Poppy Champlin and the Queer Queens of Qomedy will be back in Baltimore, Maryland on March 25 for a night of parody singing, laughs, and some seriously funny ladies. Gloria Bigelow and Michele Durante will complete the trio gracing the stage at Magooby’s Joke House.
“Comedians are smart, we’re quick, we’re intuitive,” says Champlin. “To play this game you have to be pretty good, especially as women coming through straight clubs and making it all the way to the top. We’re definitely worth seeing for sure.”
For 22 years, Champlin lived and performed in Chicago and Los Angeles, but recently returned to her roots in Rhode Island. Now she produces her own shows nationwide, creating spaces for queer lady comedians, and raising the bar with high quality sets.
Bigelow and Durante also have illustrious careers. Bigelow has appeared on Last Comic Standing and Wanda Sykes Presents Herlarious on OWN. She lived in Baltimore from the late 90s to early 2000 so for her, this performance will be a homecoming. New York– based comedian Durante has been working in all the top comedy clubs in the city, as well as on stages in Manchester, England and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The year has been a tough one so far—tragic mass shooting in Florida, the murder of a Kerrice Lewis and more—so this show is just what the doctor ordered. Champlin uses current events to inform her comedy but doesn’t want to depress herself or her listeners. “I have to watch the news. I have to see what’s
going on in the world and I try to make jokes about it. It isn’t easy but I don’t stay on it
for too long because it’s somewhat depressing. This is supposed to be fun,” she says.
“My jokes are definitely more about lesbian relationships. Just the kind of stuff you do every day. It’s observational material and it’s relationship material,” she explains. “I sing in my show as well, so I try to bring a new song, a parody, to the group each time. I think I’ll be doing my pink pussy hat song this time. I try to keep it real.”
The evening at Magooby’s is an all-women and all- lesbian show. “In an all-female and an all-lesbian show, you’re getting a whole great piece of buttered toast that is just perfect,” says Champlin. “It’s just perfectly you. It’s how we think, feel, how we relate to the world, what’s going on in our lives. If you’re a woman, you’re going to relate to it right on the bull’s eye. It’s just more fun, more entertaining, and more enjoyable.”
Queer Queens of Qomedy takes place at Magooby’s Joke House on March 25. Partial proceeds will benefit the LGBT Community Center of Baltimore.
