As Mary Beth Barone takes to the stage at Union Hall in Brooklyn, NY, it’s hard to believe she ever planned to be anything but a comedian.

But when Barone came to Boston College in 2009 with a side part and several bandage dresses in tow, she saw a simpler path for herself: study English, enjoy the quintessential college experience, get her degree, and become a teacher. 

Two years later, after a handful of blackouts, a crisis of faith, and an acid-induced ego death, she dropped out.

Barone went on to make a name for herself in the world of standup comedy with her signature deadpan delivery and barbed wit. Planted on the stage at Union Hall, she holds the microphone close to her chest with both hands, almost in a prayerful clasp. This feigned church-mouse restraint serves as a kind of foil for the sardonic quips that leave her audience in peals of laughter.

Barone’s comedy career has led her to features on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, creating and co-hosting a podcast, producing her own standup special, and, most recently, starring in the Amazon Prime Video and A24-produced TV comedy Overcompensating.

But despite her natural inclinations toward comedy, Barone didn’t begin this ascent until her mid-20s. Before she was Mary Beth the comic, there was Mary Beth the sheltered pragmatist, devout-ish Catholic, and school teacher in training.

Barone grew up in Stamford, Conn., on a diet of Chris Farley and Adam Sandler movies. As the youngest of six in a big Catholic family, she also grew up contending for attention by trying to out-funny her siblings.

“Humor was a big currency in my family growing up,” Barone said. “Even before I started doing comedy, I think just being rewarded for being funny, especially as a woman—I feel like I didn’t know how rare that is.”

Barone added that her father, who died last month, orchestrated this family dynamic.

“Teasing and making fun of each other and being sarcastic and dry humor is a big way that we express love in my family, which we definitely get from our dad,” Barone said. “Our dad was, sort of, de facto in charge of cultivating our sense of humor.”

When it came time to start applying to college, Barone’s criteria was simple. She wanted somewhere in the Northeast, on the smaller side, within driving distance of home, and preferably without Greek life. BC fit the bill.

“It felt like a lot of kids from my neighborhood and area went there and sort of thrived,” Barone said. “I was also still Catholic at the time, so the idea of going to a Jesuit university was appealing to me.”

Barone’s reasons for choosing BC were uncomplicated—as was her worldview at the time.

“Even though I did four years of public school, I was still pretty sheltered,” she said. “I would say I was very naive at that point, and I didn’t have a firm understanding of how the world works.”

Barone can still vividly remember the day she she got into BC. Sitting down for an AP U.S. Government exam, she felt her pink Samsung flip phone buzz in her pocket. She slyly pulled it out and checked it to see a text from her dad, informing her that a “big letter” had arrived from BC.

“So I went over to the window in the middle of a test, and I called my dad, and ‘I was like, can you open it?’” Barone said. “And he opened it, I got in, and I left school. I just walked out.”

High on life, she strutted down to the parking lot and hopped in her car to go celebrate. Feeling perhaps a bit too invincible, she then committed her first party foul as an Eagle.

“I ended up backing into a parked car in that exact moment,” Barone said. “I was so excited that I literally hit a car. I screamed. I got out of my car. It was a senior parking lot, so I waited for the seniors to get out of class, and then I told the girl whose Audi it was, ‘I hit your car, and here’s my insurance information.’”

Barone moved into Keyes South in the fall of 2009 lugging suitcases stuffed with Seven For All Mankind Jeans, Ralph Lauren polos, and Juicy Couture zip ups. With a “really good fake ID” in one hand and a bottle of Rubinoff Vodka in the other, she was determined to make college the best four years of her life. 

These plans were cut short, however, when she was caught Busch Light–handed in Vanderslice Hall on night one and sent to alcohol compliance training.

“They were like, ‘Don’t do that again,’” Barone said. “‘It’s, like, your first day.’”

Barone said she doesn’t remember much about her time spent in class at BC, but she remembers the parties. And taking more than her fair share of Eagle Escorts home from the parties. And the time she overindulged at one of the parties and had to be carried home to her dorm by a family friend named Gordon, whom she’s been meaning to thank. 

But while she might not remember which core requirements she earned or the names of her professors, that’s not to say her time in the classroom didn’t leave its mark. In fact, by the time she left BC, Barone hardly recognized the version of herself who had shown up to Keyes South.

“Taking Perspectives completely blew open my worldview,” Barone said. “When you’re taught the Catholic doctrine for your whole life, and then you find out about other religions and also philosophy itself, it just makes you realize this is not the end all be all.”

With her worldview expanding, BC started to feel smaller. While she had made a handful of meaningful friendships, she couldn’t help but feel as though she didn’t fit into the snobbish social hierarchy many of her peers opted into.

