Originally published March 2025. Badass Lady-Folk host Christine Stoddard interviews performer, writer, director, and marketing expert Shari Hazlett. Thanks to Aaron Gold. Filmed at Manhattan Neighborhood Network in New York City. About the show: Badass Lady-Folk is a talk show about women and non-binary femmes with a New York state of mind. They share their incredible experiences, ideas, and projects in response to host Christine Stoddard's playful and insightful questions. This intersectional feminist program aims to inspire, inform, and entertain. Badass Lady-Folk got its start as an audio-only program on Radio Free Brooklyn in 2016. The show eventually made it to a TV format filmed at Manhattan Neighborhood Network in 2023. The show is made available on YouTube for global audiences interested in celebrating women and learning about women's issues. Badass Lady-Folk is produced by Quail Bell Press & Productions, a woman-owned studio in Brooklyn, NY. About this episode's guest: Shari Hazlett is a NYC-based director, writer, and improviser/actor who works at the intersection of comedy and storytelling. Shari’s comedy home is Magnet Theater, founded by Armando Diaz, where she trained in improv and sketch, worked, and now performs. She’s performed at Brooklyn Comedy Collective (BCC), UCB, iO Chicago, The PIT, Dixon Place, La Mama, the Tank, and Just the Funny (Miami), among others. She performs in and produces The Duo Show at Magnet Theater, featuring a rotating cast of veteran improvisors who are paired for one-night-only character duos. Most recently, Shari created, devised, and directed The March, a featured selection at The Tank’s 2023 Pridefest Play Festival; she created and directed the Social Justice Improv Project’s ‘It’s A Riot’, a semi-scripted sketch revue about the Dobbs (2022) decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. She performs with the teams Clover, MissBehaving, Spooky Doings, Final Girl, and in a variety of recurring shows around NYC. As a producer, Shari has worked with the New York Times - Live Broadcast of the DNC 2012 and RNC 2012; SiriusXM; Comic Relief/Red Nose Day; NBC-Universal; and the American Cancer Society. Her writing has been aired on WNYC and WBUR (Boston), and published in The Stranger (Seattle), Courier News (digital), and Creative Loafing (Central Florida), among others. Shari started her career as a community organizer, focusing on HIV/AIDS education for the Congressional Black Caucus-funded (CBC) Medical Education Initiative in Central Florida; and as a fellow for Equality Florida and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Campaign College, helping re-elect U.S. Senator Patty Murray. Most recently, Shari was appointed to the Brooklyn Committee for the People’s Money, run by the NYC Civic Education Commission. About the host: Christine Stoddard is a filmmaker, performer, and writer named one of Brooklyn Magazine's Top 50 Most Fascinating People. She runs the YouTube channel @StoddardSays, which includes her non-fiction series “Christine Stoddard’s New York,” talk show “Badass Lady-Folk,” arthouse feature "Sirena's Gallery," filmed play "Mi Abuela, Queen of Nightmares," and fiction shorts like “Uncontested” and “Bottled.” Her latest feature is "Her Garden." She also co-hosts the comedy TV show “Don’t Mind If I Don’t” with Aaron Gold, on YouTube @DontMindTheShow. As an undergrad, she started her career writing books, founding Quail Bell Magazine, and directing the documentary “The Persistence of Poe.” Other honors include Miss Subways Finalist, Ms. Magazine’s “Ms. Muse,” and the Portland Review’s Featured Artist. Born to a Salvadoran mother and Anglo-America father, Stoddard was raised in Virginia. She is a member of the 2025 class of Columbia Journalism School. A project of Quail Bell Press & Productions.
