Gotham's Funny Gals
New York Post - March 3, 2010
So this Judy Twersky p.r. lady says I must go down to the Gotham Com edy Club, 23rd between Seventh and Eighth. I say, Why'd I want to do that?" She says: Because Marion Grodin's doing stand-up tonight." I say, "What's a Marion Grodin?" She says: "Charles Grodin's daughter." I went to the Gotham Comedy Club, 23rd between Seventh and Eighth.

Within seconds, blond Marion identified herself as a chubby, 49-year-old, divorced Jewish lesbian substance abuser cancer survivor Haagen-Dazs addict. And she's got fans. Kyra Sedgwick, Kevin Bacon, bandleader Paul Shaffer's wife were there. She works synagogue affairs so I was told, "She works perfectly clean." OK, but I doubt that means Orthodox shuls because I counted 25 F's and maybe 30 S-words.

Marion's a pro. Excellent. So good she doesn't need that shock value. Big laughs with stuff like:

* "My ex husband called me 'Mare.' When we shut the lights he'd say, 'Night Mare.' "

* Friends ask would I date out of my religion? Please. I'm dating out of my species.

* I live with my cat. I haven't yet told my parents that my cat doesn't keep kosher.

* I didn't make it with my husband. If he'd extended a Snickers bar, I'd still be there."

Also blond, also working alone is dynamite Michele Balan, who closes the show. Stuff like:

* Am I desperate to be on TV? I'd go on cocaine just to get an intervention.

* The car I rented in Miami Beach came with a Jewish GPS. It asked me, "Didja eat?"

And there's Sherry Davey, a terrific red-haired emcee. Brilliant. Lines like:

* I live in such an Italian neighborhood that sauce runs down the street.

* I'm into self-healing. I gave a rooftop barbecue for suicide patients.

* I got a low-rate in my cabin cruise. So low that when I got into bed I was snorkeling . . .

Marion's toured with Linda Ronstadt, Judy Gold, Robert Klein and shared the stage with Seinfeld, Roseanne, Robin Williams, Dave Chappelle. I hear her father's supportive. Then, somebody, anybody, take her and her pals and throw a show around her. She and they are great.
2 Jews, 3 Opinions: Raising Kids
Jewish Living Magazine - June 1, 2008
"I'm married to a non-Jew. We always thought we'd make both of our religions available to our kids, but I have to wonder: Is it possible to raise kids as 'both' Jewish and Christian? Or do the children turn out as 'neither'?"


Sherry Davey
Comedian; Featured performer in "The J.A.P. Show—Jewish American Princesses of Comedy," running off Broadway

In my case, it worked out as 'neither' for a very long time. I'm half-Jewish, half-Catholic, married to a non-Jew. Being Jewish and Christian was not easy. I could never reconcile the two; the only things they have in common are guilt and candles.

"For some time, I rejected both religions. Whichever choice I made would surely make one of my parents unhappy, so I did the fair thing and disappointed everyone.

"But Judaism always made sense to me. After the death of my brother-in-law on September 11th, I found myself coming back to Jewish rituals because I find comfort and meaning in them. So now my husband and I belong to a synagogue, and we're raising our 5-year-old daughter with an emphasis on Judaism."

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Speak Out -- Just Back From The 'JAP' Show
Brooklyn Graphic - May 24, 2007
Shery Davey brought the Mother’s Day audience to a sparkling close, with real sparkling humor, great one-liners, and Mother’s Day bouquets of body-massaging one-liners…on the more sedate side. All so professional! The audience left very jovially, and someone remarked, “I wonder if God was watching…,” and his mate said, “The Holy One might not think it was funny…but who knows?.” We thought, and said to our friend Ruby, “We might find out.”

In all, it sure is worth a shot at this newer entrée into the Jewish humor parade along the Broadway stage scene…and you do not have to be Jewish to enjoy this multi-sectarian humor. Go see it.

As we filed away from our seats, in that holy Actors’ Temple, we whispered, “Sure hope God wasn’t listening to some of that lingo — the girls on stage were popping, sounding like drunken sailors!”

Sherry Davey of Mama's Night Out, Defend Yourself!
The Weekly Dig (out of Boston) - May 2, 2007
What’s more humorous than the pain of childbirth? What’s funnier than ripping your insides out to bring a screaming brat into the world? Sherry Davey and two other “funny moms” are appearing at Jimmy Tingle’s on Mother’s Day weekend at Jimmy Tingle’s to guilt you into laughing about the way you ruined your parent’s lives by being born.

SO … YOU’RE A FUNNY MOM?
SD: Yes. Hold on a second. [To child next to her] Get back in the car!
CHILD: Aaaaaa! [Unintelligible shouting]
SD: OK. I think, um … where’d you put my phone?
CHILD: Be-be-be yaaa! [More unintelligible, ear-piercing sounds]
SD: [To child] If you’re good, we’ll go back in, OK? [To me] I just pulled myself out of rehearsal and then I pulled myself out of rehearsal again. So she was with the child wrangler.

THE CHILD MANGLER?
SD: The wrangler. When you leave the rehearsal space you have to take them away from the child wrangler. There’s one assigned to every child.

