MTV Buys Pilot TV Show From Niles North Alum

Editor's note: Content and video may be inappropriate for children.

Call 24-year-old Esther Povitsky and you may be greeted with a sarcastic voicemail.

“Hi, you’ve reached Esther. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911.”

The Niles North High School graduate has done a little bit of everything since leaving her Skokie hometown. She’s made an appearance on Fox’s hit TV show, New Girl and performed standup on Jimmy Kimmel Live! More recently, however, MTV purchased one of her pilots, Little Esther. 

The Skokie native is also well known for her standup routines and viral videos, according to Deadline.com.

"I'm half Jewish and half regular. And I'm not technically a Jew because my mom is a Christian and sexually attractive," Povitsky said in a standup performance. "But my dad is so Jewish that I didn't go to Hebrew school because he didn't want to pay the dues to belong to the temple."

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"I love all comedy," Povitsky told Skokie Patch. "My dad makes me laugh, a lot."

Yet before Povitsky made the trip from the Midwest to California, she was a dance major at the University of Illinois. And also a journalism major, before she was a theatre major.

Now, she's a college dropout performing at some of the most recognized comedy clubs in L.A.

"I moved home from school on my 21st birthday," Povitsky said. "I just called my parents and was like, 'I just want to drop out of school.'

"They were upset," she added. "My parents hated the idea that I dropped out of college. They were very uneasy with me doing standup."

Eventually, however, her parents came around, and watched Povitsky open for comedian Joe Rogan at the Chicago Theatre. It was the same venue Povitsky's parents took her to watch Beauty and The Beast when she was just a little girl.

"That experience made them a lot more easy with what I was doing," Povitsky said. 

For the record, Povitsky wants to clarify recent reports that MTV "ordered" her Little Esther pilot. She said the network only purchased one episode and will test it out before making any other decisions.

"It is just one episode," she said. "The pilot has not been picked up yet. There is a good chance that it will not air on TV.

"[MTV] is going to test it out, but if they don't pick it up it's not really a big deal to me. [If it doesn't air] it won't be my end all be all."

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