“I’m sure that was also just the people that I was exposed to,” she added. “But while my thoughts about the world were changing and growing, I felt like the people I was around were staying the same.”

At the same time, she was questioning whether or not her degree was even worth paying for.

“Being in so many English classes and not reading the books and still getting A’s, I was like, ‘Why am I paying all this? Why am I having my parents pay this?’” Barone said.

These doubts and hesitations culminated with a trip to Indio, Calif., a tab of acid, and “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.”

“I went to Coachella with my older boyfriend and all of his friends, and I did LSD, and Kanye West was the headliner—you know, he who shall not be named—and I just remember sitting on the ground during that performance, and I was like, ‘I think I want to go down a different path,’” Barone said.

When she came back and talked to her Structure of the Universe professor—who “definitely seemed like he did LSD all the time”—about her ego death and thoughts of dropping out, he cautioned her against it.

“He was like, ‘Well, be careful with the decisions you make on drugs—not finishing college is kind of a big deal,’” Barone said.

His hesitation all but cemented the plan.

“I was like, ‘Says you who’s teaching the science class everyone takes to fill their requirement but is about stars,” Barone said. “And I was just like, ‘I gotta get out of here.’”

When she told her parents they were “gonna need to cancel that Foster St. off-campus housing deposit,” they supported her pivot and helped her start planning her next steps.

“Although completing four years at BC didn’t work out for me, it’s such an important part of my story, and it got me to where I am today,” Barone said. “So, I have no regrets about going there. I think it helped shape me as a person and open my mind in ways that I definitely didn’t expect.”

From there, the path to becoming a standup comedian wasn’t linear. She kicked off her new chapter with a job at Sephora, flirting with the idea of becoming a makeup artist—”just seeing what the vibes were with that”—before eventually landing an entry level job at eyewear company Warby Parker and moving to a Chinatown apartment in New York City.

“I think I was the 50th employee that they hired,” Barone said. “I do consider Warby one of the elements of my college experience, just because everyone there was so young, and we just felt like we were on top of the world.”

It was also during this era that, in between nights out at Balthazar and Botanica Bar, Barone set her eyes on comedy—more out of curiosity than ambition.

Smoking a joint with her boyfriend one night, she got a Twitter notification that a fresh roster of improv classes had opened at the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB), the iconic comedy club and school co-founded by Amy Poehler, BC ’93. She quickly signed up for the first one she could.

From day one, it was a natural fit.

“I remember the classes were just so much fun,” Barone said. “I just was really excited to go to improv class every week.”

After experimenting with improv for a while, she decided to take a crack at standup and signed up for her first open mic night—an all women’s event with plenty of fellow comedians in the audience to cushion the blow if her jokes bombed. But they didn’t.

“And that was the night that changed it all,” Barone said.

Each joke landed and struck the audience with genuine, hearty laughter. It was a brief two minute set of mostly filth that Barone declined to recount on the record.

“I don’t think that could be published in the BC newspaper,” Barone said.

The second stand up performance she gave was in a less welcoming room of almost exclusively men, where she was sobered up by her first quiet audience. But by that point, it was too late—she was already hooked on stand up.

Barone, whose Instagram bio wryly states “female comedian,” said that while social media has made the world of comedy more democratic and opened the door for more women and LGBTQ+ personalities, there are still times she walks into a venue and can tell the audience is already checked out.

“I own it because I think, to me, it’s a privilege to be a female comedian,” she said. “I think there’s way more women doing comedy with a unique perspective than straight guys. We just see the world in so many different ways.”

From there, things began to take off. Barone continued to book gigs, gradually making a name for herself in the New York and Los Angeles comedy scene. By 2019, she even scored a coveted spot at Clusterfest, Comedy Central’s three-day festival in San Francisco, Calif.

At that point, things were going so well that comedy had become Barone’s full time job.

“I was living in an apartment that was within my means, so I was like, ‘Okay, I think with the income I’m getting from comedy, I’ll be able to support myself,’” Barone said.

Then the pandemic hit, comedy clubs everywhere shuttered, and Barone came back home to her family in Stamford—a privilege she’s quick to acknowledge.

“Everything I’ve done in my career, I’ve been able to do because I am privileged,” Barone said.
“I knew if all else failed, I have this support system, so I do want to acknowledge that too—that it all feels very safe for me, because I won’t end up on the streets.”

Despite the roadblocks presented by a global lockdown, the pandemic years proved to be a productive few for Barone. For one, she made her debut on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in March 2021.

“It was their first stand up set they had back in the studio since the pandemic, and only half the crowd was there because they couldn’t do the full room because of restrictions, but it was so surreal and so, so much fun,” Barone said. 

She also launched a podcast called “Obsessed” that year with her best friend and creative partner, Benito Skinner.

