The roaring laughter of a packed house cuts through the crisp January air at The Red Museum, as Shahera Hyatt and co-host Mike Cella guide the audience through the opening segment of The Latest Show, a monthly live comedic talk show. Hyatt says she performs an average of 14 shows per month.
Hyatt’s lifelong inclination toward comedy traces back to when she was a kid writing “Home Improvement” fanfiction. She started out hosting a weekly open mic at the Sacramento Comedy Spot in early 2016, before helping launch The Moving Van Show that June, an under-the-radar traveling comedy show that hosts monthly pop-ups announced via social media.
The Latest Show has been around since May 2017. “I want to create iconic Sacramento institutions of comedy … Something that people will reflect on years from now as something that made it feel special for them to live in Sacramento.”
Sacramento has a ton of well-attended open mics offering ample stage time for comics to hone their craft, Hyatt says. But, she adds, only about a dozen women are active in the circuit.
She’s often the only woman in a lineup of 20-plus comedians. However, she notes, “The women doing comedy in Sacramento are some of the best comedians in Sacramento, period.”