Like many LGBT people, Lisa Geduldig is horrified by the actions of President Donald Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk. Geduldig, a well known stand up comic in the Bay Area, isn't going to be silent about what's going on. To that end she's creating, hosting and performing in a new monthly show called "Resistance Comedy." The series will kick off on March 23 at the Eclectic Box, a small theater in San Francisco's Mission District.
It hasn't been an easy year for Geduldig. A few months back she lost her beloved mother with whom she had spent a great deal of time during the pandemic. As the pandemic raged Geduldig produced Lockdown Comedy, a regularly scheduled online comedy show where her mother became a popular performer. Still mourning her mother's passing, Geduldig was blindsided by Trump's presidential victory and decided that her voice needed to be heard.
"With all the drek that's going on now with the Drumpf/Muskrat regime, I decided that the series needed to have a political bent," Geduldig, a lesbian, said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. "We have to stay sane amidst the horrible news every day, and we need to resist, be it through protesting and/or calling elected officials and/or art. Comedy is art and can be a form of resistance, therefore the name. And comedy is healing. It will be cathartic for a group of people to sit in a theater together in the dark and laugh about some of the shit going on now, from a comedian's perspective."
Partial proceeds from each month's show will be donated to a different organization. All beneficiaries will be non-profits who fight for civil rights, immigrant rights, women's rights, trans rights, etc. The first show will benefit the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union.
"I chose the ACLU for the first month as they're in the courts now trying to preserve our democracy," Geduldig said. "They do vital work."
Intelligent, funny
As always, Geduldig will be hosting the show as well as performing some stand-up. Other performers who will appear on opening night are Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, Orion Levine, Carla Clayy, and Bob McIntyre, who is a gay man.
"When I book a show, I look for intelligent, funny, original and unoffensive comics," she said. "People who I also want to hang out with offstage as well. I'm asking all of the comics to do at least some political material in their act, but it doesn't have to be entirely political."
McIntyre, who also spoke to the B.A.R., may be familiar to many local denizens as he worked for twelve years at the much-missed Sparky's Diner. He said that while being gay definitely informs his comedy, just being human informs it more.
"It's pretty clear that I'm a gay man as soon as the words start coming out of my mouth and my arms start flailing but most of what I talk about is everyday stuff like the price of cole slaw on Valencia Street," he said. "Or getting on the wrong Muni train convinced that you got on the right train and thinking that you've been abducted by aliens."
McIntyre added that it can be a bit daunting to find humor in the current political climate.
"I'd say that the challenges of finding humor in the current political climate start with doomscrolling," he said. "I'm very guilty of it. Just like I was last time he was in office. I've actually had a hard time writing lately because it's all just too much. Thankfully I've been doing a bunch of work at Eclectic Box lately, doing tech work and house managing and sidewalk scrubbing."
When he takes to the stage at "Resistance Comedy," McIntyre will show the audience that humor can be found in the most unlikely places.
"For this show I have a few things," he said. "I'm going to journey back to a time when life was simpler, the first year of COVID. And I'm going to talk about some of the biggest viral stars of the era who you may have forgotten about. COVID, the good old days."
"You have to find humor in what's going on now," added Geduldig. "You either laugh or you cry. Everything is so absurd you couldn't write this stuff. And it's more 'Saturday Night Live' than 'Saturday Night Live' is. There's no shortage of material."
'Resistance Comedy,' Sunday, March 23, 7pm, Eclectic Box SF, 446 Valencia St. $27.50-$54, pay what you can.
www.koshercomedy.com
www.eclecticboxsf.com
CityBoxOffice.com/Resistance-Comedy
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