If sidesplitting comedy is what you are after, you are in luck, times three, because this Saturday night at 8 p.m. for your delectation The Birch North Park Theatre presents the Queer Queens of Qomedy.
The Queer Queens are comprised of three of the country’s reigning LGBT comics, Gina Yashere, Fortune Feimster and Poppy Champlin.
Poppy, the ringleader and mastermind behind the idea for the Queer Queens, has performed live throughout the United States and on cruise ships, and has appeared on Showtime and LOGO. “[The Queens is] my brainchild. It is purely selfish and necessity is the mother of invention,” said Champlin. “I needed to work and I can’t sell out a big theatre by myself but three of us can. I try to never use the same queens in the same city twice. I have a couple [shows] coming up in Florida with Vickie Shaw and Jennie McNulty then three [shows] at the Improv in Florida with Vickie Shaw and Barb Neligan – going to San Francisco with Gloria Bigalow and Karen Ripley. All kinds of queens.”
Although this isn’t her first time performing here, it is the first time she has been here with the Queens.
“I did perform once at 4th & B years ago,” added Champlin, “and I did an HRC event last year right there at The Birch North Park Theatre. That is why I am back as I thought it would be perfect for a Q3 show.”
While Champlin has done plenty on the small screen, she comments that “Live is where it’s at. The spontaneity that comes out is precious.”
College shows seems to be the birthplace for Champlin’s comedy. “I had timing. I had the delivery. I got the funny roles and stole the show with a monologue of puns on the ocean: ‘kelp kelp is there a sturgeon in the house?’ Every night I stole the show, I had so much fun, got so much attention and adoration and I thought: Could be a job for life? I’m in, sign me up.”
She was inspired by television shows like I Love Lucy and The Rifleman. Yes, you read that right, The Rifleman. In fact, Champlin is prone to using material from many different areas of her life, especially from her time as a child on the East Coast.
“Of course, one has to use what one knows and what you come from,” said Champlin. “My name is the beginning for my act. ‘My name is Poppy, strange name I know but my parents were heroin addicts. It’s true, my brother’s name is Opie. My people were on the Mayflower. I’m a freakin’ pilgrim. My grandfather was the first comedian on the Mayflower. A pilgrim, a colonist and Indian are rowing a boat …’”
The Queens tour has no end in sight, or at least not one Champlin will admit to. As she puts it, “The Queens will run ’til I die. I think now that it has begun I will ride it ‘til it is huge and selling out all over the world! Then hand it off to my daughter that I don’t have.”
And while she would be happy with a sitcom entitled Poppy, she is more than happy on stage or on an LGBT cruise. She also likes to write and is currently doing a talk show in Providence, R.I. entitled Reach Out.
For those who want to know a little more about Champlin, she comments that, she likes steak fries over tater tots, that she used to love cabernet before she quit, and while she eats veggies now, she didn’t when she was a child.
“I used to put my peas in my socks or sneak them to the dog. I love all veggies now, except okra.”
Tickets for The Queer Queens of Qomedy are $25 for general admission and $35 for VIP and can be purchased online at birchnorthparktheatre.net or at queerqueensofqomedy.com.
