Today we’d like to introduce you to Erin Gonyeau

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?

I’m a writer, actor, and comedian based in NYC and my story starts when I was in sixth grade and first joined the drama club in middle school. As a shy kid, I didn’t speak much or very loudly until I got on stage for the first time. After I performed in my first play, I found my desire to be heard that was fulfilled by being onstage. It was then that I made the decision to pursue a career in theatre. I took classes, auditioned for every school play, and (of course) went to theatre camp one summer. Acting became my absolute favorite thing. That is, until I took my first creative writing class during sophomore year of high school. I fell in love with writing too and realized I was pretty good at it so I continued to take every creative writing class offered throughout the rest of high school. I really have to thank my teacher for all of those classes, Vicky Nordland, who not only encouraged me to keep writing and helped me improve, but also encouraged us all to take risks, submit to contests, and share our writing with the world. Because of these classes, I cultivated this passion for writing and gained the bravery to put myself and my work out there, even when it’s terrifying. After high school, I went to college for acting and continued taking writing courses. While I was there I took a sketch comedy class, which is how I discovered my love for comedy. Because of that class, I took more courses on song parody writing, stand-up, and improv. These all truly scared me, but they also made me feel more alive than ever. So after college I moved to NYC and began taking more comedy classes at the Peoples Improv Theater and UCB, which lead to more opportunities to write and perform. Today, I co-host/ co-produce a monthly, live dating game show called “Love is Live”, I regularly write and perform in sketch shows, and I just went to the Austin Film Festival this year for a comedic TV pilot I wrote that made it to the second round of the contest.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

The road to get to where I am now (and the road I’m still heading down) has had plenty of bumps along the way. This business is tough both practically and mentally. I once had a professor tell us during one of my acting classes that, “If you can see yourself doing anything else (career-wise), you should do that. You’ll only make it if you want it that badly.” And now I understand where he was coming from with that. There have been so many moments where I’ve questioned whether this is the right move for my life or if I’m actually good enough to “make it”. Those moments can be really hard, especially because there is no way to know if the moves I’m making are the right ones. The thing that helps me get through those periods the most is reminding myself of how much I love this work and how there isn’t anything else I’d rather be doing instead. So I will make it work, despite how hard it gets. There have been and will always be plenty of rejections as well. I didn’t get accepted to any of my top college choices, which felt like a huge kick to the gut at the time. It felt like maybe I was wrong about choosing an acting major because these colleges were telling me I wasn’t good enough. But, the college I ended up going to was the right choice for me. They made it clear that really wanted me, and without going to this school, I may not have had the opportunity to cultivate my passion for comedy in the same way. There will be more rejections, self-doubt, and other bumps as I keep moving forward, and they’re not fun, but they help me grow and get stronger, and they make the wins feel a lot more rewarding.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

I would say that I’m most known for my comedic writing (sketch comedy in particular), and my live, dating game show, “Love is Live”.
My style of writing is very observational and often has themes of anxiety, dating, and awkwardness. I like to write about my own experiences, while taking it to the extreme to make it funny, and hope that it’s relatable to other people. For me, it’s therapeutic to write about my anxieties, fears, and bad dates, and by sharing these sketches I’m of course hoping people laugh, but I also would love if other people felt seen and less crazy for feeling these things too. I also really enjoy using horror as a lens for some of my sketches, particularly the ones about anxiety. I would love to someday write my own televised sketch comedy show that’s a mix of “Black Mirror” and my brand of comedy.
“Love is Live” is one of the accomplishments I’m most proud of. When we first began running that show, it was one of the scariest leaps I’d taken because it was my first time as a producer, host, and game show creator. I had no idea what I was doing. But we have a great team on this show and once we jumped in, we jumped all the way in and the show took off really quickly, and we’ve had great success with it. The show continues to grow as we do, and each of our comedic personas get to really shine through it.
I don’t shy away from a challenge and often seek out the projects I’m most scared of because I find those to be the most rewarding. I tend to use my fears to fuel my writing and performing, which keeps me on my toes and makes everything feel a bit more exciting.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?

We’ve already seen a lot of shifts in the industry lately and one that I think will definitely continue to change is taste in humor. It seems like generally people are gravitating towards more absurd and quick humor, as we see from comedians like Tim Robinson. I think social media and the current state of our world has influenced this in a big way. We’ve collectively been through so many historic and incredibly difficult events just within the last ten years and I think this evolution of humor is partly in response to that. People like haunted houses because they enjoy facing their fears in a way that feels safe and fun. To me, that’s how comedy can be. The world feels a bit absurd these days, so we’re gravitating towards absurd comedy because it’s a way for us to feel safer around that feeling of chaos, while also providing brevity and laughs during darker periods. Social media has also shortened our attention spans, which has led to us enjoying shorter sketches and other forms of comedy. Vine and then Tik Tok especially aided in this with the short time-limits they originally had for videos. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this trend continue, along with the style of humor continuing to evolve and mirror responses to historic events, even more rapidly than in the past.
I also think the way to “break into” the industry has shifted quite a bit because of social media and advancements in technology. There used to be a few clear paths of how to get into show business, but now there are so many more ways to break in. This is because sharing content with the world is much more accessible to many people, who might not have had the resources to do so before. Instagram Reels and Tik Toks have launched careers for influencers, creating a new path to working in show business that didn’t exist before. I think within the next five to ten years, there will be another content-sharing app that skyrockets in popularity and creates new opportunities for creatives to find a spot in this business. Regardless of what specific changes we’ll see as time moves forward, the one thing I’m very sure of is that we will always continue to need comedy in our lives.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://eringonyeau.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eringonyeau/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@eringonyeau

Image Credits

Caroline Pace, Stephanie Jacobson