Evan Mills on stage at The Second City. (Photo by Timothy Schmidt)
The first thing you’ll notice about comedian Evan Mills are his wide, heavy-lidded, expressive eyes. They may be quietly smoldering as he croons in one of his original music videos—sometimes hilarious, sometimes achingly serious, like his 2021 single “Sissy Boy,” an anthem for young queer boys. They may briefly flash impossibly wide in what could become his iconic, John Krasinski-esque nod to the audience at the Second City before a piercing punchline. Or they might do a little bit of both, as in his folky cover of a hilarious Schitt’s Creek musical number, “A Little Bit Alexis.”
Either way, they’re the showstoppers that draw you into Mills’s kaleidoscopic talent. And if the eyes are the proverbial windows to the soul, then Mills’s windows are wide open, as he bares his personal life for the sake of laughter. On Instagram, for example, he made a short music video about things he Googled as a young closeted gay kid. He’s also unafraid to ask uncomfortable yet hilarious questions, as he does in a skit in which he ponders in song, “Why did all my white friends drink milk when they ate dinner?” Then, of course, there are the smirky call-outs, like his short music video “Hot White Gays,” in which he pokes fun at the privileges of hot white gay men.
“To be a person of color and a queer person on that stage, and doing the content I was doing,” Mills said of his work at Second City, “I might make y’all uncomfortable, but I’m gonna make you laugh.”
Mills has a history of combining comedic and musical talents. Before he was Evan Mills, Second City alum, stardom-bound, and reeking of potential, he was one half of the duo Evan & Mary Jane, who sang folk songs about finding pubic hair in your food. In 2018, he wrote, directed, and performed in Queer Eye: The Musical Parody, and over the years he’s put his film degree to work producing music videos and skits on his social media platforms.
Now, as Mills wraps up his stint as a mainstage actor in Don’t Quit Your Daydream at Second City—the Chicago powerhouse known for launching a startling number of famous alumni, from Bill Murray to Tina Fey—he’s preparing to head to Los Angeles this fall, with drafts for pilots, original musicals, and songs in tow. Before he leaves Chicago, though, he’s throwing the doors to the comedy temple wide open for other comedians of color as this year’s director of Second City’s second annual Victor Wong Fellowship, an intensive training program for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) comedic talent that culminates in a series of public performances titled Youth In Asia (Are You Proud of Me Yet?), running every Tuesday through May 28 at the UP Comedy Club.
Having seen only glimmers of progress toward more comedy for, by, and about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Mills hopes a fellowship like this can make the world a funnier place for more people.
“For most of our lives, if an Asian person was in a movie, it was about the struggles of being Asian or coming over to America. It was never like, here’s just a comedy, here’s joy, right?” said Mills. “Once I started seeing Asian comedians, I was like, oh, we need to do more of this, this should be more prominent.”
‘He just wants everybody to succeed‘
In his time at Second City, having worked as a host and bartender from 2012 to 2017 before performing for the last seven years, Mills said there was only one time he wasn’t the only Filipino onstage. It was during a performance with Jordan Savusa, a Hawaiian and Filipino performer (currently onstage at Second City’s new Brooklyn location), for whom Mills was often the understudy or replacement. So when Mills walked in as director of the Victor Wong Fellowship, he said it was the first time he’d ever been in a room with 10 AAPI performers.
“It was such an incredible experience to walk into that,” he said. “Right off the bat, I felt very connected with all of them.”
For Mills, human connection is one of the main reasons to do comedy. It’s also something that comes naturally to him. During the fellowship, he said, his main goal was to make sure the fellows felt heard and cared for. He held one-on-one meetings with each of them, checked in with them weekly, and, during feedback sessions, strove to ensure that everyone knew it was a safe space to share. It’s that kind of individual attention and dedication infuses everything Mills does, according to Johanna Medrano, one of this year’s Victor Wong Fellows.
“He’s always rooting for us and he’s very communicative and transparent,” Medrano said. “I think that transparency is clutch. He’s always letting us know what he’s doing and how he’s fighting for us and what we want to express with our art.”
For the first three weeks of the intensive three-month program, the fellows would come in and pitch skits and scenes for the May showcase. Then they’d run through the scenes and give each other feedback, and then do another round of pitches.
“I know that there aren’t a lot of opportunities and doors open for people like me, and I was opening them and I was making way for myself in spaces that I didn’t see myself in.”
Once they had a solid collection of pitches, the work became rehearsals and weeding out and fine-tuning their skits. That was the hard part for Mills. He was still sending emails while he was on a brief vacation because he was torn between cutting or trying to make room for skits from the fellows he found funny, said Julie Dumais Osborne, vice president of the Training Centers at Second City.
“His journey to where he is is something that I think informs how he sees potential in others,” said Osborne, who worked with Mills when asked to sit in on auditions for the Victor Wong Fellowship last year. “He was very excited to have the opportunity to potentially develop that talent with Victor Wong. He’s such a cheerleader for emerging talent.”
