Skip to main content
Natalie Rotter-Laitman and Charlie Bardey’s chemistry can easily make their podcast’s listeners feel like they’re in on the joke as the comedians go back and forth on Exploration: LIVE! Their style as a duo isn’t particularly salacious or confessional, but Rotter-Laitman and Bardey riff on the most relatable and mundane yet oddly poignant facets of life, such as people pleasing, how to end a conversation, or the social dynamics of dogs at the dog park.
Ahead of their live Exploration: LIVE! show at Helium Comedy Club on Tuesday, Jan. 21, Rotter-Laitman and Bardey shared with WW what to expect at their show—and maybe more importantly, what not to expect. Puppets and crowd work are out, lighthearted observations are very in.
Observational comedy is tried and true by now, but Rotter-Laitman and Bardey’s camaraderie is the real attraction. Throw a rock and someone who thinks their friends would host the perfect podcast gets hit. But it’s the way that Rotter-Laitman and Bardey leave their conversations open for listeners to insert themselves and connect to their unique takes on familiar situations. Hearing them genuinely laugh at each other’s stories or perspectives—sometimes to the point of practically wheezing—is unbelievably endearing, both on the podcast and during live shows.
“It is totally exultant and amazing to riff onstage with someone,” Bardey says over Zoom. “The process of building out and writing standup takes a lot longer, whereas a conversation moves fast, and when you have another person, it helps you discover more.”
Rotter-Laitman and Bardey forged their friendship in the fires of New York City, where they landed on Vulture magazine’s 2023 list of rising comedians, scored interviews on such podcasts as Las Culturistas and StraightioLab and churned out viral tweets about water. Now on their second national tour, they’ve spurted through the growing pains many fledgling podcasters face when they want to jump to live comedy. Spontaneous and electric, Exploration: LIVE! episodes and shows are filled with natural camaraderie and improvisation. The hosts feed off each other and the crowd’s energy as active listeners, bringing entirely genuine excitement with them to the stage.
Exploration: LIVE! is a “chat-cast,” or “chat podcast.” Episodes don’t center on a narrative and mostly involve hosts in conversation with one another or guests with minimal structure. Exploration: LIVE! is not a collection of perfectly curated, intentional monologues. Instead, two best friends make listeners laugh by making each other laugh. Their conversations are intelligent and absorbing, without being overproduced or scripted. Rotter-Laitman and Bardey bring a few ideas to each episode, like common phenomena they’ve noticed and want to discuss. Episodes are packed with tangents and hilarious musings, like how it can feel like a moral failure on someone else’s part when a phone call’s connection is breaking up, or how your cousins’ cousins feel like the most random people on the planet.
The Exploration: LIVE! hosts shine when it’s just the two of them gabbing away, but they also successfully welcome guests to join in on the conversation and bring their own ideas. They’ve featured brilliant New York comics and actors like Cole Escola, Cat Cohen and Jaboukie Young-White, along with Bardey’s mother and brother. Podcast producer Emma Foley occasionally chimes in during episodes with a laugh or quick comment, and finally got her own guest episode last year.
No matter who they bring on, Bardey and Rotter-Laitman ensure the guest integrates into their dynamic smoothly. They often try to “warm up” the podcast for the guest by not introducing them for the first minute or two and riffing on their own, but rarely can they help themselves from letting the guest weigh in on their conversation immediately. For live shows, they try to recruit local openers. Raina Morris, a Portland-raised comedian known for her writing on Emily in Paris and Schmigadoon!, will lend them her talents. During their inaugural tour, Rotter-Laitman and Bardy were taken by the richness of the regional comedy scenes they visited, which they feel aren’t so stymied by New York’s competitive nature.
“I think there’s something awesome about being a comedian in a place that is not the industry town,” Rotter-Laitman says. “You can actually work on your stuff, and define your voice, and not try to immediately make it so legible.”
SEE IT: Exploration: LIVE! at Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 503-583-8464, portland.heliumcomedy.com. 8 pm Tuesday, Jan. 21. $25–$35.