
Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne Draw (and Roast) Each Other
Episode 4 | 11m 50sVideo has Closed Captions
Tig Notaro & Stephanie Allynne are The Drawing Room's first married couple.
Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne are The Drawing Room’s first married couple — they skip Mo entirely and draw each other instead. Between bits about their decade of marriage and “unhinged” parenting, Tig opens up about Come See Me in the Good Light, her Sundance-winning documentary on poet Andrea Gibson’s final year, and what it taught her about facing death without fear.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback

Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne Draw (and Roast) Each Other
Episode 4 | 11m 50sVideo has Closed Captions
Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne are The Drawing Room’s first married couple — they skip Mo entirely and draw each other instead. Between bits about their decade of marriage and “unhinged” parenting, Tig opens up about Come See Me in the Good Light, her Sundance-winning documentary on poet Andrea Gibson’s final year, and what it taught her about facing death without fear.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Where to Watch The Drawing Room with Mo Welch
The Drawing Room with Mo Welch is available to stream on pbs.org and the PBS app.
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- I didn't realize your forehead was so big.
- Well, you do have such a tiny face, you know, and I think I've gotten too wide.
- What do you mean tiny?
- You have a small head.
- I have some notes too.
- You are my first guests that are here together drawing each other.
So what's gonna happen is you two will perceive each other and I'm gonna sit here and draw a cartoon of you.
And then I can also see your canvases to see what you're doing.
- Okay.
- And do you know how to draw?
- I, only cartoons.
- Okay.
- Do you guys have a background in drawing?
- I was a child in preschool.
- Okay, okay.
- I always got really negative feedback and so I stopped.
- Well, I've seen her art and that makes sense.
- Have you guys ever improvised together?
- I don't do improv.
- I would love Tig to do improv with me, but she says that, that she doesn't do improv.
But Tig actually is really good at characters.
And she can actually go really big and broad, but she won't ever do it in public.
- Like what kind of bits do you do that you are okay to share?
- We do people who talk to one another.
Married couples that come home and just say things like, hi, how was your day?
- Honey, I'm home.
- Hi.
- Hi, how was your day?
- It was great.
- [Tig] Wonderful.
- How was yours?
- It was great.
- Did you have a nice lunch?
- I did.
Thank you for making my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
- I wasn't sure if I put too much peanut butter on it, but.
- You did, but it was a nice treat.
- Okay, well next time I'll try.
- I have a call to make, good night.
- I feel like there's so, like when you're in a funny relationship, like you guys are in.
- A funny one?
- Yeah, funny, it's very funny.
I'm like, you have to escalate the bits.
- Yeah.
- Over the years.
Like it's not as easy to make Sam laugh, if I'm being honest.
So you have to take.
- I noticed that with your shows too.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
It's getting harder and harder as the years go by.
- [Mo] It's hard.
- To make people laugh.
- [Mo] It's really hard.
- No, Mo is somebody where like every time I see you, I'm like, geez, you are good.
You're good at this.
- That's nice.
- [Tig] There's a lot of people that aren't, Mo.
- Now that you've been together, can you imagine being with somebody who's not hilarious?
- Well, Stephanie, when we first got together, she was like, I don't need to be with a funny person.
- Yeah.
- Like I could never be with, like it's number one.
- [Stephanie] Yeah, same.
- I mean, when women throw themselves at me, I just think.
- [Stephanie] On the road.
- I know my wife is funnier than you.
Yeah, and I just have to keep moving.
I want to apologize ahead of time.
- I'm staring at you, but it's really not looking like you.
- This already looks like you haven't showered in months.
- Is this how it is to be on a date with you guys?
I feel like I'm on a date.
- Well, we don't go on dates with a third person.
- [Mo] Oh, you don't?
- No.
- [Mo] Okay.
- We are monogamous.
- Yeah, I am as well.
- [Tig] Are you?
- Yeah, I just like to, I mean, I like to go on dates, but I don't let it go to first base.
- Are you athletic?
Is that why you're using sports?
- [Mo] No, it's because I knew that you guys know a lot about baseball.
- Tig goes to the games, but she doesn't know what's happening.
- Everyone directs all of their sports talk to me because I have, I'm the lesbian with the short hair, but I can't have the conversation.
I didn't realize your forehead was so big.
But here we are.
- Our daughter was like, has told Sam, you need to go to art class.
You need to practice art.
- [Tig] Yeah.
- And she says, I need to practice singing.
- Well, Stephanie doesn't know the difference between different animals.
So that's been an interesting part of getting to know her over the years, these past 13 years.
If a cow isn't black and white with spots.
- I know the cartoon version.
- Yeah, she only knows cartoon versions of animals.
- I mean, that's a good chance for the, we have something called a quick draw on this show.
- Is it happening right now?
- So it's happening like this moment.
You'll have one minute to draw from memory a cow.
- Oh.
- Uh-oh.
- The minute starts now.
