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WCU to offer serving of ‘Southern Fried Chicks’
By Stephanie Salmons
Sassy attitudes? Check.
Brutal honesty and uninhibited realism? Check.
Four Southern women dishing about life? Check.
Side-splitting laughter? Check.
Welcome to the “Southern Fried Chicks” comedy tour.
The Southern Fried Chicks Comedy Tour will make an appearance at Western Carolina on Friday, Nov. 9. The all-female show about four different women in the South features, from left, Trish Suhr, Beth Donahue, Etta May and Sonya White.
Comedian Etta May, along with fellow “Chicks” Sonya White, a Virginia native who has been on NBC’s Last Comic Standing 4, Oxygen’s “Girls Behaving Badly” and Family Channel’s “Big Brother Jake”; Trish Suhr, a Kentucky native who has become a regular performer on “Pretty Funny Women” and is co-host of the Style Channel’s ‘Clean House’; and Beth Donahue, who has been on shows such as VH-1’s “Stand up Spotlight with Rosie O’Donnell” and “Evening at the Improv”; will be performing at the Fine and Performing Arts Center on Western Carolina University’s campus Friday, Nov. 9 beginning at 7:30 p.m..
According to May, “it’s kind of the ‘Blue Collar’ comedy tour with PMS. There are a lot of women groups out there but none as great as ours.”
May, an Arkansas native moved to Los Angeles when her career started to pick up, relocated to Lexington, Ky., in 2000.
“Ask me why I didn’t move back to Arkansas,” she prompts.
“And why didn’t you move back to Arkansas?”
“Because I heard my parents lived there, so Kentucky was the next best thing,” she said with a laugh.
May said the tour has been a blast so far.
“The hardest part about being a stand-up comic and a woman is the loneliness you have to deal with (on the road),” she said. “So it’s nice to have your girlfriends with you. You have someone to eat with. We all support each other in our pig outs.”
She said the hour she spends on stage every show is the best aspect of the job.
“It’s the other 23 hours of the day you have to deal with,” she said. “Not a lot of women do it because of the loneliness. And their husbands won’t let them, but I have good home support so that’s nice.
“My husband was a truck driver, and as I got into comedy, we switched roles. That’s actually the key to my marriage: only being in the same place for a day or two, then having to leave,” she joked.
What drew May to comedy in the first place?
“I’ve been fired from all the other jobs I ever had,” she said in a tone that leaves the listener questioning whether this is a part of her routine.
As for her routine, May said she draws her inspiration from her everyday life.
“With four kids and a husband, I just wait for them to do something stupid and write it down,” she said. “When you take it from your own life, you know other people are going to relate. The bottom line is we all have car payments.”
May is a self-proclaimed storyteller.
“People have always said that in the comedy world, I work like a man,” she said. “Most women’s materials are about their periods. I don’t do that. I’m a storyteller. My favorite compliment is when a man walks up to me, who you know was dragged there by his wife, and says ‘you’re really funny.’ That makes me feel good.”
May strikes a semi-serious note when she discusses the greatest moment of her career.
“You know, people would think it would be the big things, like I won female comic of the year and I’ve done sitcoms, but it’s not those,” she said. “There are certain special people I’ve encountered in the audience over the years that have stuck in my mind the best. I really talk to my audience, look in people’s eyes and talk to them. That’s how I do my shows. You’re going to feel like you’re in your living room shooting the breeze with me. I really connect with people.”
May said Friday’s show will be like a two-hour vacation.
“The key to life is laughter. I think that’s the best thing about the American spirit, that we have a sense of humor. Our place could get hit by a tornado, and we could look across the street and be able to laugh and cry.”
May encourages people to come out to Friday’s show.
“Please come out,” she urged. “I need the money. I have Air Jordan shoes to buy. Get up and come out. It’s a great girls’ night out, and it’s a great thing to bring your husband to. The bottom line is that if you bring a man to the show, he’s going to be feeling a whole lot better that he’s with you and not with me. You may not be the Queen of Sheeba, but at least you’re not Etta May.
More information on Southern Fried Chicks can be found online at www.southerfriedchicks.net.
Tickets for the event are $25, $20 for Senior citizens and $15 for students and faculty. Tickets can be purchased online at www.wcufapac.ticketsxchange.com.
For more information about the comedy show at Western Carolina University, contact the Fine and Performing Arts Center at 227-2479.
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