By Nathan Alexander
Mandee McKelvey is headlining Planet of the Tapes for two shows this weekend. Indiana’s rising star, Tennah McDonald, will join Mandee as the feature act. Get your tickets here before they run out!
Mandee is truly one of the best comedians out there and has captured the hearts of audiences all over the country. She was recently named one of the 50 best undiscovered comics in the country by Thrillist magazine and has performed award-winning one-woman shows at festivals across the country.
Mandee has worked with juggernauts of the comedy world like Anthony Jeselnik, Whitney Cummings and Laurie Kilmartin. Earlier this year, she filmed her debut comedy special after being awarded a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
Mandee was kind enough to answer some questions for Louisville Laughs.
Louisville Laughs: Did you always know you were funny? Were you the funny one in the friend group? How easily were you able to translate your sense of humor to the stage?
Mandee McKelvey: “I was never funny. I wasn’t a funny person. I was anxious and regimented and obsessive and quiet and very sensitive. Very hard to imagine why I wanted to be a standup, but I’ve always known I did. I just had zero proof to back up that desire. I had no idea how to translate my sense of humor to stage. I just felt like I had to, so I began the long process of trying to figure it out.
“I have grown much slower than most of my peers. I was always interesting, but I wasn’t reliably funny for 10 years. But I never questioned that I would one day figure it out. My little comedy career has really been about never giving up. The tortoise wins the race.”
LL: Did you get your start in Louisville? How has the Louisville scene and the Midwest in general influenced your comedy journey?
Mandee: “I did. My first open mic was on May 30, 2006, at The Comedy Caravan (now The Caravan). That club was one of the gold standards, but I wasn’t ready for the “scene.” There were no other dedicated comedy venues in the city at that time. There was one open mic per month. 20 spots. 3 minutes each.
“Every month I found myself the only girl. If another girl showed up for the mic, the guy comics would make jokes about us being in competition for the “girl spot.” A respected working comic saw me absolutely drowning in that environment and put me in contact with a fantastic weekly mic in Indianapolis and also one in Dayton. Once I started traveling and doing frequent mics I started to feel hopeful. A nice comic in Dayton gave me my first paid hosting gig.
“Being a midwestern road comic is a wonderful skill to develop. You are rarely performing in an echo chamber of like-minded people. You are often performing for people who have, at best, differing view points, and, at worst, deep disdain for you.
“Learning how to make people who don’t like you laugh is such an incredible feeling. Lots of people are hilarious when you agree with them or when you have a lot in common. Laughing at someone you don’t like is magical. I feel like working the road without a name or a following has made me so confident in my skill. I never worry anymore.”
You have a unique style to your writing that keeps the audience laughing with joke-dense sets, while also allowing you to perform longer stories that have people on the edge of their seat. Is this always how you’ve approached comedy? Or has your style evolved over the years?
“LOL, yes, not by design but by necessity. I am such a long-winded storyteller and a lot of new comics get big criticism for stories with no punchlines. I was the same exact way when I started. But I also knew I was never gonna stop being like that so my challenge was always how to get laughs all throughout my stories.
“If it gets enough laughs throughout, I’ll use it for standup. If it has longer pauses of laughter in it but I really like it, I’ll take it to fringe shows and give it a theatrical twist.”
You shot your debut comedy special last month. Congratulations! What was that process like? How was it different from preparing for a regular headlining weekend at a comedy club?
“Thank you! I don’t think the two can compare. Working a club is kinda loosy goosy. You are trying to figure out your audience and draw on your experience to give them the best show possible. Filming a special is like, you better make sure that everything is structured and worded exactly the way you want it cause that’s how it’s gonna sound forever.
“I think it was very different from everything I’ve ever experienced because I had a producer, named Jessica, who was this driving force making it all happen. She saw my show, approached me about raising money to film it, raised the money, selected the crew, directed everything, planned the event, got the people there, and the list goes on.
“I don’t mean to be a negative person, but comedy has taught me to wait til the other shoe drops. People talk big but you never know who you can trust. So during this entire yearlong process, I kept waiting on it all to fall apart. I kept thinking that it could never possibly all work out. But I got my first look at some footage last night and I’m speechless.
