idiot Workshop,” which she identifies as the birthplace of LA’s vibrant alternative clowning movement.
Audience interaction is a cornerstone of Palamides’s clowning style. She crafts her performances through live improvisations, expertly reading audience reactions and weaving them into her unique theatrical universe. For instance, in her debut show, “Laid,” she depicted a woman who lays an egg daily, facing the poignant choice of consuming it or nurturing it.
Remarkably, Palamides doesn’t work from a script. While her performances are verbally and physically precise, she avoids traditional rehearsals. “It’s simply too much effort to go through for no one,” she explained. Her shows are truly transformative; by the end, the stage often appears as if a whirlwind has passed through, with props, debris, and liquids scattered everywhere.
“It’s captivating to witness her intentionally create impossible scenarios for herself on stage, pushing boundaries to a genuinely perilous degree, only to masterfully navigate them anyway,” shared fellow clown and comedian Courtney Pauroso in a phone interview. (Pauroso and Palamides previously collaborated on the series “The Broadcast,” currently seeking a streaming platform.)
“I enjoy surprising audiences,” Palamides confessed, “and perhaps it’s a bit of a low-brow tactic. I sometimes feel like a ‘hack’ comedian because much of what I do—like nudity, fire-breathing, or wrestling—leans on shock value.”
However, this confession felt more like a routine disclaimer from an artist whose performances offer insightful commentary on themes like gender and are meticulously crafted to explore the very nature of humor.
During our chat at Wild Cherry, the Cherry Lane restaurant, Palamides meticulously illustrated her method for perfecting physical comedy. She deconstructed a fleeting moment—Mark placing his hand on Christina’s arm as she attempts to exit—demonstrating how subtle variations in performance can dramatically alter audience reception. “Even tiny micro-movements can make a huge difference; it’s incredibly specific,” she noted. Her collaborator, Bill O’Neill, encountered this precision when she directed his show “The Amazing Banana Brothers.” He recounted how, after agreeing to receive notes publicly, Palamides interjected almost instantly, saying, “We don’t quite believe you—try another entrance!”
“For the next hour, I performed about 30 different entrances,” he recalled. “Throughout the show, I was also falling on numerous banana peels, and she’d pick them up and hurl them back at me, urging, ‘Faster! Faster!'”
Despite the rigorous demands, he holds no resentment. O’Neill now stars as one of the pink-lingerie-clad assistants in “Lady Magic,” a show Palamides envisioned and directed as a Las Vegas residency. This comedic exposé of boastful magicians had a workshop run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August and is currently being developed with Spiegelworld, the creative force behind spectacular productions like “Absinthe” and “Discoshow.”
“Lady Magic” incorporates many of Palamides’s signature elements, including the playful handling of a soft rubber prop. However, it’s further distinguished by her unwavering commitment to integrating genuine magic tricks. “Everyone teased me because I kept insisting it needed to be more magical,” she recounted.
For Palamides, the artistic journey is defined by relentless experimentation and boundary-pushing. This was vividly showcased in a surreal episode of the Apple TV+ series “Gutsy,” which focused on comedy and brought together Palamides, Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and the renowned French clown Philippe Gaulier. In a notable moment, Chelsea Clinton even allowed Palamides to reenact the provocative “May I?” scene from “Nate,” playfully touching her breasts.
Ultimately, one can never truly know what will resonate until it’s put to the test.
“In every performance, there’s always space for playful exploration, and crucially, always room for failure,” Palamides mused, sharing her core philosophy. “That, truly, is the spirit of the clown.”