Instead of pom poms, however, Mills comes armed with his personal experience and a goal to “get you all agents.”
“He just wants everybody to succeed,” said Medrano. “He just wants the best for everybody, and I think that’s great, because acting is cutthroat.”
In his years on Second City’s mainstage, Mills learned a lot about putting himself out there as one of only eight AAPI comedians he’s seen grace Second City’s stage since 2012. Mills encourages the fellows to be boldly themselves—honest and open—but also to not restrict themselves to content centered around AAPI issues and topics.
“I don’t want you to write something because this is an AAPI showcase, I want you to write something because you think it’s funny,” he told his fellows. “That’s what they’re going to expect, right? They’re going to come into an AAPI show and be like, ‘Okay, this is a showcase for Asian American performers.’ But I want them to leave the show and go, ‘Wow, that was a good show.’ Period. Point blank.”
Mills’s own comedy career began to take shape after he saw his first Second City performance. He had graduated from Columbia College with a film degree and took a job as a host at Second City before he even knew what Second City was. But after witnessing Mary Sohn onstage during his first night as host, he was hooked.
The Victor Wong Fellowship provides a more intentional pathway into the hallowed realms of Second City for AAPI comedian hopefuls, and Mills jumped at the chance to be involved.
“I know that there aren’t a lot of opportunities and doors open for people like me, and I was opening them and I was making way for myself in spaces that I didn’t see myself in,” said Mills. “I want them to know that it is accessible and their dreams are possible. So any way that I can help be a voice for them while I’m in the building is so important to me.”
As for the fellows, Mills says he sees bright futures for all of them.
“I can’t explain to you how every single rehearsal or pitch process was like cry-laughing,” he said. “I already knew how good they were, but they’re really showing me through original material and scripted material that they’ve had to do that they’re very capable and very talented and should be working in that building ASAP.”
‘I’m not here to make you feel comfortable’
Growing up in a family that was “so joyous and laughing all the time,” Mills said he couldn’t help but value laughter.
“I loved making my family laugh,” he said. “If family’s important, then making them laugh is important. So comedy is important.”
As an audience member, you might not be family, but for the short time that you are in Mills’s care as an audience, he is determined to connect and make you laugh. In his years performing at Second City, he said he would sometimes look out into the audience, find the one person who wasn’t laughing, and make it his goal for the rest of the show to make that person laugh.
Laughter has always been a core part of Mills’s identity, ever since he was an only child cackling along to Steve Martin movies he rented from the video store across the street from home in Michigan. When touring around the U.S. as an ensemble member of Second City’s touring company, he learned how certain comedy works in certain places and not in others. But when performing on his home stage in Chicago, he has found that regardless of who’s in the audience, being vulnerable and honest onstage felt best for him and still got the laughs.
“I’m going to write content that is relatable for everybody. But every once in a while, I’m going to pepper in some of my own stuff, and if that makes you uncomfortable, then that makes you uncomfortable,” he said. “I’m not here to make you feel comfortable in a space that isn’t yours.”
Mills cited a skit called “Survey Says,” which he did as part of Do the Right Thing, No Worries If Not, as an example of the ways laughter weaves in and out of his personal identities and how he brings it all to the stage as a way to connect with audiences.
The skit opens with a few simple survey questions. Mills asks audience members to raise their hands if, say, they’ve ever been out of the country. Given Second City’s usual audience of majority tourists, quite a few people raise their hands.
“Well, it must be nice to have money,” he quips.
Then, he gets personal:
“Raise your hand if you’re an only child.”
“Keep your hand up if you’re an only child whose parents are divorced.”
With his own hand raised, he leans towards the eight to 10 other people with their hands raised and scrunches his face with recognition, “That sucks, right?”
Finally, he brings it back home , “Now keep your hand up if you’re gay, Filipino, left-handed, and have a gay dad.”
“No one would be able to keep their hands up,” he said with a laugh in a recent interview. “Most of the time the audience is going to relate to what I have to say. And if they don’t, they’re still going to laugh, because I’m going to present it in a way that makes them find a way to find it funny.”
Every now and then, he puts his musical chops to work on something that might make you cry instead of laugh, and it’s then that you see just how much talent he’s working with. When asked about her favorite Evan Mills work, for example, Medrano tears up when she cites one of the Evan & Mary Jane songs about loss.
Now, as Mills prepares to take his vulnerable blend of music and comedy to L.A., with a pocket full of pilots and a dream to someday write hilarious musical numbers for RuPaul’s Drag Race (see his vision for a Lady Gaga musical), Mills hopes that the lessons he’s learned over his career can show “young Asian people that you can be so vulnerable and you can be so funny, on screen and onstage,” he said.
After all, as he put it, “There’s something so beautiful about making people laugh.”
Crystal L. Paul (she/her) is a Chicago-based journalist and editor, specializing in community journalism and reporting on race and culture and the arts. @cplhouse
