Valerie Tosi is bringing a new hour to Denver, and she is ready to put this chapter on record.
The Los Angeles-based comedian, actor, writer, and voiceover performer will record her new comedy album on Saturday, October 10, at Dude, IDK Studios in Denver. The night includes two performances, with an early show at 6:00 p.m. and a late show at 8:00 p.m.
The recording follows Tosi’s debut album, Beach Trash, a release that hit No. 1 on the iTunes comedy chart and gave her the tangible body of work she realized she wanted after the uncertainty of COVID.
“I was five or six years into stand-up when COVID hit, and I didn’t know if I’d ever do comedy again,” Tosi said. “I was like, I can’t believe I don’t have an album or a special or something that’s tangible that I could kind of hold in my hands.”
Tosi pressed Beach Trash on hot magenta vinyl, partly because she loves records and partly because she wanted something physical to mark that body of work. The new album comes from a different place. It captures a comedian who has grown since that first release and is ready to move into the next phase of material.
“I’m so excited to record it, because I look back at my first album, and I’m still really proud of that one, but I also can see how much growth has happened since the first one and this one,” Tosi said.
Tosi moved to Los Angeles in 2008 and started at Second City soon after, working in improv and sketch before finding stand-up. She loved those forms, but stand-up eventually became the place where everything clicked. She started at 29 and quickly realized she had found what she wanted to chase.
“I kind of just went really hard in the paint with it,” Tosi said. “I’m somebody that likes to succeed out of spite. If you tell me it’s not gonna happen, or you tell me no, not right now, I will work even harder, and I will haunt your life until I find a way to do it.”
That energy runs through the way she talks about the new hour. After recording a first album, Tosi had to confront the strange reset that comes with comedy. A musician can keep playing the hits. A comedian usually has to build a new hour from the ground up.
“When you build your first hour, it takes a really long time to do it,” Tosi said. “That was five or six years of work. Holy shit, now I have to start all over.”
For this album, Tosi gave herself a timeline and worked the material into shape. She writes heavily from experience, pulling from family, anxiety, aging, relationships, everyday absurdity, and the strange moments that only become funny after they have already caused some damage.
The new set still connects to themes from her earlier work, but Tosi said it feels sillier, more relaxed, and more comfortable in its own rhythm. Part of that shift came from learning to slow down onstage and actually enjoy the performance while it is happening.
“Sometimes when I’m nervous, I’ll rush, and I’ve realized that about myself,” Tosi said. “You’re doing this for you, too. You have to have fun with it, and if you’re not having fun, then the audience isn’t having fun.”
That relationship with the audience is one of the things Tosi still loves most. She likes watching where a room reacts, where people surprise her, and which jokes end up connecting beyond what she expected. One bit about getting a sports massage unexpectedly found its own audience with massage therapists, recovery businesses, and people who immediately recognized the exact kind of discomfort she was describing.
“The clips that you think are gonna go viral don’t, and the clips that you think aren’t gonna do anything are the ones that go crazy,” Tosi said.
Tosi has also spent much of her career creating space for other comedians. She founded Mermaid Comedy Hour about a year into stand-up after seeing how often women were left off lineups or treated like a scarcity problem instead of a booking problem. In the show’s first year, she intentionally avoided repeat bookings and featured more than 100 women in Los Angeles alone.
Mermaid Comedy Hour is now approaching its 11th anniversary and has a long-running partnership with the Hollywood Improv. Its 10th anniversary celebration included Chelsea Handler and Atsuko Okatsuka, and the show continues to serve as both a comedy platform and a response to the imbalance Tosi was seeing when she first started booking it.
“The amount of lineups I still see that don’t have any women, or have one woman, it’s crazy,” Tosi said. “Now, still?”
That broader view of the industry shapes how Tosi talks about comedy right now. She sees the opportunities in clips, social media, podcasting, and independent releases, but she is also realistic about the pressure that comes with those tools. Comics are expected to write, perform, tour, post, promote, and somehow keep a room full of people excited enough to buy tickets in an expensive entertainment economy.
“The comedy itself and creating has to also be enough at a certain point,” Tosi said. “You have to love what you’re doing, you have to love the work that goes into it.”
After the Denver recording, Tosi has more ahead. She is scheduled to tape a comedy set in Chicago and is also set to appear on Comics Unleashed. Mermaid Comedy Hour is also headed to a festival in Atlanta, adding another chapter to a show that has grown alongside her own work.
For now, Denver gets the next major step in a live album recording built from a new hour Tosi has worked hard to finish, refine, and finally capture. The set arrives after Beach Trash, after Conan, after a pandemic that interrupted the entire live comedy world, and at a point where Tosi sounds ready to close this chapter and start writing the next one.
“I knew I was ready to put something else out,” Tosi said. “I’m also kind of ready to put a lot of this stuff to bed. As daunting as it is to create a new hour, I really like this material, but I’m ready to dive in and start hashing out some new stuff.”
Valerie Tosi records her new comedy album Saturday, October 10, at Dude, IDK Studios in Denver. The early show begins at 6:00 p.m., with a late show at 8:00 p.m.
Get tickets for the 6:00 p.m. early show here.
Get tickets for the 8:00 p.m. late show here.
Listen to Valerie Tosi’s debut album Beach Trash here.
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