If Phoebe Robinson ever ends up in the hospital, it will only be for one reason—she broke her hip while having sex with Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. Even though they’ve never actually met, she plays out this imaginary scenario on a recent episode of 2 Dope Queens, the WNYC podcast she cohosts with Jessica Williams. It’s now more possible than ever for her to be half of a power couple with the Rock, she says, because now she’s got some powerful credentials of her own: she’s a New York Times best-selling author, for her book You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain; in addition to 2 Dope Queens she hosts the podcast Sooo Many White Guys (also on WNYC); she acts alongside Kevin Bacon in the upcoming Amazon comedy I Love Dick; and she still maintains an active stand-up career. Forget the Rock, Robinson is doing just fine on her own.
Onstage Robinson chats about her dating history, the weight she gained in her vagina, and her hairstyle choices (Afros make her feel important, she says, “like Frederick Douglass”) with an endearingly upbeat energy. She also lightheartedly addresses gender and race: she feels bad for her white friends, she jokes, because if their kids become astronauts, no one will care. But if Robinson’s future daughter goes into space she’ll end up on a Black History Month stamp. “I’m going to mail out my rent check with her face on it,” Robinson says. “That was Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.”
On Sooo Many White Guys Robinson features other people in the comedy world who aren’t white men. It’s fitting, then, that she’s in town performing on Tomorrow Never Knows’s ladycentric lineup, alongside fellow headliners Michelle Wolf and Beth Stelling.
Phoebe Robinson Sat 1/14, 7 and 10 PM, Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, tnkfest.com, $20, early show sold out.