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Olivia Taylor hopes to combine teaching, comedy to encourage girls

Fourth-year comedian Olivia Taylor has tutored children through the Incarcerated Youth Tutorial Project at UCLA. After graduation, Taylor wants to become a television writer, but eventually hopes to merge her passions of teaching and comedy with a summer camp for young girls. (Max Himmelrich/Daily Bruin)

By Natalie Green

June 8, 2015 12:18 a.m.

Olivia Taylor has written about failing a class, peeing her pants in Powell Library and being caught faking a New Zealand accent.

Taylor, a fourth-year sociology student, said all of her funniest short stories are drawn from her worst experiences at UCLA.

“There needs to be a voice for that,” Taylor said. “(For) letting people know that it’s okay to not like college.”

Today, Taylor writes at least an hour every day and tutors children with the Incarcerated Youth Tutorial Project at UCLA. After graduation, Taylor said she is looking to become a television writer but eventually hopes to merge her passions of teaching and comedy with a summer camp for young girls led by powerful female role models in the comedy world.

However, Taylor said she still feels new to comedy, only beginning to publish her stories while at UCLA. In her own writing, Taylor said she roots her stream of consciousness storytelling in honesty, and recently, much of Taylor’s writing focuses on how she falls outside of the sorority girl college stereotype.

“I think that true comedy is when you find the kernel of something that is super honest and super relatable,” Taylor said.

Originally from Connecticut, Taylor said she came to her first year at UCLA with the California laid-back stereotype in mind – and found it to be true. Taylor said she didn’t feel like people understood her East Coast self-deprecation.

Taylor, who joked about her writing abilities peaking in her fourth grade journals, said she used this sense of not fitting in as fuel for her writing. Comedy gave her the opportunity to air her frustrations in college and with people her age, Taylor said – first creating a satirical travel blog while abroad in Rome her third year and then joining the staff of Satyr, UCLA’s comedy magazine, this past fall.

“Satyr has given me that group of friends that are just as sarcastic as I am,” Taylor said.

Aliya Kamalova, a third-year global studies student and editor in chief of Satyr, said Taylor will send Kamalova up to 10 untitled Google documents of stories and articles every week in addition to the staff-assigned pitch.

“She has the most creative pieces that she submits based on her daily experiences,” Kamalova said.

A long-term goal for Taylor is combining comedy with her other passion: teaching. After working with special education students in high school and volunteering with IYTP at UCLA, Taylor said she wants to help young girls find what she didn’t develop until college – a voice through comedy.

“In site-opener activities about current events, (Taylor) helps keep it light for the students,” said Jason Gosschalk, a third-year biochemistry student and assistant director of IYTP.

Taylor said her ultimate dream is creating a summer camp for women in comedy. While Taylor said the network she found in Satyr helped push her to do things that scare her, like stand-up and improv classes, she envisions providing that network for girls at a much earlier age to help them accept their insecurities.

Growing up, Taylor said she felt like she was constantly apologizing for being too loud, but now she embraces this part of herself. She looks up to female comedian role models like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, but said women are still the minority – comedy remains a “boy’s club.”

“I just want to give girls that first step to use their voice, and then I know they’re going to use it on their own,” Taylor said.

As she begins to put in motion a new satirical YouTube video blog, Taylor said she is in the process of narrowing down exactly what her brand of comedy is going to be. In the meantime, Taylor is working on a collection of short stories based on her UCLA escapades from the perspective of a unicorn, called “Uni of California, Los Angeles.”

“My first two years here were kind of a mess, and now I’m coming out wishing I could stay for another year,” Taylor said. “But I think that’s kind of how it works – you hate it up until the moment you leave.”

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Natalie Green
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