By mixing laughs with much-needed representation, the College of William and Mary’s Pink Tax Comedy club lends a distinct take on improvisational and sketch-based humor. The group offers a space for underrepresented gender minorities including women, non-binary people and transgender people in an effort to enhance diversity in the on-campus comedy scene.
The group is less than three years old, formed in the fall of 2022 to fill a gap in representation amongst the College’s numerous comedy troupes. In doing so, they have created a safe space to exercise their funny bones alongside people with shared identities and perspectives.
“I think it’s so awesome to be doing comedy with other women and nonbinary people because sometimes it can be tough to be a woman in comedy,” Vice President Ellie O’Neill ’26 said. “You sometimes feel like you’re forced to play female roles. For example, if you’re doing improv with a guy, you’re going to be whatever female character is in his story and his scene. In Pink Tax, though, you get to play all the roles, and it doesn’t matter who you are.”
In addition to offering a safe space, club member Katie Railsback ’26 finds that Pink Tax’s diverse membership affords the chance to take stereotypical depictions of women and turn them upside down.
“I think part of the fun in performing with other people who are part of these underrepresented genders is that we can make jokes that other people aren’t really in a position to be making,” Railsback said. “Us performers get to take a spin on it. We poke fun at women in comedy as women in comedy and get to reclaim that, as opposed to hearing a man say something like, ‘women aren’t funny.’ I think our audience appreciates that and relates to it as well.”
Pink Tax holds about three performances a semester where they can showcase their skills in front of a live audience.
“It doesn’t feel like an improv show, but more of a variety show,” O’Neill said. “We have songs and all sorts of out-there stuff that people are interested in doing, and we’re down to do it. We’re not putting ourselves in any type of box.”
A large part of these performances is audience interaction. Maggie Walters ’27 is new to Pink Tax this year and loves the feeling of changing how she delivers certain jokes and lines while on stage in order to respond to the way a crowd reacts.
“It’s interesting seeing where people laugh at our jokes and sketches,” Walters said. “I like to adapt while I’m doing a performance by thinking, ‘I noticed they laughed really hard at that bit. I have a similar bit coming up that I’m going to really emphasize to make sure it gets a louder laugh than it might have in rehearsals.’”
Though these performances always contain an improvisational aspect, much more preparation goes into them than most audience members would likely assume. Pink Tax rehearses for about two hours every Sunday and Tuesday to hone their improv skills and make sure they can squeeze as many laughs as possible out of their prewritten sketches.
“A lot of people think you don’t really have to prepare for improv, but we’ll practice and judge what went well and what kind of didn’t, and then rerun a game from there so it feels better,” Walters said. “Obviously, you can’t plan what you’re saying or who you are, but there’s a lot of logistics in terms of how long the improv should go and what order of jokes would be funniest.”
Railsback finds it important that Pink Tax rehearsals can be a welcoming environment where people are willing to try new things in order to constantly improve their craft, even if a joke falls flat.
“When practicing an improv scene, sometimes you and your partner are super uncomfortable, super awkward and it’s not funny at all, but you can do that in a safe space,” Railsback said. “Other people aren’t judging you or going, ‘wow, you suck.’ Instead, you’re able to fail, and from there, people can offer advice and expertise. I think we all try to support each other and lift each other up.”
Besides improv, Pink Tax shows also include a series of sketches written by members. For O’Neill, these sketches are often based on personal experiences that she then molds into something more comical.
“For me, writing sketches usually has to do with little things in life that I think are silly or that I can do a play on words with,” O’Neill said. “You just write a sketch based on humor you find in something, and then you bring it to rehearsal. We then have a day where we edit each other’s sketches, looking out for plot and jokes and how we can tighten them up.”
This process of constant collaboration and rehearsal has turned Pink Tax into a tight-knit group, bonded not only by a love for comedy but by a sense of community as well. The club makes a concerted effort to continue maintaining this sense of community through hangouts, referred to as “Pink Tax dates.”
“We draw a name out of a hat and then you have to go meet up with that person during the week,” Railsback said. “I think it’s a really great way to integrate new people with people who have maybe been in the group for a while. I think all of our newer members are starting to see the effort we’re putting into looping them in.”
For O’Neill, Pink Tax is just as much a friend group as it is a comedy performance troupe, thanks in large part to a shared sense of wackiness.
“It’s people who aren’t afraid to put themselves out there and be a little silly, goofy and make fun of themselves,” O’Neill said. “We’re just a group of friends who sometimes do improv games. People aren’t silly enough in real life, so Pink Tax makes up for that.”
Being such a like-minded group of people has also allowed Pink Tax to form a series of unique traditions throughout its short lifespan, such as bonding over a shared love for reality competition TV shows.
“A lot of us are obsessed with the show ‘Survivor,’ so we do a lot of ‘Survivor’-themed stuff,” Walters said. “We did a ‘Survivor’ show last semester, and we do a lot of ‘Survivor’ improv games. We’re a very ‘Survivor’-geared group.”
The group’s latest performance was a puppet show held Friday, Feb. 28 — yet another chance to highlight their wacky approach to comedy.
“We all made sock puppets that look like each other,” Walters said. “A lot of the show is fully based on where the puppet is or what the puppet is doing. It’s been fun to see how the group adapted to our puppets in the frame of the stage or in adding a second character to the improv.”
In addition to increasingly unconventional show themes, Railsback views the club as constantly evolving, not only in the types of comedy it performs but in the importance of the representation it offers.
“Pink Tax started because comedy here was really male-dominated,” Railsback said. “I’m happy to say that in the present day, all the other comedy groups on campus have a really good distribution with very funny women and nonbinary people. But I’m really happy that Pink Tax was able to lead the charge in that way, and now we can just focus on comedy and supporting each other.”
Pink Tax has two more performances planned for this school year April 4 and 25. They also hold auditions every semester and are constantly looking for new members that bring fresh comedic perspectives to the group. For more information on shows and auditions, visit them on TribeLink or follow them on Instagram (@pinktaxcomedy).
