Comedian Aidan Park empowers others through his Yay! Foundation

One of the first things you notice about Aidan Park is the joyfully buoyant “hahas!” punctuating his speech. As a stand-up comedian, Park often laughs at his own jokes with the same fervor on stage, to the point where he can disarm a crowd that may not know what to make of him at first. But the instinct to laugh at himself is often contagious in a room full of strangers that has them busting up by the end.

“I think humor makes things OK,” he says. “Like, I played Montana last month. It was all straight, white people. There were 150 of them and I asked if there were any gay people in the audience and there was silence.

“I said, ‘I’m HIV positive; don’t worry, you can’t get it from jokes’ … and then I talked about my suicidal ideation,” Park says.

“A couple of people came up to me [after the show] and said, ‘Hey, I’m a veteran, and I’ve had suicidal ideation as well,” he said. “I’m trying to work with the VA through my foundation to teach comedy and wellness to that group. I think humor is like a bridge, you wouldn’t expect a gay Asian guy and these veterans from Montana connecting in that way.”

Sharing that connection through comedy is what Park wants to accomplish with his Yay! Foundation, a nonprofit he launched last fall. The foundation’s stated goal is to “bring hope and strength to young adults ages 14-24 in underserved and disenfranchised communities,” and accomplishes this by developing comedy-based workshops and curriculum tailored to each group.

It’s a long way from where Park found himself several years ago, mid-panic attack while out of town for a stand-up gig. He had thrown himself into work to deal with the recent loss of his partner, Michael James, to cancer. As he was doubled over vomiting, a stranger approached, asking to pray for him.

“He put his hand on my back and raised his hands to the sky,” Park says during a recent Zoom interview. “And I looked up and … the guy looked just like Nickelback [singer Chad Kroeger]. And I was like ‘Nickelback is praying for me in rural Washington.’ … That didn’t work.”

This is one of the many personal stories he wrote about in his 2020 memoir “The Art of Being Yay!” (forward written by Margaret Cho). Full of hilarious-meets-heartbreaking stories, Park sees the humor in his most painful life moments that he has often used to connect with others.

“The problem that I see in the world is loneliness,” Park says. “And loneliness brought on by shame.” A big part of his work with Yay! Foundation is motivational workshops that help people uncover their shame, recognize their emotional needs and work to take action, he said. Sharing the most raw parts of his life allows people to feel safe sharing their own turmoil. “I realized that emotional pain means you feel separated from an emotional need that you want.”

Despite his positive energy, the loss of James, his soulmate, at times felt unbearable. “It was like I stopped caring about anything,” Park says. “I just wanted to die. I ended up in the emergency room, I had panic attacks … so I said if I’m not going to kill myself, I’m going to commit to life.”

Park began to see a shift in his grief as he honed tools acquired over the years studying self-empowerment. Only this time, he aimed not toward career advancement but to address his paralyzing emotions and loneliness.

“Whenever I would miss Michael, I would ask myself, what is the emotional payoff he would give me? And in different moments it was different things. I can’t bring Michael back from the dead, but let’s go for security and groundedness. You think thoughts that trigger security and groundedness and you take action.”

The change he experienced by applying this principle to his own life was transformative, leading him to develop the Art of Being Yay! program a precursor to his foundation. One of his first clients was the Special Olympics, for which he created “Eight Days of Yay,” a mental wellness program for athletes stuck at home during the COVID shutdown.

Comedian Aidan Park discovered in high school that being on stage gave him confidence that otherwise eluded him.

(Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times)

He developed fun characters for them to relate to, like Eckhart Tol-yay, Richie Yay Simmons, and Pat Yayjack, and taught them how to regulate their emotions through breathing exercises and by playing games.

“We had to stop all of our in-person gatherings,” says Brandon Tanner, assistant vice president of development for the Special Olympics of Southern California. “The neat thing about Aidan is he makes it fun. He took the time to talk to our athletes who have intellectual disabilities. He was so patient.”

People also relate to the incredible odds Park surmounted. Immigrating to the U.S. from South Korea as a child, he was shocked when applying for college to discover he was, in fact, undocumented (Park has since become a citizen). At age 19, he found out he was HIV positive. It took someone believing in him, in his case a mentor, and a lot of self-determination to move beyond that early despair.

As he pulled himself together, Park started getting TV and commercial work and snapped up musical theater roles. Tired of of typecasting — nine productions of “Miss Saigon” will do that to you — he transitioned to stand-up comedy, booking shows across the country performing regularly at the Laugh Factory, the Comedy Store and Hollywood Improv.

“He’s a really genuine person who wants to help people, and that’s not something you always encounter in Hollywood,” says fellow comedian Rosie Tran, one of the foundation’s five board members. “Comedy can reach people who might not feel otherwise reachable.”

In a way, performing has always been his salvation. After deciding on a whim to audition with Madonna’s “Holiday” for his high school, Park discovered being on stage gave him confidence that otherwise eluded him.

“I had found something that I had a spark of interest in. This spark gave me a reason to live and being a part of the play made me feel I belonged somewhere,” Park said. While recently developing a virtual “happiness” program for Alicia Keys’ charity Keep a Child Alive, he witnessed that same spark of interest in a young girl who shared with him her dreams of becoming a lawyer.

The joy and belonging he received in performing continues to influence every aspect of his work, including his fundraising efforts.

On April 7 and 8, Park will be performing in “Scream, an Unauthorized Parody Musical.” Written by Park and his co-writer, Ryan Davis, the campy, ’90s musical is led by an all-volunteer cast.

Proceeds from the show will support the Yay! Foundation’s upcoming work with Keep a Child Alive, creating a comedy and wellness program for veterans in Montana as well as empowerment training for high school students and LGBTQ youth.

“I love parodies and I love horror,” he says. It’s got this kind of punk rock, anything goes kind of energy to all our shows. It’s a lot of fun.”

DTLA Artnight, the Urge LA and Happening in DTLA are sponsors for the one-weekend-only performances, where masks signed by original “Scream” villain Skeet Ulrich will be raffled off with proceeds going to the Yay! Foundation. You can also donate directly to the foundation’s spring fundraising campaign.

When asked what his late partner might think of his work, Park says he thinks James would appreciate all he’s done under his own banner of Yay. “Before he died, I was always working for other people and lining up with what other people believed, and [Michael] said ‘Baby, you gotta do your own thing.’ I built a career around my own values and I think he would be damn proud.”