- [Tig] Oh boy.
- I love its polka dots.
Why don't you see?
- This is borderline disgusting.
- Tig, you produced "Come See Me in the Good Light", which for the audience, would you mind explaining what it is?
- It's a documentary about my old friend poet Andrea Gibson.
It's basically Andrea's last year of life and, you know, people get scared to watch it because of course it's, you hear like it's a poet with stage four ovarian cancer.
And then when you watch the movie, you actually learn that it's more about life than it is about death.
And people tend to have a feeling of urgency after watching it.
Like I need to make some changes in my life.
It's really, really beautiful.
- And it won Sundance?
- It did, it won Sundance.
It won a Peabody Award, a GLAAD Award.
It was up for a Oscar.
- It was one of the first films in such a long time where I was deeply moved by it.
- I think Andrea had quite a gift.
Unlike.
- I was just.
- What's happening here today.
- Well, you do have such a tiny face, you know, and I think I've gotten too wide.
- What do you mean tiny?
Like not proportionate.
- No, just.
- [Tig] To my body?
- You have a small head.
- I have some notes too.
- Don't you think like doing that documentary and then your special, it's sort of like when you go towards tragedy and you're doing something that really kind of goes directly at death.
You kind of strike the same chord as you do when you're doing comedy and straight comedy, is that people are looking, they're struggling and they're looking for those places to either laugh and enjoy themselves or talk about those things.
It's like the same group of people as your audience, but all of a sudden you're talking about the actual thing as opposed to like, oh, we're giving you an escape.
- A lot of men really connect with it for some reason.
Like when we screened it at Sundance, this man that looked like he probably just turned off the Joe Rogan podcast stood up and was like, everybody needs to see this movie.
- I think men really deeply fear death.
And so that movie is like death is here and it's okay.
- Yeah.
- And you can like live your life not in fear of death.
And I think there was something like really calming to a lot of men around their fear of death.
- Right.
- Which women, I think, also enjoyed in the film, but I don't know if that was their main takeaway.
- You know, you get the sense, well, like comedy feels very of the moment, not as evergreen.
But when you're watching Andrea's poetry or reading it, you're like, this will live on forever.
- Yeah.
So will this art.
- Well, this will live forever, yes.
- [Tig] Yeah.
- Who's the stricter parent?
- This is mostly what I do.
I say, guys, uh-uh.
- And that works?
- [Tig] Yeah, so far.
- I feel like Tig and I are both.
- Unhinged.
- Unhinged, easygoing, but then on the things where we're not, we're really not.
- I am so much more of a helicopter parent than I thought I would be.
- I didn't realize how so much of it when they were younger is all about safety.
- Yeah.
- And that humans will kill themselves if not, if left to their own devices, like.
- It feels unbelievable that my mom got five kids out of our childhoods.
- [Stephanie] It's, yeah.
- Because I'm like, there's, I mean, I rarely remember anyone watching over us.
- My mother would like toss us into the pool when we were six months old and chat with people as she was having a drink and they'd be like, Susie, what about?
And she's, oh, they're fine.
They're like little fish.
And we're like bobbing in the water and she's painting the back of our house.
She'd put us to bed, go out for the night.
I remember riding around in the back of pickup trucks, drinking Barq's root beer out of a bottle, like flying over railroad tracks.
I would not do that with my children.
This, I have to say, looks like my ex-girlfriend.
- Have you ever thought about quitting comedy?
- Always.
- Always.
- Improv, stand-up, yeah.
- Yeah, I don't think about anything else.
- Everybody wants to quit it at some point.
And then something great happens right as you're at rock bottom.
- Like what is your end goal?
'Cause my end goal is gardening.
- Oh, really?
Have you started at all?
- No.
I don't have time.
I have to drive out to Burbank to draw my wife.
- I'm gonna show mine first.
Just keep in mind my ink was running because I used the wrong pen, so I'm gonna redraw this for you.
But this is.
- [Stephanie] Wow.
- [Mo] I'll show you that.
- [Tig] Is there a cow in there?
- [Mo] Yeah, there's a few.
- [Tig] You recreated?
- [Mo] Yeah.
Tried to put two little ones too.
- What does it say at the bottom?
- I'll love you 'til the oddly drawn cows come home.
Stephanie, I feel like you should come over to Tig first.
- [Stephanie] Okay.
- Yeah.
- Ready for me?
- I love you.
I love you.
- [Stephanie] Oh, wow.
- She loves it.
- [Stephanie] I love it.
- [Tig] I love it too.
- [Stephanie] Thanks, Tig.
- Yeah.
It's how I see you.
- Yeah.
- What a beauty.
- Okay, now Tig come over here.
- I mean, what?
No neck.
You said that I have like a nice jawline.
This does not show that at all.
Looks like I was run over by a cement truck.
I look like I'm on "Star Trek".
- Really?
- You're gonna cry?
Support for PBS provided by:
















