Comedy royalty will hold court in New Hope when the Queens of Comedy make a regal visit to the Rrazz Room March 30.
Queer Queens of Comedy is a touring revue created by out comedian and actor Poppy Champlin and featuring different lesbian comedians at shows all over the country. Champlin said she originally put together the Queer Queens to get herself into venues that her out comedy peers were headlining on their own.
“It started in 2006 at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va.,” she said. “I wanted to play the Birchmere because Kate [Clinton] played the Birchmere and Suzanne [Westenhoefer] played the Birchmere, and I felt I’m just as funny as those two. But I didn’t have a name. I haven’t done ‘Letterman.’ I’ve done other things — I’ve been on HBO, Showtime, Comedy Central and Logo. So I said, How about if I bring three lesbian comedians who are all fantastic and all as funny as the aforementioned comics? So we called ourselves the Queer Queens of Comedy and we started getting exposure for ourselves.”
Champlin said performing under that banner opens doors to venues and draws audiences who might not usually come to see the individual performers on their own.
“You’ve got to call it something,” she said. “You can’t just call it the three names on the marquis. It still seems to have to be under an umbrella. You can say ‘Gay Comedy Night’ but that’s not fun in the newspapers. But it is starting to be a brand. I returned to the Birchmere a number of times and we were getting big crowds.”
For the show in New Hope, Champlin is performing with Jessica Kirson and Mimi Gonzalez. Other comedians that have appeared with the Queer Queens of Comedy include Carol Leifer, Julie Goldman, Michele Balan, Fortune Feimster and Wrin Foley, among many others.
Champlin said there are a few out comedians she hasn’t had on her show that she would like to work with in the future.
“I kind of made up my mind that I wasn’t going to use Kate and Suzanne because they are the reason I did this, but it would be nice to have them once in a while,” she said. “I did have Fortune Feimster once and I would love to get her back. I would like to get Jen Kober on. I haven’t gotten her. We did a Showtime special together. I tried to get Elvira Kurt on but timing is a hard thing to work out.”
Comedian and TV personality Kirson said she has performed with Champlin numerous times as part of the Queer Queens and on other shows.
“Poppy and I do a bunch of shows together,” she said. “I do her Queens of Comedy shows sometimes and we also do cruise ships together. We’ve been friends for years.”
Both Champlin and Kirson perform all over the country for all kinds of audiences — LGBT, straight and everything in between. But both said their LGBT audiences offer a certain level of comfort for them as performers.
“I’m very mainstream also, so I do clubs and shows all over the country that aren’t gay shows,” Kirson said. “I guess from doing TV and stuff it’s not as hard. I look at it like it’s the same thing. I love performing for mostly gay audiences because there is a lot of stuff that I say, inside jokes, that they would get. I’m also Jewish. I like performing for non-religious Jews. A show with gay people can be a harder crowd than a club in the middle of Ohio. It really depends but I do love performing for gay men and lesbians because they are very open and have similar political views as I do, so it’s fun for me.”
“There is the occasional hell-gig but I guess that’s in the straight world,” Champlin said. “But it’s only hell if I let fear come into my brain and fear still comes in. I want to be able to do the straight crowds and be gay and be open but I feel like you have to mix it pretty well. That’s my fear. Let me mix gay and straight material together so that they don’t choke on too much gay. It’s being aware of what my audience is and not trying to shove anything down their throats and trying to get as many laughs per minute. I have to tailor that to them and make sure I’m having a good time too.”
Champlin added that performing in towns like New Hope tends to be more fun than high-profile shows in big-city clubs and theaters.
“Little towns, they just have more joy in their hearts,” she said. “I feel like New York sucks the joy out of your heart sometime and makes your heart a little bit harder. The smaller towns, the people are more joyous and free and I appreciate working with people who are more in touch with their joy.”
When you have a show with multiple popular comedians, there is some jockeying and egos flaring behind the scenes about who goes on when, as each performer wants the prestige of closing That won’t be the case at this show, as Champlin said Kirson is the obvious choice.
“Sometimes I have to remove my hat as a performer and put on a producer hat,” Champlin said. “On this show, Jessica has been on ‘The Tonight Show’ twice and I give Jessica her props. Audiences love her and she’s going to be closing the show. In other cases when it isn’t such a fine line with credits and it’s up to me, I think I should close the shows. That’s how I want it to go this year but I’m scared to do it. I open it and bring it to a boil then bring out the first comic. Then I come out and bring it to a boil again. Then the next comic comes out and does her thing and then I come out and close it with a boil. It works that way. I have to be my own manager and my manager would say, ‘Yeah, you’re the star. Go up there and kill it. You do it.’ But I want it to run the way it’s always been running. It runs great when I open it, middle it and close it. So I don’t know what to do. But with this one, I’d be terrified to follow Jessica.”
Kirson and Champlin have had their fair share of exposure on television but both said that, these days, they are exploring alternatives to traditional mainstream TV and cable programs for their creative efforts outside of live comedy.
“I don’t think there are a ton of opportunities for comics, period, anymore,” Kirson said. “I know that Logo used to do a lot of standup shows and specials. I don’t have time to watch TV a lot but it seems that they don’t do as many shows with standup comedians. But there aren’t as many opportunities for comedians. It’s mostly reality shows and you kind of have to create your own buzz. A lot of it is on the Internet now. I have a YouTube channel called the ‘Jessie K Show.’ I have a ton of stuff online. So I’ve been doing that for years now and it helps. You can’t depend on TV.”
“I approached Logo and Here and Bravo with the Queer Queens of Comedy as a series that we could put on four times a year but they said it was too gay,” Champlin said. “It was too gay for Logo, which was ridiculous. So now it really is fine to be gay on network TV but I think they definitely should have more standup shows on their networks. It would be awesome but they don’t. I guess I should hit them up again with it. I’m creating a comedy-news show and I’m putting it on Equality News Network out of San Diego. I’m still trying to find little cubbyholes of gay TV that are starting to carry these things on the Internet. I think the Internet is going to be the outlet for gay content a little bit more than television.”
The Queer Queens of Comedy perform 4-7 p.m. March 30 at the Rrazz Room at The Ramada, 6426 Lower York Road, New Hope. For more information or tickets, call 215-862-5221 or visit poppychamplin.com/queer-queens-of-qomedy/.