Where Are They Now?: Sunny Laprade 18F Makes Comedic History

Up first is Hampshire alum Sunny Laprade 18F, who we highlighted just over three years ago when she presented her Div III project, a one-hour comedy special called Queer Enough, which is still available to watch on YouTube. Her career has thrived since she graduated, and we caught up with her to find out more.

How did you get started in standup comedy?

I started standup when I was 15. I come from a really small college town, and the father of one of my childhood best friends was in charge of student activities at the school. He knew I was interested in comedy, so he gave me the opportunity to open for touring comics who would be performing. From 2015 to 2018, I opened for Ben Rosenfeld, Rob Gleeson, and Jamie Lissow, then headlined a show at the college in my senior year of high school — my first time ever doing an hour of comedy. (I bombed, and I pray that there is no footage of that event.)

My love of comedy started even before that. I was constantly listening to “Standup Radio” on Pandora (remember Pandora?) during middle school, including during class. In 2014 I got tickets to see one of my favorite comedians, Hannibal Burress, live. He ended up having to cancel the show at the last minute because the Bill Cosby stuff happened, so his friend John Mulaney took over instead. I was a huge Mulaney fan, having fallen in love with New in Town, which had come out two years earlier. At one point Mulaney used me for crowd work, and something I said got a big laugh . . . I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.

Why did you choose Hampshire? Did you plan to concentrate on comedy from the beginning? What did that entail?

I only applied to five colleges, and I was accepted to Emerson, Columbia College Chicago, and Hampshire. Columbia was significantly more expensive, so that was pretty quickly ruled out, narrowing it down to Hampshire and Emerson, as they gave me the same amount of financial aid. I chose Hampshire for two reasons. First and foremost, I could tell that my mom liked it more because of how highly our tour had emphasized students’ love of their professors, and second because I balked at the idea of committing so hard to a career in the arts. I figured that Hampshire would allow me to explore my other interests and perhaps find a more stable, lucrative career. I didn’t end up doing that, but having the option to change what I wanted to study midway through was very reassuring.

I knew I wanted to study comedy from the jump, and pursued that pretty immediately. This meant taking any type of humor theory class I could get my hands on from across the Five Colleges, among them one at Smith, one at Amherst, one at UMass, and a graduate-level independent study I took at UMass as a sophomore. I also took theater classes to help my delivery and stage presence, creative writing classes to strengthen my writing, and politics and sociology classes to bolster my understanding of the outside world.

Were any particular professors, advisors, or staff members especially inspiring or supportive? In what way?

My Div II advisor, Will Ryan, was a tremendous influence on the way I think about writing, and my Div III committee, Viveca Greene and John Slepian, helped shape my Div III project into what it became. Additional shout-outs to Susana Loza, whose readings helped me understand how to game social media algorithms, which has been unbelievably helpful to my career, despite probably not being what they wanted me to take away from that class; Stephen Dillon, whose readings helped me to better articulate my relationship to my queerness and transness; and especially Hope Tucker, who taught me to take my art, which is deeply unserious, seriously and forced me to develop a consistent creative practice that I use to this day and helps set me apart from other people in my field.

What did you learn, do, and create at Hampshire that continues to resonate with you today?

Hampshire is unique as an institution in the sense that you get out of it what you put into it. Students who are passionate, dedicated, and hardworking can leave Hampshire with more knowledge and experience, as well as a more compelling portfolio, than they can get at basically any other college in the country.

Being self-directed forced me to hold myself accountable, because if I wasn’t pushing myself to create work I was proud of, it simply wouldn’t get done at all. I take my work incredibly seriously; I view it as an art and approach it as such, with a consistent, defined, intentional practice. I think about the impact of my jokes beyond whether or not they make an audience laugh. In addition, my Div III project, Queer Enough, has gotten me some truly unbelievable career opportunities post-grad. Hampshire made me a more well-rounded artist as a performer, writer, producer, director, and even just generally as a hard worker.

Students who are passionate, dedicated, and hardworking can leave Hampshire with more knowledge and experience, as well as a more compelling portfolio, than they can get at basically any other college in the country.

How did you get to where you are now from where you were during your last interview here, in 2022?

By the time I graduated, my comedy had already gained me a mild to moderately large following online . . . not a crazy amount by 2026 standards, but in the 1800s I’d have been a very successful warlord. I used that platform to promote the independent release of Queer Enough, with clips from the special gaining well over 8 million views on social media, and the special itself has over 22,000 views on YouTube, which led to it be named one of "6 Queer Comedy Specials That Will Restore Your Faith in The Craft," by Autostraddle magazine.

Unfortunately, soon after that, videos of me were posted on a bunch of alt-right platforms. (If I ever get posted on FOX News, I’ll know I’ve hit the big time!) Those videos garnered more than 16 million views and caused me to take a big step back from social media. During the time I was less online, I started getting my essays published and working as a staff writer on Late Stage Live and later on Going Down With Ella Yurman, where I still work. I also produce T4T Comedy, New York’s largest all-transgender comedy show, which hosts monthly shows at Metropolitan Bar, in Brooklyn, and has sold out The Bell House multiple times, breaking records for the largest transgender comedy show of all time.

T4T has been featured in Brooklyn Paper, as well as Autostraddle, and my solo work has been featured in The Boston Globe. I won a MOTH StorySLAM right after I graduated, and two years later I won a MOTH GrandSLAM. I’ve also been touring all over the country, headlining colleges as well as venues such as The Carlson, Vulcan Gas Company, and The Rockwell. A feature film script that I wrote is in preproduction, and my new hour of comedy, Trans! At the D.M.V., is touring the country as we speak. (Check out sunnylcomedy.com for tickets, and join my mailing list to be notified when I’m coming to your city — or book me to perform!)

Trans! At the D.M.V. is about love, the price of infamy, and what happens after you come out. This follow-up to Queer Enough is a hilarious and heartfelt answer to the question everyone gets after making a huge change in their life: “Now what?” It turns out that sometimes the answer is that you still have to get up, go to work, call your mom, and make appointments at the DMV.