Women find the jokes in real lives of moms

One day nine years ago, best friends Kristen Hensley and Jen Smedley were hanging out, having a glass of wine, commiserating about the sweet, hilarious and often outrageous doings of their four collective kids.

Both had come to Los Angeles to pursue careers in comedy — sketch, improv, standup. Along the way, family became a greater priority. Still …

Having just had a baby, Smedley was feeling particularly low. “Postpartum on its own is such an isolating time,” she said.

“You really have no idea how much time you’re going to spend with this baby, that, you know, cries, which is really a criticism. Let’s be honest. They’re not crying cause they’re happy with what you’re doing.”

Luckily, Smedley said, “I can find comedy in dark situations. I worry if life’s too good, is it going to be funny anymore? Then you have kids and things get so overwhelming and dark. There’s constant material coming out of them.”

And luckily, Hensley was there for her. The two became best friends in LA, partly because, although they never met, they’d grown up going to the same Nebraska schools. Both had left the Midwest for LA hoping for careers in standup and comedy writing. Both had husbands with careers in acting, directing and producing. What cemented their friendship, though, was their mutual passion for making people laugh.

They made each other laugh, and cry, with their bottomless collection of anecdotes about their family lives, but they also frequently shared their frustrations about their stalled comedy careers.

“Getting onstage at 11 p.m. does not work if you’re a mom,” Hensley said, “and if you’re not doing that, you’re never going to get any consistency to your comedy. It just felt like unfair play.

“So, one night Jen came over and we were having wine and we were both talking about how terrible we are as moms, but through the tears we started to laugh and then she was like, ‘I wonder if this is like a video, if there is something to this.’”

Smedley recalled that, at the time, social media featured mostly content that made moms feel like they weren’t doing a good job. As if to undermine the flailing self-respect of the average mom, videos were all about how they could be doing a better job and looking like models at the same time.

Their latent ambition ignited, and their drive did the rest. They made each other laugh about motherhood. They could make others laugh, too.

According to Hensley, “Within a couple days we were filming at her house in the playroom. We did it wrong in so many ways. As we watched the footage we were, like, we don’t know what this is, but we think this is it.”

Months later, after they’d learned the tech and acquired the basic gear, they dropped their first video on Facebook, the platform their research had told them attracted the most moms.

Hensley said, “It took us six months from the first one to start posting regularly because we had to learn, and we wanted to make sure the storytelling was right. But the first one hit so fast that we had a week to post the second one.

“That really motivated us.”

The duo agrees there was a single moment in that first video that defined their project. It was the now-immortal moment when Smedley couldn’t remember the name of her new baby. Moms understood perfectly: Not only did they laugh, but they also wanted to hug these women for their vulnerability.

Smedley said the vignette resonated as “emblematic of a friendship and also of how women actually are together. They’re not precious, and they give each other a hard time and they laugh about stuff that feels bad because that’s how we cope.”

It was because they were eager to meet the women who became their fans and friends that they set out to create a show they could take on tour. “We are very much in service to how grateful we are to the women who propel this thing,” Hensley said.

“The women are so wonderful. They come out and they’re like, ‘Yes, me too. Oh my God. Yes. I feel the same way.’ And that’s why we’ve driven to do this.”

#IMOMSOHARD, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 11, Fox Tucson Theatre, 17 W. Congress Street, Tucson, tickets start at $20, foxtucson.com

Proscenium hosts The Men of Clean Comedy

Four touring comics rarely seen in Tucson share a bill at The Proscenium Theatre this weekend. Featured are Brotha Man from TV’s “Martin” and “The Bernie Mac Show”; Barry Brewer from the Tyler Perry series; “The Bruh” on BET+ and Kevin Hart’s “Guide to Black History” on Netflix; “Jammin” Jay Lamont from BET’s “Comic View” and Byron Allen’s “Comics Unleashed”; and Mo Jones, also from “Comic View.” Top L.A. DJ JiJi Sweet will mix the tunes.

“Men of Clean Comedy,” 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 5, Proscenium Theater, Pima Community College, 2202 W. Anklam Road, tickets start at $55, ticketleap.com

Eric Schwartz was viral before it was cool

Eric Schwartz is a comic for our time, with the skills and imagination to jump on the zeitgeist like a surfboard and hang 10 into the new millennium.

First, he’s a geek, so incorporating accelerating tech developments has been a snap. YouTube once anointed him one of their “NextUp Creator” and he’s won more than 42,000 followers there. In live shows, he mines his multicultural background (Jewish and Latino) for comedy gold.

Eric Schwartz, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 5, The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress Street, Tucson, tickets start at $17,

screeningroomdowntown.com

OTHER SHOWS

Laff’s Comedy Caffe, 2900 E. Broadway Boulevard. 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4, and 7 and 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 5, laffstucson.com, $15, $20 preferred seating. J.R. Brow has performed with Bill Hicks, Wanda Sykes and the Monkees.

Tucson Improv Movement/TIM Comedy Theatre, 414 E. Ninth Street.

tucsonimprov.com, $7 each show, $10 for both shows, same night, free jam and open mic.7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 3, “Harold Eta” and “Finding the Words”; 8:30 p.m. Open Mic.; 6:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4, Improv Jam; 7:30 p.m. “The Soapbox”; 9 p.m. Stand Up Showcase; Saturday, Aug. 5, 1 p.m. “Pretendy Time”; 7:30 p.m. “Return of the Mermaids” events and “The Meeting”; 9 p.m. “The Dating Scene.”

Unscrewed Theater, 4500 E. Speedway Boulevard, unscrewedtheatre.org, $8, $5 kids. 7:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4, “From the Top” improvised musical; 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 5, Family Friendly Improv; 9 p.m. “The Backyard,” pay what you will.

This article appears in Aug 3-9, 2023.