[title]
It’s after 2 o’clock in the afternoon when we hook up with Brittany Brave, and she’s just finishing up breakfast at Mamey in Coral Gables. She polished off a coffee, a mimosa, coconut water, tuna tostones, and grilled cheese bites—all with the desperate hope of beating the hangover.
Having just barely answered the phone, she’s already apologizing profusely for sleeping through multiple alarms and jumping on the call late. “I don’t know what I was thinking scheduling a 10am Monday phone call.” You can’t blame her. The night before, 31-year-old Brave had headlined the Miami Improv for the first time, all part of what seems to be a major moment for this homegrown comedienne.
In the past year, Brave has racked up headlining spots and accolades including being named by the Miami New Times as the city’s best comedian. Is this officially a thing? “Um, yeah, I am afraid—well, first off thank you for saying that—but I’m afraid to use language like that,” Brave says. “You never want to jinx it, and you never want to think you’re ahead of where you are.”
Up until recently, she was a starving artist. “Sometimes literally starving,” she says. And as such, she doesn't want to ruin things. Brave grew up in west Kendall, the only child of a cosmetologist mom and sales manager dad. Her parents remain the funniest people she knows, she says, and she figured out early on that she loved making them laugh. Some of her earliest memories are of standing in the middle of the room at get-togethers and doing impressions of her family, something that’s still solidly in her act.
A month after graduation from the University of Florida, Brave headed to New York City to do publicity for the music industry and try comedy on the side. Three years ago she had a “come to Jesus moment” where she realized she hated doing publicity and jumped full-time into comedy. When the pandemic hit and shows dried up, Brave headed back home.
“Not to get all Eat Pray Love, but all things happen for a reason,” Brave says. “A lot of times we’re running from ourselves, and when I got back home to Miami, I realized this is where I belonged.”
Once comedy shows started happening again, Brave began putting together an hour of comedy that she’s focused on perfecting. That’s her goal, for now: a tight, hilarious hour-long show. Or there’s always Plan B. “Oh god. Five years from now? I want to retire and have a sugar daddy. I’m kidding. I’m tired,” she says with a raspy next-morning laugh. “I just need to tighten that hour, and then hopefully everything else falls in place.”
There was a time when living back home in west Kendall might have felt like a step backward, but Brave says she’s just enjoying this moment she’s having—and also soaking up the material she gets from her family. “Oh yeah, my parents? I did 15 minutes on them last night.”