ISN’T “WRANGLER” WHAT THEY CALL THE PEOPLE WHO WORK WITH DANGEROUS ANIMALS?
SD: It’s pretty much the same thing. I think it’s more dangerous to watch the children. She’s happy now, but she’s going to start screaming in a minute. She’s 4. Oh my god! If this motherfucker hits my car … [Loud beeping sound] Hey! We’re in the car! Sorry, we live in New York City. [To child] Mommy only used “F” because it was important. OK. I try not to swear in front of her. I usually put her in the car seat and turn the music up. Then I went to my first parent-teacher conference, and they told me they had a rapping safety clown come to school—he teaches them safety through rap, because that’s all the children will listen to. He started saying, “Don’t touch the stove; don’t run in the street; don’t talk to strangers,” and then he honked the horn twice, and she screamed out, “Fucking idiot!”

HOW FUNNY WILL IT BE WHEN YOUR KIDS GROW UP AND INEVITABLY HATE YOU?
SD: That will be really good, because it will make me nice and bitter. That will really make me a good comedian. I’ll just turn into Jackie Mason or Joan Rivers.

IF YOU COULD GIVE BIRTH TO SOMETHING OTHER THAN A CHILD, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
SD: Ari Gold from Entourage. If I could birth my own fantastic agent, that would be the way to go. He’d come out raging on a cellphone and … [Loud screaming and banging sounds in the background] That’s her playing with her toy. [More ear-splitting gibberish] Now she’s climbing all over me. You don’t have children, do you?

UH, NO.

[Sherry Davey headlines “Mama’s Night Out” with Karen Morgan and Nancy Witter on Friday, 5.11.07, though Sunday, 5.13.07, at Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway Theater, 255 Elm St., Davis Sq., Somerville. 617.591.1616. Fri-Sat 7:30pm, Sun 3pm/$20-$25. jtoffbroadway.com]
'Momics' Entertain Executive Moms
The New York Sun - April 2, 2007
In truth, the event last Thursday was the first all-momic program for Executive Moms, an organization of working mothers who get together for lunch and a speaker three or four times a year (Cost: $70. And you don't really have to be an executive, just employed and maternal. Check out executivemoms.com.)

The lunch is a chance to network, of course. What Manhattan lunch isn't? But more than that, one attendee, Chelsea Most, said it's also a huge relief.

"As a mom you think, ‘Maybe it's just me. How is it everyone else seems to go to work and have figured it all out?'" Ms. Most, an MTV producer, said. "And you go to events like these and realize: They haven't figured it out." Hooray!

It is precisely that discovery that the momics were celebrating at the Harmonie Club lunch. Ms. Syler has a new book out, "The Good Enough Mother," and the title alone made the founder of Executive Moms, Marisa Thalberg, leap to the phone to invite her to speak.

Momic Nancy Witter was fired from her office job and recalled how her boss tried to cushion the blow. "He said, ‘I don't even know why you'd want to work in an office.' I said, ‘Well, because it's an ideal place to make free phone calls and get school supplies for the kids,'" she said.

Grins all around the room. Englishwoman Sherry Davey, however, won the most applause by talking about her 4-year-old's birthday party. "I invited all my friends, especially the childless ones because they're the ones with the most advice. ‘Tell her to just sit still.' Oh yeah. That'll work. Or, ‘Bring her to the restaurant.'"

Oh, how the mothers cracked up at that one. "She's so right!" "Sit still!" "Restaurant!" Ha ha ha!

It's not like Jerry Seinfeld was up there, killing (such a male phrase). But it's not every day that a lady gets to hear a couple of good lactation jokes, either. And when those jokes are on company time, well, that's what I call a perfect play date.

Er … lunch date.
And For My Princess, A Pedicure...
New York Times - February 1, 2007
Sherry Davey, who has a daughter, Lily, 4, and a blog called Funny Mom on iVillage.com, said she has developed what she calls a “mommy callus,” which makes her more immune than most to tween riots. And yet.

“It’s like an invasion,” said Ms. Davey, recalling with a laugh a group of 8-year-old girls who walked in while she was having her own biweekly manicure in a Brooklyn salon. “It’s adult private time. You kind of want to chill out.”
Comedian Finds Humor In Life As Mom
The Valley Breeze, Rhode Island - July 15, 2006
By FRANK O'DONNELL, Valley Breeze Entertainment Writer

It's not easy being a female comic.

Just ask Sherry Davey. "I feel like I'm working in medieval times, really," said the American-born English-raised performer who now makes her home in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Most comics, she observes, are men. Davey has several ideas to explain that. "The powers that be benefit from the way things are going, so why change? Being a female comedian is about as close as I can get to being a minority."

Ask Davey, and she'll tell you that television doesn't help. "There's a current underneath the sitcoms. You've got a fat guy with a hot wife who's snarky." That's English slang for irritable – I had to look it up.

"There are no women in their 40s in shows anymore." She fondly recalls the days when Roseanne Barr, Candace Bergen, and Brett Butler all had their own shows. "Now, everyone's beautiful and young – that perception doesn't help us."

