While some might spend the final five minutes before hosting a comedy show running through their material or pacing around offstage, Beth Stelling was too busy getting a hug. Fellow comedian Kat Herskovic had just given Stelling a red floral print dress she’d found in her closet with the promise, “This will look good on you.”
A few moments later, Tiffany Puterbaugh walked into the dimly lit pub where Stelling was about to go on, and the three exchanged more embraces.
But, for these young comics, when the hugs end, the bawdy banter begins, and that means pointed barbs about sex, bodily functions and things you’d more likely hear coming out of a locker room.
Welcome to the world of the few, the proud, the underground female stand-up comics in Chicago.
In a city where male stand-ups drastically outnumber women — and stand-up itself often is overshadowed by Second City and the famous improv and sketch comedy scene — the handful of young female comics performing frequently on the North Side resembles a small but sassy sorority.
“We found ourselves in a similar place in our lives — hardworking female comics in Chicago performing very original material — so we felt we were supposed to meet this year,” said Stelling, 23. She noted that earlier this year, she and a group of female comics who regularly perform at the weekly “Entertaining Julia” show at Town Hall Pub in Boystown deemed 2008 “The Year of the Lady.”
“We’re just girls and we like being around other ladies to chat and hang out and maybe discuss boyfriends, whatever,” said comedian Fay Canale, 31. “Life is hard when you’re around 40 drunk dudes for three hours, so you gotta stick together.”
I hate female comedians, but …
Besides dealing with drunken patrons, female comics also have to fight stereotypes and misplaced expectations.
Many say they hear from audience members that they expect women to be unfunny, or that the material will focus exclusively on menstrual cycles and women’s issues.
“The audience prepares themselves right off the bat, for better or for worse,” said Stelling, whose routine often incorporates stories about her family. “The bottom line is: If it’s funny, I’ll use it.”
Said writer/stand-up comic Julianna Forlano: “Women have hurdles, certain obstacles they have to face in this business. I get this when I perform a lot, ‘I hate female comedians, but you were pretty funny.’ Right, that’s a compliment? I hear that all the time, and males don’t have to hear anything like that.”
Encounters like these might help explain why there are fewer women than men in the stand-up world. It may also be a case that the act of standing up in front of a room of strangers and telling them jokes is an innately male activity, said Dave Odd, who books the monthly all-female Ha Ha Hotties comedy show at Edge Comedy Club in West Town.
“Many girls who want to do comedy go the improv route. It’s safe, and there’s a team or family of people there. It’s a less intimidating environment,” Odd said.
Another obstacle is one the fellas also face — diminished audiences as a whole.
In the stand-up boom in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when nationally known comedians like Eddie Murphy, Sam Kinison and Paula Poundstone ruled the airwaves, there were as many as 17 full-time comedy clubs in Chicago, said Bert Haas, who books shows for Zanies in Old Town — the city’s only remaining club from those days. But by the mid-’90s the stand-up trend fizzled.
“We’re the redheaded stepchild, a third-tier entertainment choice in Chicago now,” Odd said. “One of the problems is that [the] major stand-up comedians you see on TV — Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook — are the faces, and they’re horrible.
“And there are other guys still out there doing Lorena Bobbitt jokes, so people see that on TV and say, ‘Why do I want to pay $9 for that?’ “
Said comedy producer Elizabeth McQuern, who edits the local comedy blog The Bastion: “In terms of numbers, there are a lot more improv and sketch shows and performers in Chicago than stand-up, and again, the improv influence shapes the unique style of stand-up in Chicago. It’s more spontaneous, theatrical and character-based.”
Making ends meet
There are plenty of open mics and shows in bars like Schubas and Town Hall across the city, but few places where comics can receive major exposure or get paid good money for their work.
Canale said she aspires to be a comic full time, but for now has to keep a day job at Starbucks because a lot of the time, she is paid for her two-to-three performances a week in free food and beer.
Herskovic plans to pull up stakes and move to L.A. this month, joining a list of promising comics who have fled Chicago for the more fertile scenes in L.A. and New York. The 29-year old, introduced as “the second coming of Gracie Allen” at a recent show at Zanies, said there are more opportunities out West.
Comics like T.J. Miller, Lil Rel and South Siders Shawn Morgan and Vanessa Fraction have made names for themselves in the city, but McQuern called Chicago “a sort of grad school for comedians.”
“If we really want to work, the entertainment industry is 90 percent in L.A., and about 8 percent in New York, so after a few years of studying here, we find ourselves trying to decide between coasts and then making plans to split,” McQuern said.
The comedians who do stay in Chicago try to support one another as much as they can, Stelling said, adding that she is working with others to put together a Chicago Ladies of Comedy tour on college campuses.
Canale, for example, made it a point to befriend Stelling after she moved to Chicago last year from Ohio and began doing stand-up. “When you are new to the scene, it’s good to have a lady take you under a wing,” Canale said.
After watching Stelling and others at the Town Hall show, Erin Liston, 27, of Lakeview, said she would be excited to see more women comics in the future.
“I usually don’t like stand-up, but this was great,” said Liston. “I like to see funny, confident women kick ass up there.”
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LAUGH FACTORIES
Here’s a sampling of three venues for stand-up comedy listed on metromix.com.
Zanies
1548 N. Wells St. (Old Town)
312-337-4027
Jokes and Notes
4641 S. King Drive (Bronzeville)
773-373-3390
Chicago Underground Comedy–Beat Kitchen
2100 W. Belmont Ave. (North Center)
773-281-4444
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Did you hear the one about … ?
RedEye asked local comics to tell us — er, write us — a joke.
“People often compare fishing to dating. They say things like, ‘There’s plenty of fish in the sea,’ and so on. And it’s true: When you catch a fish, either its life is over or you throw it back in the water permanently scarred.”
Kat Herskovic, 29, Edgewater
“My little sister is in a sorority that was selling tacos on the quad as a fundraiser to benefit heart disease research. It seemed like a contradiction at first, until I found out that in previous years they had sold Jell-O shots to benefit cancer and sugar-free Jell-O shots to benefit diabetes. I guess you gotta give ’em something to cure.”
Cameron Esposito, 26, Logan Square
“Politicians are promising to hold the greenest conventions in presidential history. The food will be organic, the balloons will be biodegradable and the promises used to fertilize the local farmland.”
Julianna Forlano, Edgewater
“I thought I was pregnant this month because I was waking up every morning puking. Thought it was morning sickness. Turns out I was just sleeping with really ugly guys.”
Beth Stelling, 23, Lakeview
“Nobody ever does anything nice when they’re drunk. You never hear, ‘I got so wasted last night I knitted you this sweater.'”
Fay Canale, 31, Boystown