She and Skinner met when they both performed at a comedy show in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and found a mutual love for one another’s comedy styles—his over-the-top and physical, hers unflinchingly dry. 

They met again not long after at a comedy show in a thrift shop, where they performed “for people and also clothes,” and the two began to collaborate.

“It really just grew from this desire to hang out with each other more,” Barone said. “And now he’s one of my best friends, so I feel really lucky, because it’s a very isolating industry, and it’s rare that you find people who you’re just as happy for good things happening to them as you are for yourself.”

Their podcast “Obsessed” had a 50-episode run as a Spotify original before ending and relaunching as “Ride” with Dear Media in 2023, where Barone said she and Skinner are given near complete creative control.

Since its inception, the show has gained a cult following of fans who dubbed themselves the “Baronies.”

“Benny was totally cool with it, because he said if we ever got married, he would take my last name,” Barone said. “So we just were like, ok, Baronies. It stuck.”

They were even able to tour a live show to meet their fans and perform interactive sketches with callbacks to jokes from the podcast (or the “Ride cinematic universe,” if you will).

“It’s been really beautiful to watch it grow,” Barone said. “I guess it has reached the right people, because it’s so many women and so many gay men and members of the LGBTQ community who just want to have fun and be goofy and be silly and dumb.”

While the podcast brought her more security and recognition in her comedy career, Barone hasn’t slowed down. In March 2024, she self-produced and directed her own standup special, “THOUGHT PROVOKING,” debuting it on Youtube and returning to Fallon for another standup set to promote it.

She also pushed her acting career into full swing with Overcompensating. Written by and starring Skinner, the show is a semi-autobiographical tale of his college coming out story, starring Barone as his sister—a role he insisted she play from the moment the show was greenlit.

“He was kind of like, ‘She’s doing it, so she’ll audition as much as you want, but I’m not gonna go to set if it’s not being played by her,’” Barone said.

Four auditions ended up being the magic number, and then they were off to the set. 

Skinner graduated from Georgetown in 2016, and Barone said certain parts of Overcompensating played into their shared Jesuit university experience—namely, the architecture.

“It was supposed to be this Gothic sort of architecture and feel grand,” Barone said. “When you’re a freshman at college, it feels like the biggest place in the world, but then you go in the dorms or in the dining hall, and it’s, like, kind of crappy.”

Since its debut on May 15, the show has received critical acclaim, with a 93 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 72 percent weighted average rating on Metacritic.

As she starts her set at Union Hall, Barone warns the audience that she will try her best but might not finish if she begins to feel emotionally overwhelmed. It’s her first time back behind a microphone since the death of her father, and the audience offers her a heartening round of applause as she begins.

She’s also testing out some new material and isn’t sure if all of it will land. The cozy venue sold out quickly, meaning most of the 100 some-odd seats are devout “Baronies” who—much like the women at her first open mic—will laugh no matter what.

But also like that first open mic night, the jokes land—each one strikes the audience with authentic, lengthy fits of laughter.

Barone sinks into her rhythm and works through a set of understated quips about everything from the political state of the world to her sex life (she’s not yet lost her taste for ribaldry), and, yes, her dad.

“It felt good,” Barone said, sitting in one of the seats of the cleared out venue after the show. “I’m always anxious before shows, but with all the personal stuff going on, it was definitely an added element. So it’s good to have that first one done.”

In the immediate future, Barone has comedy shows lined up through the rest of the summer, more episodes of “Ride” to record, and, fingers crossed, a second season of Overcompensating to film at some point.

In the long term, she is holding steadfast in her goal of delivering BC’s commencement address one day and receiving an honorary degree. She is very serious about this.

When she looks back, Barone is happy with the choices she’s made—to drop out, to take risks, to try things, fail, and succeed.

“I don’t know why I was so comfortable taking a huge risk when I was 19, but I’m really glad that I did,” Barone said. 

Still, she wouldn’t recommend a career in comedy. In fact, unless it’s “the only career for you,” she would actively advise against it, emphasizing that the comedy industry is rigid, slow moving, and full of roadblocks.

“For a level-headed, logical individual, it can be extremely frustrating,” Barone said. 

If you can swing it, you should probably finish the degree and become a teacher, by Barone’s deduction. But despite being a level-headed and logical individual herself, the conventional route was never an option for her.

“In my special on YouTube, I talk about my grandma having a premonition when she was on her deathbed,” Barone said. “I was five when she died, and she said, ‘Mary Beth is at the foot of the bed, and she’s on a stage, and she’s telling dirty jokes and using vulgar words.’”

Barone didn’t learn this pertinent bit of family history until several years into her comedy career. 

“I think it was destined to happen, and that in every universe, for better or worse, I’m a comedian,” Barone said.