Davey is a real life working mom and wife. In fact, when I called to talk with her, she was about to put dinner on the table. Kielbasa, and a broccoli and cheese concoction.

"I'm home writing all day," said Davey, "and I still have dinner on the table every night."

While Davey does see the field opening up for women, she still finds audiences are tentative with female comics. "I was in Atlantic City last week, and it went very well. After the show, some older folks came up to me with the most backwards compliments. 'I wasn't really sure how you would do,' they said. Like I'm going to break down and cry, and call my husband to come rescue me. Like I'm some fragile thing."

I point out that when folks told me about her last visit to the Catch A Rising Star Comedy Club in Lincoln Park, "fragile" is not a word that came up.

"Thank you!" she said, quite sincerely, about her penchant for getting into people's faces. "It comes from being a former psychiatric social worker. People like it when you skirt the edge. And I never know how it will go."

Davey has worked on both sides of the Atlantic, and prefers American audiences. "American audiences are extremely patient, and very supportive. They go with you pretty much anywhere if you make them laugh."

English crowds, on the other hand, are very hard. "They're encouraged to heckle," said Davey, who tells of club owners who reward hecklers with free drinks. "To Englishmen, that's an aphrodisiac, free drinks. They get very rabble rouserish in a group."

Davey does prefer the way folks talk in England, however. "I always say, we gave you the language, and you destroyed it. I live in Brooklyn, and people here correct me. It's appalling."

She tells of a neighbor who lost her "dawwwg."

"I looked at her and said, you mean 'dog,' and she looked at me like, what are you talking about?"

Davey is looking forward to her return to Catch. "The audience was very kind up there. It's a great little venue. We had a pretty great weekend – the stars were all aligned!"

She's also excited about the opportunity presented by a relatively new club. "The parameters haven't quite been set. You get to test the limits."

Davey sometimes travels with her husband and her daughter – "my threenager," she calls her, a three-year-old who thinks she's much older.

Davey has just begun writing a blog on NBC's iVillage, and is testing out a vlog (video blog) for them as well. Her topic: motherhood, with a humorous slant.

If you listen long enough, you might hear Davey rant about ultra conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter. "I hate that women so much, it's beyond belief. She must be a stand up comedian, do you think? She can't be serious about the things she's saying, can she?"

Davey draws on her experience as a psychiatric social worker to diagnose her nemesis. "I'd say she's got a borderline personality disorder. I'd like to give her a prescription, and tell her to go away."

Sherry Davey appears at Catch A Rising Star Comedy Club at Lincoln Park in Lincoln Thursday, July 13 through Saturday, July 15. For tickets and reservations, call (800) 720-PARK, or check out their Web site at www.lincolnparkri.com. For more information on Sherry Davey, check out www.sherrydavey.com. You can also read her debut blog at http://funnymom.ivillage.com/parenting.
'Laugh seminar' with the experts this Saturday in Warwick
Valley Breeze, Rhode Island - July 12, 2006
WARWICK - It's a "Laugh Seminar," really. An opportunity for students of comedy, and those simply interested in comedy, to spend a couple of hours with an accomplished working comedian, and to learn about and discuss the craft of comedy and the art of performing.

"It's a perfect match with Catch A Rising Star's philosophy about nurturing new talent," said Catch General Manager, Jim Wright. "We've got some veteran performers coming to town, and some are more than willing to sit down and chat about their profession with up-and-comers."

The first "Laffinar" will be held this Saturday, July 15 from 3-5 p.m. at the Courtyard Marriott. Catch A Rising Star headliner Sherry Davey will be the featured guest.

Sherry is bi-coastal – born in the United States, raised in England. (Not to worry – her parents made sure she saw American dentists regularly.) Her approach to life is "quick-witted and acid-tongued," and she's known for the versatility and hilarity of her many dialects and characters. Sherry has appeared regularly on Comedy Central's "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" and "Premium Blend." Sherry plays colleges, casinos and comedy clubs all around the country, and she's a regular at such popular New York clubs as The Comic Strip, The Improv, The New York Comedy Club and The Boston Comedy Club.
Laughter Makes the world go round, and round
The Montclair Times - August 3, 2005
I was part of a fundraiser for Dress For Success in NJ.

Atlantic City Weekly Online - June 2, 2005
Search for America's Funniest Mom
Daily News - February 25, 2005
Most of the women taking the open-mike challenge at the Laugh Factory were amateur comedians, but a few were pros, like Sherry Davey of Brooklyn, who makes a living making fun of her daughter, Lily.

"My 2-year-old's got an Easy Bake oven and it's terrible to put a child that age under that kind of pressure to bake a cake for 30 people with just a light bulb," Davey quipped.

Buoyed by a few laughs, she continued her three-minute routine: "They now make a maternity thong. I now look like a kangaroo in a slingshot."
Funny Girls
New York Daily News - August 23, 2004
"I've done shows where these men will see me in the audience and think we've made a special connection, which can be very troubling," says Sherry Davey, 36, a redhead from England who performs regularly at the Improv, the Comic Strip and "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn."

"Whenever I appear on television," she says, "I get at least 15 men Googling me and sending me pictures of themselves."