As if doing scene work without a net or a script at the American Improv Theater in San Jose wasn’t enough of a thrill, Courtney Magleby decided to venture onto the standup comedy stage about a year ago.
“It’s terrifying at first,” the performer says. “Once you do it enough times, you get used to it, especially when you get to know the people you’re performing with.”
Magleby (who uses the non-binary “them/they/their” pronouns) did open mics at South Bay spots like the The Caravan Lounge, Go! Go! Gong Show! and Rooster T Feathers Comedy Club. But there was a problem: “It’s very male-dominated. I wouldn’t say there are a lot of female, and especially LGBT, voices.”
From the performer’s point of view, the crowd in front of them may not be ready for jokes about gay life. From the audience standpoint, they’re missing out on a whole other world of jokes. And for LGBTQ folks in the audience, it’s not uncommon to be the punchline of homophobic jokes.
So Magleby put together a showcase of comedians called Flamin Gals and Gays.
“Standup is an art form that’s a lot about being yourself and who you are,” they say. And this team of comedians will definitely be themselves.
Shannon Murphy describes herself as a comedian, babysitter and doula, and somehow manages to spin laughs out of it, all the way to being named Top Comic in the 2015 Funny Fest Comedy Competition.
Karl Puzon has performed unabashedly gay comedy in the Make Out Room and Piano Fight in San Francisco. He has a bit, viewable online, in which he reveals the psychological pitfalls of hooking up with a guy who is “Chris Hemsworth-level hot.”
David Stolowitz doesn’t just do gay comedy; he can strike multiple notes in his standup, including religion and farming. But Magleby says Alexandria Love is “fearless.”
“My first name is Alexandria, like the library. My last name is Love, like the fucking lie,” she tells a comedy crowd, before talking about her hometown of Oakland (“I’m from 82nd Avenue and High Speed Chase Boulevard”) and her atheism (“Like most crisis-of-faith stories, this one starts in the backseat of an Uber”).
Magleby says the show is welcoming to “gay, straight, bi, trans, etc.” Although this showcase is one-night only, if it’s a hit, it could become a regular thing.
FLAMIN GALS AND GAYS is 7:30pm Saturday, Jan. 6, at Pink Flamingo Theater, 2115 N. Fremont St. Monterey. $15. 238-2399.