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After years of mining her own tragedies for stand-up routines, the Emmy- and Grammy-nominated comedian speaks to Inga Parkel about trading in her own story to spotlight that of the late poet, Andrea Gibson, in her newly produced documentary, ‘Come See Me in the Good Light’
Monday 24 November 2025 06:00 GMTComments
CloseCome See Me In The Good Light - Official Trailer
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Tig Notaro was 41 when she received a life-altering diagnosis in 2012: stage 2 cancer in both breasts. But because it arrived on the heels of a string of devastating events — a series of unrelated health problems, the unexpected death of her mother, and a breakup — it didn’t deliver the immediate emotional gut punch one might expect. “It was a little...,” she says, pausing for the right word, “confusing when I was told I had invasive cancer. I didn’t even know how to comprehend it for a while. But yeah, it was terrifying.” Within weeks of the diagnosis, she underwent a double mastectomy. Now 52, she has officially been in remission since September 2017.
I’m speaking to Notaro, the Emmy-nominated comedian and actor famed for her razor-sharp wit and deadpan delivery in shows like The Morning Show and The Sex Lives of College Girls, because she has produced a heart-wrenching documentary about cancer — but not her own. Come See Me in the Good Light, which has just landed on Apple TV, chronicles the final year of her longtime friend Andrea Gibson, Colorado’s nonbinary poet laureate, who died in July from ovarian cancer. They were 49.
Directed by Ryan White (Pamela: A Love Story), the film moves beyond sentimentality to become a quiet celebration of joy — a reminder, in Gibson’s own words, that happiness “is easier to find once we realize we do not have forever to find it.”
Originally from Maine, Gibson, who used they/them pronouns, settled in Colorado in 1999. There, they found slam poetry after attending their first open mic night in Denver. Inspired by the powerful storytelling of the spoken word, they eventually risked their livelihood as a school teacher to become a full-time poet. “And that’s how I met Meg,” they say in the film. Gibson was first introduced to their wife, fellow slam poet Megan Falley, at an event where they were both performing. “As soon as I heard her speak, I thought, ‘She’s incredible,’” Gibson recounts. After seven years of dating, they got engaged in August 2022 and married that December.
Interspersed between scenes from hospital visits and chemotherapy appointments, the film features tender moments between Gibson and Falley. In one, the pair are lying on the floor of their home, drenched in sunlight and cuddling their three small dogs. With their head resting on a dog bed, Gibson shares that after each round of chemo, they tend to develop an attitude from the steroids. “When I have ‘roid rage,’ I’ll be like, ‘Meg, can you, at the very least, get me a smoothie?’ and she will have done 7,000 things that day,” they laugh, as Falley admits, “It’s the one phrase where I feel like I’m gonna lose my mind.”
open image in galleryTig Notaro: 'You could feel the sold-out audience along for the ride through the funniest moments and the most devastating moments, and that just put Andrea at ease' (Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock)
open image in galleryThe late poet and activist Andrea Gibson (left) died in July 2025. They are survived by their wife, Megan Falley (right) (Apple TV+)Notaro knew Gibson for 25 years, having first met them backstage at one of their early performances for Vox Feminista, a political and social activist group based in Boulder, where Notaro was living at the time. Even after Notaro relocated to Los Angeles, the two remained in touch as their careers took off.
“Andrea was one of the funniest people that I knew,” Notaro says of her late friend. She remembers crawling into bed with Gibson, who was extremely weak at the time. But before she could settle in next to them, Gibson pointed out a mysterious stain on the bed. “I don’t know what this stain is from, but we’ll just blame it on Meg, ok?” they said. The joke blindsided Notaro, dissolving her into laughter. “It got me because my head was in such a different place,” she says. “I love that moment so much.”
Gibson was known for their commanding stage presence. Their voice, formidable yet warm, delivered poignant poems that often explored gender norms, politics, LGBT+ issues, life, and mortality. Sometimes accompanied by a pianist, as in their 2023 submission to the NPR Tiny Desk contest, they spoke with a rhythm that blurred the line between song and prose.
