If I have learned anything over my life, it is that the material that connects the most is often when you dip in the well of experience you know.
And speaking of wells, local comic Sarah Jean Anderson, whose ex-husband fell down a well, will return to Dog Story Theater in a brand new show that will sans the extras many have come to enjoy. (It’s a good thing.)
If you were one of those attending her last sold out show at this venue, then you know it was quite frankly an exhausting journey of endless openers and a never-ending bit upon bit performance clocking in almost three hours with only one intermission. It was a comic exercise in endurance.
But lucky for us, her third one-woman show will be much leaner and tighter because a lot of the devices she has relied on in the past to keep us in the seat long into the night will be missing.
What we will get instead is a solid standup show in the story-telling tradition of Kathy Griffin and Mike Birbiglia that is quite frankly where she has been heading if you have been watching her evolve over the years.
This show will be full of stranger than fiction stories from her life as a downtown resident complete with hilarious impressions, old jokes, brand new jokes and a poem ("To all the boys I've f’d before.") Not to mention a brand spanking new video of what happens when Sarah decides she needs to learn to milk a cow with Dan Falicki and me (Tommy Allen).
Again, this is a good thing.
She is a rare treat in our mostly male comic dominated (local) world and probably one of the hardest working, too. It is because of her rare view into a world that few dare to talk about locally that I gush on our pages here often.
But she owes a heavy debt to Dr. Grins, where her love for standup began.
“I did standup for the first time at Dr. Grins for three minutes many years ago. When I got there, I met all these dude comics who were all at the comic table, chain smoking and talking shit,” says Anderson. “But they were really cold and standoffish to me. So when I went on after a few comics who didn't do very well and killed it, they suddenly were okay with me being there.”
She nailed it, thus gaining their approval and was invited to …?
Admission: $8 in advance, $10 at the door
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