nicole11@unm.edu
Twenty-seven-year-old comedian Sarah Kennedy went from selling pizza at Dion’s to taking the stage at the Box Performance Space.
“The first thing I think about when I wake up is ‘What can I do for stand-up comedy today?’” Kennedy said. “I love it too much to ever get tired of it.”
Kennedy and her girlfriend Sarah Mowrey started a group called Broad Humor, and they produce and perform at the Box in weekly stand-up comedy shows that feature local comedians. Both women spend about 10 to 15 hours per week on comedy, and Mowrey co-founded UNM’s on-campus comedy club, “Comedy?”
Kennedy said stand-up comedy appeals to her because of its versatile nature.
“You write it, you decide how you’re going to do it all, you perform it, you have to make a lot of stuff out of very little,” she said. “It’s also nice to have an opinion about something and be able to talk about it with people — and make people laugh at the same time.”
Mowrey said she uses stand-up as a tool for self-expression.
“It’s sort of a way for me to vent, because I do get angry on stage and I do get flustered or I do get frazzled, and it’s a way to get those feelings out into the world and hopefully make people laugh,” she said.
The women joke about everything from Dr. Oz to the Dollar Store to LGBTQ rights. Twenty-one-year-old Mowrey, a senior majoring in university studies, said that in one of her jokes her dad tells her brother to visit an abortion clinic to pick up girls.
“I don’t go to the abortion clinic to get a new relationship — I go there to get the old one out of me,” she said.
Both women said they draw on personal experiences to find their content, and Kennedy said she often texts herself ideas when she has funny conversations with friends.
“I’m not a very dirty comedian,” Kennedy said. “My parents come to my shows a lot, and my mom crosses her arms and shakes her head when I tell jokes like that. Normally I joke about how not-dirty I am. I’m like ‘No. 2 pencils, that’s disgusting.’”
She said many comedians push the boundaries further than she does.
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“That’s the thing about stand-up comedy: that’s free speech at its most open, and people test the limits for themselves and for the community,” Kennedy said.
Mowrey said it can be difficult to joke about personal issues in front of a large crowd, but she said she’s learned how to be comfortable with it. Anything goes in the name of humor, she said.
“I talk about how I have lactose intolerance and depression and high cholesterol and also ADHD probably … Sometimes I feel resistance in myself, like that’s just for me, but I get over that pretty quickly because if it’s funny, it doesn’t matter,” she said.
But she said putting herself out there can come with a price. Mowrey said it feels terrible when the audience doesn’t laugh at a joke, but she said she has to keep going.
“From my perspective I feel awful, but then I look down at my notebook and I’m like ‘I got three jokes left,’” she said. “It’s just building something with the audience and if you’re not necessarily their flavor that night, that’s totally fine. It’s not like death, even though it feels that way.”
Broad Humor
Saturdays at 10:30 p.m.
The Box Performance Space
$6
facebook.com/BroadHumor
