Story by Laurence Almalvez

Edited by Megan Bennett

Photo by Alejandra Rodriguez

“I look like a little boy, which sometimes gets me in trouble when I’m in the bathroom,” Shannon Noll tells the audience as she closes her headlining set at Seven Bar and Restaurant’s “Bad People Good Comedy” show.  

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She describes an encounter in a women’s bathroom, in which a woman screams—thinking she accidently used the men’s bathroom—after Noll, who identifies as genderqueer, walks in.

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In the story, Noll explains that she tells the woman that she’s allowed to use either bathroom in the modern era, a dig at debates that began during Barack Obama’s presidency and have been amplified in President Donald Trump’s administration as several states have tried to prevent citizens from using the bathroom that matched their identifying gender if that differed from the one assigned at birth.

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The woman responds by screaming again. Noll asks the woman, “Are we screaming now?” and joins her in a back-and-forth screaming match. During the re-enactment, Noll imitates Macaulay Culkin’s iconic “Home Alone” scream—only enhanced by her short blonde hair and androgynous dress.

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The woman begins spinning in circles while screaming, according to Noll.

“I’ve never had more fun with hatred in my entire life,” she says, to which the crowd responds with laughter and applause.

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The joke deals with a serious, politically charged topic and bathroom laws, but Noll handles in a light-hearted and funny manner. That’s because Noll’s repertoire relies on personal experiences, which occasionally will coincide with today’s political climate.

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“I filter everything through my point of view. I work in the minutiae,” says the Chicago comedian. The Connecticut native, who came to the city for school, credits the television series “Strangers with Candy” for beginning her interest in comedy. The show is considered a dark comedy and satire, genres that Noll’s comedy often emulates. “I don’t tend to tackle big issues,” she says. “If I’m tackling a big issue, it usually comes from a personal experience point of view.”

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This mindset flows into her other comedic work, which includes original characters and celebrity impressions. It was when she decided to give her work political connotations, venturing outside of her usual catalog, when she became the target of online trolls.

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In January, Noll debuted “Barron Trump: Up Past Bedtime” at Hyde Park’s The Revival Improv Comedy Theater. The variety show was styled like “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” and Noll played the youngest Trump son. After Melania Trump reads him a bedtime story, she gives him an oversized, magical remote control to watch Fox News and a variety of other channels where each channel is a different sketch.

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While promoting the show on Twitter, Noll became a focus of online harassment. Coincidentally, “Saturday Night Live” writer Katie Rich was suspended the week before Noll’s Chicago show after posting a tweet about Barron being the country’s “first homeschooled shooter.” The tweet received major backlash, with everyone from the mainstream media to the White House condemning the joke.

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Noll tried out her Barron Trump impersonation by wearing a giant onesie at a stand-up showcase, according to Kaitlin Larson. The fellow comedian played “Up Past Bedtime’s” Adorable Deplorable—a gun nut that shares her Nerf gun but refused to part with it when Barron asks to keep it.

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“It was a kid missing his dad—that was the whole bit,” Larson says. “The dad wasn’t coming home and he just wanted was a bedtime story… it was so harmless.”

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Reflecting on the online feedback, Noll sheepishly scrolled through her direct messages and replies, revealing messages that said:

“You’re a monster and you should be ashamed of yourself,” and  “Another wannabe celebrity trying to put themselves in the mainstream at the expense of a child #liberalssuck.”

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Similar to Rich, Noll also received other, more threatening, social media messages—including death threats. Even after the show’s run, she continues to receive hostile messages to posts unrelated to the show.

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Comedian Wanjiku Kairu, who played Melania in “Barron Trump: Up Past Bedtime,” says she expressed her concern for her friend and co-star leading up to the show.

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“I don’t want my friend to have to feel threatened—to feel like she has to hide or get a ride home from the show, which she had to do for the first one,” she says.

Being genderqueer, Noll has dealt with hate before, but nothing to this degree. She describes the ordeal as “an apocalypse.”

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“I’m not at a stage in my career where that makes sense to have,” she adds.

However, Noll says the ordeal will not cause her to censor herself on social media and her art.

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“I’m more aware of what I put out there and in the way that I’m aware that if I put out something with a particular point of view it can be used against me somewhere, so I just try to tweet out stuff that I can stand behind,” Noll says.

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Larson and Kairu agreed that Noll won’t be stopped or silenced by her critics.

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“The only way to move forward is to keep doing it and not worry about being censored, and that’s why Shannon is pretty inspiring.” Larson says. “She never even questioned for a moment even with all this backlash if she was going to do the show.”

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Noll has been shaken by the experience—not surprisingly. She’s started doing shows again more cautiously than before, not regretting the show and not ruling out political humor in the future.

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“This is my only skill set, so I better do it,” she says. “I never did anything else, so this is it.”