“I would turn things that I was struggling with into poetry,” Gibson says in the film. “Say, my gender. When I first started writing about that, I felt very anxious getting on stage. But as soon as I would speak the poem for the first time, it was as if that shame fell off me. Spoken word poetry — it saved me.”
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open image in gallery‘Come See Me in the Good Light’ won the Audience Favorite Award at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year (Apple TV+)Fast-forward to late 2023, two years after Gibson’s stage 4 ovarian cancer diagnosis. Notaro was on a call with their mutual friend, Stef Willen, who also served as a producer on the documentary. “Andrea obviously had a lot on their plate, and in one of our conversations, Steph said, ‘I feel like Andrea’s life would make a really incredible documentary right now.’ And as soon as she said that, it just hit me,” Notaro says. “I felt like it was the most obvious thing.”
The team worked on a rushed timeline, trying to outpace Gibson’s terminal prognosis. “We made the film in a year,” Notaro says. “[We] originally thought there was the potential of Andrea dying on camera. And then Ryan said, ‘You know, we don’t need our hero to die, we can wrap up with a really beautiful story, and Andrea would be able to see the film.’”
They succeeded. Shortly after its completion, it entered the competition at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, with Gibson in attendance, and went on to win the Audience Favorite Award. The theater’s energy was potent and palpable, Notaro says. “You could feel the sold-out audience along for the ride through the funniest moments and the most devastating moments, and that just put Andrea at ease.”
“They were so proud of this film, so proud,” Notaro adds. “People walk out of the theater every time, just thanking us for making this movie. I think that you can assume this is a movie about dying, but it’s really, I think, about living, and that’s what Andrea’s message was: ‘Don’t wait for that diagnosis to turn things around.’”
Speaking to me over Zoom from her home office in Los Angeles, Notaro delivers her words in a calm, measured monotone — each line punctuated with soft laughs and wide, disarming grins. Her boyish salt-and-pepper hair is lightly tousled, with rectangular glasses perched on her nose, and a grey waffle tee pulled casually over her frame.
Born Mathilde after her mother and grandmother, she was raised in Mississippi and Texas. The younger of two siblings, she affectionately earned the nickname “Tig” from her big brother, Renaud, when she was two years old. In 2015, she married her wife, The L Word: Generation Q star Stephanie Allyne, 39. Coincidentally, they wed months after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. “We were just living our lives and planned on getting married, whether it was legal or not,” Notaro says. “Crazy. It just happened to line up.”
open image in galleryNotaro and her wife Stephanie Allynne (right) have been married since 2015 and share two sons (Getty Images)The pair are frequent collaborators. They met while working together on the 2013 indie comedy In a World… and went on to co-produce and co-star in Notaro’s semi-autobiographical series One Mississippi (2016). The couple, who welcomed twin boys, Max and Finn, via surrogate in 2016, made their directorial debuts co-helming the 2022 romcom Am I OK?, starring Dakota Johnson as Lucy, a late-in-life lesbian. They also recently collaborated on Notaro’s latest comedy special, Hello Again (2024).
“We’re going on 13 years together,” Notaro points out proudly, adding that the key to their long and loving marriage has been “talking about everything and laughing really hard together.” They take a morning walk together every day, too. “We have our coffee, and just get our day started together and end it together,” she says.
Allyne’s unending support, she adds, helped her through the emotional weight of Gibson’s devastating health updates. “I mean, Stephanie, my wife, is just one million percent there. Our sons, even though they are now only nine, I think they really understood the gravity of it all.”
Notaro recalls that just the other night, while putting her sons to bed, they went through who and what they were grateful for in life. “Then one of my sons said, ‘and Meg,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, and Meg.’ And then the other said, ‘and Andrea.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, and Andrea.’”
‘Come See Me in the Good Light’ is streaming on Apple TV+
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