Friday, April 16, 2004 | 8:26 a.m.
It was while working as a television news reporter -- first in Yakima, Wash., and later in Missoula, Mont. -- during the mid-'90s that Tina Kim realized she'd chosen the wrong career path.
"In TV news, you kind of have to suppress your personality; you can't really be free to express yourself," says the Korean-born, Seattle-bred Kim, "and I just noticed I don't like people to contain me."
In 1997 the University of Washington grad quit her job to follow her dream of moving to New York City. She worked a slew of temp jobs before diving head-first into a stand-up comedy career that has gained momentum Stateside and abroad. She wraps her Las Vegas debut tonight through Sunday at The Improv at Harrah's.
Not bad for a woman who never fathomed she could be a comedian.
"As a culture in general and in society, you don't expect Asians to be the funny ones," she said during a recent call from Los Angeles, where she relocated to earlier this year.
Her comedy is a largely composed of personal observations on such topics as dating, dieting and friendships, as well as her relationship with her traditional Korean parents, who have been less-than supportive of their youngest daughter's career switch. It's no wonder then -- given her heritage and comedy themes -- that Kim's act is continually compared to that of another Korean-female comedian, Margaret Cho.
"People will say, 'Are you like Margaret Cho?', and I'll say, 'Well, I'm Korean, too, but my perspective is a little bit different," Kim explains. "I think I'm more of a happy comic than she is."
Kim's journey through the comedy ranks hasn't been an easy one. "I paid my dues," she says. "That's why it kills me that people think that I got lucky. I'm like, 'Gimme a break! You don't know how hard I worked.' "
Shortly after arriving in the Big Apple, she took comedy classes (and, consequently, got taken for several hundred dollars by a scam-artist instructor). She also volunteered her time working behind-the-scenes answering phones and taking reservations at a comedy club in exchange for a few precious minutes of stage time before ridiculously sparse crowds.
"They would let me do five minutes on a Tuesday night a 6 o'clock, where there's three people" in the audience, she recalls. "But I still did it, because I didn't know any better, and I must have done that for a year."
Once, she made a shoddy deal with a club manager who reneged on promises to share the profits with her after she had packed the place with showgoers. (For that, Kim's already plotted her revenge: "When I get my 'E! True Hollywood Story,' I'm gonna go spit at that guy's club, and I can't wait!")
Finally, she "met other comics who were telling me, 'Tina, you should just go do your own show -- you don't need that club.' " She went to work funding and producing the self-titled offerings "The Tina Kim Show," "Tina Kim's Logic" and "An Evening with Tina Kim" several times each year, and has performed the shows for sold-out crowds in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. (This weekend's Improv performances, however, will feature her standard stand-up act.)
From start to finish, each 75-minute production is a one-woman show: She secures and pays for the venues, promotes the events and even sells the tickets herself. "I rent the theater. I make my flier. I go out and I try to meet people" and convince them to see the show, she explains of the process.
Because she sees many "repeat customers," the thirtysomething Kim mixes material from the various shows to keep it fresh for audiences. "A lot of them feel like they know me. It's kind of fun, like you're just hanging out with a group of friends."
Last August she staged her show "Tina Kim: Single and Available" for 30 consecutive nights at Scotland's Edinburgh Fringe Festival. "It really forced me to become a better comic," she says of the experience. That extended stint prompted her in January to make the move to Southern California, where she says she hopes to expand her career.
"If I can just get a sitcom deal, I know I can be all over the world as a headliner ... You just need that stupid little thing that gets you to the next level," she explains. "Ultimately, I would love to have my own talk show, I think that's definitely my thing. It will encompass everything I do -- my personality, my wit."
For nearly two years, Kim has been putting to use her reporter's skills by occasionally interviewing subjects for PBS' "Asian America," a weekly series (which does not air locally) about issues facing Asian-Americans. She's also a writer who has contributed commentary pieces to Jade magazine, a publication for Asian-American women; and an aspiring cartoonist who pens captions for "Tina's Stand-up World," a comic strip based on her comedy material that's illustrated by her police-officer brother, Steve Kim.
It is featured on her Web site, www.tinakim.com, though she says she wants to someday publish the hundreds of panels in book form.
And what a world it is for workaholic Kim, who says she's "pretty much out constantly" on the road working gigs in an effort to pay down the credit card bills she's amassed as a result of staging her own shows.
"I grew into what I wanted to do, so I can't complain," she insists. "Yes, sometimes I don't know where my next paycheck is coming from, and then I have to really budget my money, but it's all worth it to me because it's all gonna pay off."
Out for laughs
Steve Marmel, who was to have headlined Palace Station's Laugh Trax Tuesday through April 24, has canceled those dates. He tells Laugh Lines he's extremely busy tending to his duties as co-creator, executive producer, writer and lead voice on "This Just In," a very witty, current-events-driven animated series for adults, which airs at 11 p.m. Thursday on Spike TV (Cox cable channel 29). Replacing Marmel at Laugh Trax is Hal Spear.
"Doesn't Play Well with Others" is the title of Mitch Fatel's debut comedy CD, which is scheduled for release next month. Pick up a copy following his shows May 31 through June 6 at The Comedy Stop at The Trop, or on his Web site, www.mitchfatel.com.
Ralphie May -- the portly comic who last fall headlined a comedy show at Sahara following his second-place finish on the NBC reality series "Last Comic Standing" -- is celebrating the success of his first DVD, "Just Correct." The disc was released in February and has achieved platinum status by selling more than 50,000 copies. Recently May has been featured on the sitcom "Whoopi," the show "On-Air with Ryan Seacrest," and last month guested on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."
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