Cam Godfrey is having a bit of an identity crisis. After earning her degree in graphic design and creative writing from Cleveland State University this month, she’s now on a mission to discover life without the label of “student.” After all, being in school is all she’s known for more than 20 years. While she navigates her new identity as an adult in the working world, one thing remains steady: her comedy career.
As many of her peers stayed up late to study or hit the bars, Godfrey was out and about on school nights to hit stand-up open mics and improv stages throughout college. Now, her comedy career, which she began less than three years ago, is on a fast-paced upward trajectory. She’s already one of the most sought-after young comics in all of northeast Ohio. Thanks to her quippy, sometimes shocking, and brutally honest delivery style, Godfrey won Rookie Of The Year (2023), Improviser Of The Year (2023), and Sketch Performer Of The Year (2024) at the Cleveland Comedy Awards, among other accolades. Plus, she appeared on the nationally acclaimed Don’t Tell Comedy stage, and frequently appears at Cleveland’s Imposters Theater, working alongside director Michael Busch, who’s previously appeared on Conan, Key & Peele, and Community.
Many comedians fight for years to receive any recognition at all — especially women comedians, who make up only 26% of the profession, per Zippia. Needless to say, Godfrey’s early-career success is a major slay for countless reasons.
While she’s known for joking about life on a metropolitan college campus and divulging scandalous anecdotes about her previous relationships and unrequited love, Godfrey also shares a deeper part of her identity onstage: her Jewish faith.
“I think that ‘funny’ is a Jewish trait,” Godfrey tells Her Campus in an exclusive interview. “Not that you have to be Jewish to be funny, but it helps … There is a shared history of trauma in the Jewish community. I think a lot of minority groups have that, a huge shared trauma that breeds humor.”
But talking about her religion is not a shtick for Godfrey. “The things I say on stage about being Jewish are directly linked to my experience as a Jewish person,” she says. The comedian likens her sets to Rachel Bloom’s work on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a TV show, in Godfrey’s words, about an “extremely neurotic, extremely funny Jewish girl and her mental health journey.” She doesn’t make being Jewish a punchline, but rather a throughline when talking about funny moments in her life.
With college out of the way, Godfrey is ready to take her talents outside of Ohio. Keep an eye out for clips of her sets on your TikTok and YouTube feeds and — one day, she hopes — on Netflix. “It’s a long ways away, but [a special] is what I’m working toward,” she says.
Perhaps even more importantly, Godfrey is intent on lifting up other women and femme voices in her regional comedy scene, booking underrepresented comics onto shows any chance she gets. Her message to young comedians is one she’s learned herself coming up in the scene: Find your niche and your people, and good things will follow.