Live comedy is back, and comedians are getting ready to wear pants again

Queeries is a weekly column by CBC Arts producer Peter Knegt that queries LGBTQ art, culture and/or identity through a personal lens.

Live comedy is finally coming back, and for those in many Canadian cities ... it's been a long wait. This surely feels especially true for the comedians themselves, who have been navigating a pandemic limbo for the past 16 or so months.

Among those comedians are Elvira Kurt, Martha Chaves and Tamara Shevon, three of Toronto's funniest LGBTQ performers (which is saying a lot given the depth of the city's queer comedy community). The trio will be headlining a Saturday series of live comedy events outside the city's Campbell House Museum. Produced by Gay AF Comedy, the physically distanced shows will be hosted by Robert Watson and will feature many queer comedy staples alongside Kurt, Chaves and Shevon (including Ted Morris, Kyle Brownrigg, Clif Knight, Ryan Dillon, Courtney Gilmour, Matt Santos and Ben Sosa Wright, to name just a few). 

In anticipation of this return to the stage, I chatted with Kurt, Chaves and Shevon about what it means to come back — and how they made it through.

So here we are, at what appears to finally be the end of the pandemic really limiting live comedy (or, for a long while there, shuttering it completely). How does that feel?

Martha Chaves: It feels like jumping for joy, but I am being cautious not to get too excited — you know what I mean?

Tamara Shevon: It feels great to be able to be able to perform again no matter where it is. I feel sane again, not that I really was before. At this point I think Toronto comedians are skilled enough to turn a back alley or gutter into a comedy show with a few days' notice.

Elvira Kurt: Well, my resting state is anxious introvert with a side of social awkwardness and that just shot through the roof when this all started. It's now become my new normal, even double vaxxed, so I'd say that my current mood is pretty much still that. Though now, as we transition to yet another unknown way of being in the world, I'd say there's also slightly more of it and jacked up a bit which, yay! I'm like the delta variant of worry.

I say this having just had my first truly live show — stage, lights, sound, people crowded together, no masks, no social distancing ... yes, it was in the U.S., why do you ask? It was an outdoor show but seeing row upon row of people sitting next to each other was so familiar and totally strange all at once. Throw in how thrilled I was to do a live show yet also wildly nervous; it added up to a big jug of, "I did not see that coming!" 

Has these past 16 months changed the way you think about comedy — and performing it — going forward? 

MC: Oh yes. For 25 years I thought that if I wasn't on stage at least four times a week, I couldn't breathe. However, when being on stage meant I could lose the ability to breathe, literally, I had to learn to adapt to do it on Zoom, cheerfully pretending I was a YouTuber. Now that we are emerging from performing in shorts, alone, in front of your computer, it feels glorious, but we have to re-learn again to go out of the house for work, to deal with people who are also emerging from the plague, and to again wear pants.

TS: These past 16 months have changed the way I view comedy as a whole. What we learned is that comedy, although not labelled so by the government, is an essential service. Even transitioning to Zoom comedy, I got dozens of messages weekly about how watching an online comedy show could change someone's mood for a whole week. I think that this pandemic has shown comedians that we can exist in more than one form and we can actually curate shows with people all across the world using the internet as a complimentary tool going forward.

EK: At the start, I felt like I had to figure out how to do stand-up into the camera of my phone after I attached it to a tripod. Then later, after talking to another comic, I tried performing while sitting down at my laptop.... It's all so unnatural in a way for me because I'm so animated as a performer — how do you stay still when being physical is who you are?  "COVID brain" was also a huge factor there for a while. I describe it as this frequency of white noise that was ever-present, like TV screen snow or fuzz. I realized early on that I could only perform, or more accurately, only trust myself to perform, if I had my entire set printed out and taped to surfaces all around me just out of range of the camera. What a sight. I have many photos of my various chaos-es. Rube Goldberg would approve.

At that live show I just did in the States, I had my printed-up set with me — not a set list of bullet points but the entire set! I even arranged the papers beforehand on a music stand like I'd gotten used to doing as prep for my online shows. Did I hum to myself? Probably. I don't know what I was thinking except that I wasn't thinking — I was just in "lockdown feral" mode, going about my business as if I was still in the solitude of a virtual green room with my audio muted and camera off.  Of course, I didn't end up using my stupid papers, they were just an annoying distraction now that I was in front of a live audience again.

What were some of your main sources of comfort and/or inspiration during quarantine? What kept you going?

MC: Well, I am a hypochondriac germaphobe. I felt smug and vindicated because all my fears were justified and I kept worrying to death and washing my hands 375 times a minute. Also, I took online creative writing courses and watched TV as research, plus cats.

TS: I threw myself into a routine to keep some sort of comedy alive by turning one of my weekly shows "Sunday Best Comedy" into the Sunday Best Comedy Podcast. I figured the world needed another podcast from a comedian — there are not nearly enough! I also started an Instagram show called "Quarantea" that I did every Tuesday and Thursday where I interviewed other comedians with five questions that they had to answer no matter what. The main thing that kept me going, though, was of course chicken nuggets.

Even transitioning to Zoom comedy, I got dozens of messages weekly about how watching an online comedy show could change someone's mood for a whole week.- Tamara Shevon

EK: As soon as the very first lockdown happened, it was like I couldn't get the jokes out fast enough. The hyper-ness in the air elevated my creative output. I'm very extemporaneous as it is, very in the moment, reacting on the spot, and this was like shifting into warp speed. It was a tidal wave of ideas. I barely had time to unload the toilet paper and fishsticks from my trunk before I reached out to my CBC Radio contacts. I pitched ideas to everyone I could think of who had a microphone/studio access. My knee-jerk response to the crisis was, "Comedy to the rescue!" I was in a pitching frenzy, writing like a maniac then going on the air to deliver.

I did all the shows, on every platform, no matter if they were 10 minute sets of stand up or an hour. I turned down nothing. Have camera, will not need to travel. So what kept me going is what's always kept me going: mama hustles! If I was fearless before the pandemic, I have learned that, without a doubt, I am unstoppable! My mantra throughout the pandemic has been, "Art finds a way." To which I can now add, "And Kurt will find five more." I'm looking at you, Netflix.

In a way, this whole pandemic has allowed for the possibility that we can reset the way we do things as communities and industries. With respect to comedy, and particularly as queer women working in comedy, what are some things you hope ... never come back?

MC: The notion that only one segment of the population has a seat at the table.

TS: Free shows!

EK: Communal popcorn. Mandatory pants. Other things off the top my head that can fuck off never to return: Gatekeeping. Patriarchy. White supremacy. Climate change denial. Colonialism. Organized religion.

Have you thought about the first joke you're going to tell when you get back on stage? 

MC: "So what's up? Is there anything new?"

TS: Going to tell the first joke I ever wrote and start my career over.

EK: "I don't think I can do this in pants."©️

These interviews have been edited and condensed for length.

Courtyard Comedy will take place at 3pm for the next four Saturdays: August 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th. General seating tickets are $20, available on Eventbrite.