Gay comic takes on hurdles with humor

BELFAST – Suzanne Westenhoefer’s friends have been fearful for her safety lately, because of one coming gig.

“When I tell them I’m going to Belfast, they say, ‘Northern Ireland?'” the standup comic said, adopting a panicky voice.

No, the comic is coming to Belfast, Maine, where any strife might occur only between the natives and the tourists. Westenhoefer will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, June 20, at the Troy Howard Middle School, in a show that will partially benefit Maine Lesbian Gay Political Alliance Foundation.

Westenhoefer has been a pioneer of sorts as one of the first openly gay comedians performing gay comedy to straight audiences at mainstream clubs. In 1991, she appeared on an episode of the Sally Jesse Raphael show called “Breaking the Lesbian Stereotype … Lesbians Who Don’t Look Like Lesbians.”

“In the 12 years since that show aired, I still get mail from people who tell me how that show changed their lives,” she said. “It changed mine, too.”

One would think that the comedy club circuit, with comics of every ethnic background and body shape, would be a tolerant world. But Westenhoefer said that being gay remains a giant obstacle.

“How many openly gay comics do you know?” she asked in a phone interview from her Los Angeles home. “It’s such an underground thing still. It’s still difficult for the girl comic, and now add gay comic on top of that. I love America, but we’re still racist and sexist.”

On March 18, Westenhoefer became the first openly gay comic to perform on “Late Night with David Letterman.” She added that only three other openly gay comics have ever performed on any of the major late-night talk shows.

During that performance, she talked about her girlfriend of 10 years, an eighth-grade teacher: “It’s very hard to be with an English teacher. In the beginning of our relationship, I would write her all of these romantic love letters, and she would send them back corrected. … My mother is totally cool about my being gay; she’s very supportive and very OK about it. My girlfriend and I are even allowed to sleep in the same bed when we are at the house. Which is weird, because when my mother and stepfather visit us, we don’t let THEM sleep together – because it’s creepy and weird. We have very impressionable animals.”

Performing about 80 dates a year across the country helps Westenhoefer to keep in perspective some of the prejudices that gays face.

She pointed to the newspaper interview that she gave before a series of dates in South Carolina. In it, she singled out the TV series “Will & Grace” and “Ellen” as examples of the strides that gays have made in the entertainment world. In the article, the writer wrote parenthetically that the two shows featured openly gay characters.

“When I asked the club owner why [the writer] did that, he explained that those shows weren’t aired by the local network affiliates, so people wouldn’t know what they were,” Westenhoefer said.

Westenhoefer has released three albums: “Nothing in My Closet But My Clothes,” “I’m Not Cindy Brady” and her latest, “Guaranteed Fresh.” Also, her HBO comedy special, the first by an openly gay comic, was nominated for a Cable Ace award.

Raised in the Pennsylvania Amish country (yes, it does sound like a sitcom), Westenhoefer moved to New York City, aspiring to be an actor, but had more luck finding work as a bartender. Customers would tell her that she was funny, and her girlfriend at the time signed her up for a comedy class.

“I didn’t do anything at first,” she recalled. “Then the instructor told me to just talk about being gay, to be very straightforward. I figured I’d do it, make my statement, maybe move the world ahead a little bit. I never thought it would go, never thought it would be my life. I just wondered how far I could get, talking about a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend.”

A huge Stephen King fan who reads his books as soon as they hit the stands, Westenhoefer has returned to acting a little bit, appearing in independent films and an episode of HBO’s “Arli$$.” She is one of four lesbian comics featured in the documentary “Laughing Matters,” which is being shown at gay film festivals across the country.

She’s taking acting lessons and auditioning, and would like to do more acting, but “the gay thing might keep it from happening.”

The New York Daily News called her “a center-stage diva who bursts out of her closet with little explosions of outspoken bemusement that could make even Bette Midler blush.”

Westenhoefer is an improvising, riffing comic who prefers flying without a net on stage.

“I don’t write jokes, I just talk,” she said. “If it’s funny, I say it again the next night, and it evolves. My act is constantly growing. It’s this liquidy thing.”

Tickets are available in advance until June 19 at The Green Store in Belfast, Wild Rufus in Camden and the Grasshopper Shop in Ellsworth and Bangor, or call 338-6935 or 761-3732. Tickets are $18-25 in advance or $20-25 at the door.