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July 26, 2005
A Stand Up Gal
by DEANNA DAHLSAD
In getting her subjects to display their humor & playfulness for the viewfinder, she found that she had a character (or twenty) inside herself. And some of these were not content to be silently adored as prints – no, several of these characters craved the spotlight, laughter & applause.
In order for these characters to achieve such audience adoration, they demanded proper training. Lacking proper identification of their own, Kat Caverly enrolled for them: acting classes, voice work, improv classes, clown school, mime lessons, stand up comedy... For a few, even this wasn't enough: They would require shows of their own.
Through these performances, characters such as Shirley Kenosha, Mona Moore & The Professor received their much loved laughter, & Kat Caverly learned more about what 'funny' was to other people.
With Shirley she clowned around; combining stand up with mime actions to put the 'punch' in 'punch lines.' With Mona she learned that the rhythm of Beat poetry and the rhythm of comedy are very much the same; all adding to the playful qualities of her photos and the humor of the greeting card text.
With The Professor, the lessons were different, but important.
"I had created this funny little man character, The Professor, and I was a lot like a cross between Jerry Lewis and Lucille Ball. I went to this club in full costume (drag if you will) and I had special buck teeth and prosthetic male genitalia and all. We had built special body suits for various characters. I had a male-chest and special tidy-whities.
The low point was being put in a room at a comedy club that I wouldn't have put a stray animal in while I was waiting to go on stage. I found myself telling off the club manager as I left the club!! With those teeth! “ It was the final straw, I never performed at the comedy clubs again after that...”
You could argue that this was yet another example of Kat Caverly's personal character – not wishing to work in such environments. But it would be just as fair to say that her inner characters were divas in search of larger audiences...
For why play New York when you can have the whole world as your audience on the internet?!
Posted by photocartoonist at July 26, 2005 11:11 PM