In 2019, Sunanda moved to Australia and quickly set their sights on the Melbourne comedy scene. Fast forward to this year and a Best Newcomer Nominee at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Sunanda is ready to take on the Fringe Festival with their show Sunanda Loves Britney about how a decade long obsession with Britney Jean Spears led to an awakening and understanding of who they are.
Arriving with no contacts and being a queer Indian woman, Sunanda faced some initial hurdles to break the ice and make those valuable connections and introductions but she got lucky in finding her people and her audience. "I just moved here and had no network of artists to collaborate with so at first the Melbourne comedy scene felt limited and gatekeepery but I gradually met the right people and worked with different groups with different aesthetics and comedic styles which have informed and sharpened my own perspective. I’ve made friends in stand up, clown, theatre, impro, and sketch comedy. Compared to LA where I was doing lots of sketch and some impro, it’s definitely a smaller scene on the whole, but there are still artists pushing and melding genres," they tell me.
Arriving with no contacts and being a queer Indian woman, Sunanda faced some initial hurdles to break the ice and make those valuable connections and introductions but she got lucky in finding her people and her audience. "I just moved here and had no network of artists to collaborate with so at first the Melbourne comedy scene felt limited and gatekeepery but I gradually met the right people and worked with different groups with different aesthetics and comedic styles which have informed and sharpened my own perspective. I’ve made friends in stand up, clown, theatre, impro, and sketch comedy. Compared to LA where I was doing lots of sketch and some impro, it’s definitely a smaller scene on the whole, but there are still artists pushing and melding genres," they tell me.