“This woman actually captured my dream on film. It looks beautiful. It sounds beautiful. And I was my best self up there. I was up there in a room packed with friends and I was churning them for 90 minutes. No matter what happens in my life after this, I now have this little piece of art that only I could make and anyone who wants to see it … can.“
What’s a piece of advice you’ve been given that has made a difference in your comedy career?
“My favorite comic told me early on that I should never believe any of the criticism I get but that I should also never believe any of the praise. I thought that was so harsh at the time but now it makes perfect sense. Letting the highs and the lows affect you is a recipe for pain and burnout.
“Comedy is made up of the continuous experience of being the most loved person in the world one day and being an embarrassment to the artform the next day. You have to learn how to regulate your own emotions and your own sense of identity if you don’t want to be driven mad.”
Do you have a comedy horror story you’re willing to share?
“I’m a female road comic so that’s a real choose-your-own-adventure. I could tell you about the bombing and the heckling. I could tell you about the sketchiest, dirtiest and scariest rooms, hotels, ad comedy condos. I could tell you about the clubs that don’t pay, or reduce your pay when you get there, or make you fight for weeks to get paid.
“I could tell you about which comics really need to have a talk with their wives instead of trying to get female comics and waitstaff to look at their wieners. I could tell you which door guys at which clubs make me feel super safe and which door guys will actually create a distraction to help a creepy guy catch up to you in a dark parking lot. And I could tell you about all of the drunk audience members who feel very inclined to touch me after a show.
“But one I love to tell is about how I jumped out of a window into a shrub to get away from a booker who was yelling at me. He was an old-school booker, absolutely beloved by old male comics, and he decided that he was gonna “teach me a lesson” after a set didn’t go well. He backed me into a corner and yelled at me until I cried so hard it soaked through my shirt.
“When I tried to get away, he grabbed my arm. But the audience was staring at us so I ran to the bathroom and hid. I felt like a caged animal. I opened the window and saw the parking lot so without much debate, I jumped out. I drove home. It was never discussed, and he booked me like seven more times after that.
“People think that is so nuts, but that’s how comedy used to be. There was no HR department to talk to or anything. You either take the gig or you don’t.”
What is your favorite show you’ve done so far?
“It would be easy to say that my special I just filmed was my favorite because nothing can really compare to being the center of the universe like that. But as far as unexpected surprise wins go, I was recently asked to be a headliner for the first Middleground Comedy Festival. I was honored because the scene in Indy has always been so good to me.
“I knew it would be fun. I knew it would be a wonderful weekend. But something different happened when I was up there. I just sorta got in the pocket where I wasn’t “performing” at all. I was just flowing and being myself and everyone just jumped on my back and rode along with me. It’s the least amount of “trying” I’ve ever done. It was just a perfect storm of feeling amazing, being funny and connecting with a crowd. I will chase that feeling forever.”
In addition to standup, you also act, performing acclaimed one-woman shows at fringe festivals all over the country, and produce the hit show Character Assassination roasts of fictional and historical figures. How do these other creative endeavors inform or influence your standup?
“It’s all the same thing. It’s me wanting to do and say all of these different things and then trying to find homes for them all. Standup is the base, the foundation. Acting is great for a little while because you don’t have to write and you get to be a different person, but you always end up missing being able to say whatever you wanna say.
“One-Woman shows are pure freedom. They can be laughs, laughs, laughs, and then suddenly be sad or quiet or mad or nervous. Roasts are an incredible exercise for getting out of your own skin and trying on different points of view. All of that stuff makes you a better writer and performer.”
What do you set out to achieve in a standup show? What do you want the audience to take away from the Mandee McKelvey experience?
“I love when something a performer says or does becomes a part of my daily life, or affects the way I think about a subject, or becomes an inside joke between me and a friend. I remember standup bits from when I was 5. I think that would be the greatest thing I could accomplish, to become a part of people’s lives by inserting my dumb little art into their memories.”
You can find more Mandee on her website, Instagram, and Facebook.
Get your tickets for Mandee McKelvey at Planet of the Tapes this weekend!