Ossia Dywer

When Ossia Dwyer steps on stage, people pay attention.

As the sole woman in Pitt Tonight’s trio of head writers, Dwyer was slotted to kick off the “Pitt Tonight” Women’s Empowerment Week episode, which aired mid-March, with a few jokes.

“What’s a woman doing up here?” she jokes to the nearly full auditorium in Alumni hall, which begins to quiet as she warms the crowd up. “It’s Women’s Empowerment Week, so they were like, ‘Ossia, take off your apron, dust off your typewriter and get up there.’”

As she performs, she paces across the stage, her tone dry and her volume neutral — in a voice she jokingly compares to a “stoned Strawberry Shortcake.” Despite her low-key energy, the audience pays complete attention, laughing as Dwyer jokes about being a “lady.” She’s dressed casually in jeans and a light blue blouse with a hint of a smirk always playing on her lips.

As part of her routine, she gives us a vocabulary lesson inspired by her small Vermont hometown. We learn that water fountains are called “bubblers,” a soft-serve ice cream cone is called a “creamie” and that Dwyer’s sheltered childhood didn’t prepare her for the fallout of saying “creamie” in front of her college peers in Pittsburgh.

The senior chemical engineering major is part of a recently developed and burgeoning comedy scene at Pitt, bolstered by weekly “collegiates and comedians” stand-up shows in Nordy’s Place and the newly formed late night show “Pitt Tonight.” You’ll find her each week at both of these events — a staple of Pitt comedy who’s been able to find her voice in a very short period of time.

Growing up in a small town in Vermont where tourists outnumber townies a la “Dirty Dancing,” opportunities for stand-up were scarce — “I grew up pretty isolated from everything,” Dwyer said. But she’s certain that rural lifestyle, plus her mother’s British roots, had a lasting effect on her comic style.

“My mom is British, my dad is American, so … we were like the British people in a town of 500.” This British humor — which Dwyer describes as “gross” — offered a beautiful alternative to the over-exposed, prototypical New York comedian, introducing Dwyer to more unorthodox methods of comedy early on.

Dwyer became interested in comedy during high school but didn’t start writing or performing until her junior year of college — just last year, in fact. After some convincing from fellow “Pitt Tonight” head writer Joe Marchi, Dwyer started using her judgement to select the one-off jokes senior Jesse Irwin rattles off in the late night show’s opening commentary.

Through her work on the show, she’s became more comfortable performing her own material.

“I don’t think I’d be doing stand-up if Jesse hadn’t created ‘Pitt Tonight,’” Dwyer said, adding that she’s generally fairly shy.  “I’ve always liked comedy, but I didn’t realize you could still do it even if you aren’t the most outgoing person … You can be a little quirky and quiet.”

Much of Dwyer’s humor is self-deprecating — she’s often making jokes about her style or “weird person name,” pronounced “oh-sha.”

“I always try to get the audience to feel bad for me for most of it, then do something that shows I’m also kind of a bad person,” she said, deadpan. “So you get both sides of it.”

In a November 2016 skit that she both wrote and performed called “Vote or Vomit,” Dwyer invited Councilperson Dan Gilman to participate in a quiz game based on her more shameful moments.