Come out and laugh with Karen Williams

Karen Williams is a woman capable of standing on a stage and cajoling her audiences to erupt into great fits of laughter. But behind the wondrous wit that defines her stage presence is a very serious woman. It's this seriousness that makes transitioning back and forth between being a kooky comic and a committed activist sometimes challenging. Speaking to Between The Lines long distance from her home in Cincinnati, where she just returned from a gig in Kansas City, Williams attempted to explain the dilemma.
"There is a hard part because we're all still human and you have all the human stuff you have to deal with," she said. "Like, I'm home now and tomorrow is the first [of the month] and you have to pay bills and make sure your house is in order … so I think the hardest part is that thing called daily life, and I think being a show performer allows you time away from that so it's coming back to it. Every now and then I get stuck, maybe trying to figure out what people are really interested in, what are the issues of the day. I think that the more attention the lgbt communities get, the more challenging it is for us to stay on top of the issues that are really important."
And then there's deciphering between which of those issues are actually funny and which are too fragile for a comic translation. There are some subjects, you see, that Williams simply will not touch, like "the carnage of war. There's kind of a comic conscience in the world. Like when Nancy Reagan had the 'Just Say No' campaign. That was a comic field day, and though we could be having a comic field day with Bush and his policies there's a tone in the world that's kind of oppressive. Our attentions are constantly being turned away from the fact that many of our civil liberties and our freedoms are quietly being eroded away."
An insightful observation, it's easy to see that there's a real depth to Williams. Perhaps it's because more than just a comic, she's also an educator. Williams graduated summa cum laude from Cleveland State University with a personally-designed major in humor and healing. From there she picked up a master's in education and she's currently at work on a doctorate degree.
The founder of the International Institute for Humor and Healing Arts, the HaHa Institute for short, Williams conducts humor-related workshops and lectures that "encourage the fullest and highest activation of human potential for compassion, wisdom, and life force through the daily use of humor and healing arts."
So how does a comedy workshop differ from a comedy concert?
"The concert is all about me and the workshops are totally interactive and people are sharing knowledge and information as well as I'm giving and receiving energy and information," Williams explained. "But I pretty much approach them both the same in terms of performance. People who come to my workshops certainly laugh a lot so there's healing going on in the workshops."
But even more than her studies as CSU, Williams said her extensive experience in "active parenting" has helped her both in her workshops and shows. A mother of three boys, Williams' youngest son is 20 and still living at home, while the others are of "undisclosed ages – so no one will start asking questions" about her own age. She's not afraid to admit, however, that she has five wonderful grandchildren.
"In a certain sense, my strong desire to perform comedy came out of kind of the lonely journey of being a single parent, a black, lesbian single parent and never seeing anything about my life reflected anywhere," Williams said. "A big boom for me was reading Audre Lorde's 'Sister Outsider.' That's kind of how I felt, like I was on the outside looking in at my own life."
These days though, Williams is an outsider no more. In fact, she's part of an elite clique of sophisticated and sinisterly funny ladies who are attracting the attention of the masses. Williams and a few of her cohorts – Kate Clinton, Suzanne Westenhoffer and Marga Gomez – star in a new "comedy documentary" called "Laughing Matters" that's currently making the film festival rounds across the country.
"Between us we have some 75 years experience in comedy so it's pretty phenomenal," said Williams. "I don't know if HBO or Showtime is going to pick up, but it'll go to DVD in about five months."
Luckily, there's no need for Detroiters to wait that long for a taste of Williams' wickedly delicious humor. Come out and laugh with Williams when she makes her first Detroit appearance in over four years at the Majestic Theatre on Oct. 18.