Esther Povitsky

Povitsky was born in Chicago to Mary and Morrie Povitsky. Her father is of Russian-Jewish descent and her mother is a Christian and of Finnish descent. Her mother worked as an administrative assistant for the Youth Services of Glenview/Northbrook. She has one older half-sister from her mother's first marriage. Esther grew up in the Chicago suburb of Skokie; she graduated there from Niles North High School in 2006.

After high school, Esther Povitsky attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign for three years before she dropped out to pursue a career in stand-up comedy and acting. "I was really unhappy at my school," Povitsky recalled. "A lot of people were in sororities and a lot of people drank all the time, and I wasn't into either of those things, so I really did not feel like I fit in."

She then studied comedy at iO Chicago and The Second City in Chicago before moving to Los Angeles, where she took classes with The Groundlings. She has performed regularly at The Comedy Store, The Ice House, and The Improv which are all in southern California .