A Tim’s Picks bonus cut: More Mandee
Catching up with Kentucky comedian Mandee McKelvey as she preps for her Greater Lafayette debut, one-hour special.
Thanks to today’s sponsor Purdue Convocations, presenting Melissa White (violin) and Pallavi Mahidhara (piano), Friday, Feb. 23, in Loeb Playhouse. Melissa White, acclaimed violinist and Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, showcases her expressive playing and diverse engagements. With the Grammy-winning Harlem Quartet, she promotes diversity in classical music. Meanwhile, pianist Pallavi Mahidhara, known for international acclaim and advocacy for mental health, collaborates with White in addition to hosting “The Conscious Artist” podcast, exploring the intersection of music, mindfulness, and wellness. Catch the duo this Friday, Feb. 23, at Loeb Playhouse. Get tickets here.
How about one more entertainment nugget from our friend Tim Brouk, Based in Lafayette’s entertainment correspondent, heading into the weekend? Here you go.
This edition is free for all, as opposed to a free-for-all. Still, feel free to subscribe to get Based in Lafayette directly to your inbox.
MORE MANDEE: KENTUCKY COMIC PREPS FOR GREATER LAFAYETTE DEBUT, ONE-HOUR SPECIAL
By Tim Brouk / For Based in Lafayette
Louisville, Kentucky, comedian Mandee McKelvey’s life on the fringe could be her ticket to stardom.
In November 2023, the 45-year-old comic taped a one-hour show over two nights in her home base of Louisville. The special, “Clam,” will be shopped to all the streaming services once editing is finished.
“Last month, I got to see the footage, and I was just terrified,” said McKelvey with her trademark Southern lilt. “I feel one of the hardest things about trying to capture standup on film is that you can’t feel what it was like to be in the room. … But I saw the footage, and it’s so beautiful. It looks so great.”
“Clam” is not McKelvey’s normal standup set, however. The show is the culmination of several one-woman shows she has presented at summer fringe festivals around the Midwest. These events like Indianapolis’ annual IndyFringe showcase a wide variety of live performances — comedy, theater, performance art, film. Performances are usually regulated to an hour.
McKelvey’s first one-woman show, “My Left Boob,” was a gateway into her real life of growing up poor with body image issues, health concerns and surviving as a single woman in the 21st century. When there isn’t a global pandemic on, McKelvey balances her live performances between her standup life and the more dramatic and theatrical — but still hilarious — one-woman shows, which were the gateway to her receiving a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to produce the special.
McKelvey will present the standup side of her talents at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 23, at Guac Box, 308 State St., West Lafayette. Lafayette’s Justin Seymour will feature and Indianapolis’ Juan Arellano hosts. The show will be McKelvey’s Greater Lafayette debut. Tickets are $10.
‘Clam’
“My Left Boob” and later “How I Got My Warts Prayed Off” were one-woman shows that were well-received in Indy, Louisville, Kansas City and other Midwest locales large enough to have fringe festivals. “Clam” builds from those.
The title is typical for McKelvey’s theatrical works: It can get raunchy (She admitted “clam” is a “hilarious” nickname for a vagina) and serious. As the earlier shows alluded to, “Clam” mentions teenaged body issues of developing warts all over her hands and feet and the mis-development of her left breast. These experiences led to her to “clam up,” never letting anyone in. She covered her body in the 1990s grunge fashions of the day. She was not upfront about her raising in a South Carolina trailer park where she had to take baths with her brother well into her teens to conserve hot water.
“Clam” can represent her early standup career too. Despite wanting to be a comedian since age 5, she didn’t set foot on a stage until she was 27.
“I just didn’t know how to transform myself into being a comedian,” McKelvey said. “I protected it. I was this little clam that was just sealed, just clamped down tight and no one could ever see inside, and I kept that that way regarding my dreams, my ambitions. I’ve always been that way about relationships, and I’ve certainly always been that way about touchy subjects around my body.”
Like many female comics in the ’00s, her first foray in live comedy was having to navigate “the boys’ club” and she was also several years older than most of her comedy peers. References were a challenge when she would get together and write with other comics.
But then, times and McKelvey’s confidence changed. Success came in her late 30s and 40s and now McKelvey is a fulltime comic traveling every week and opening for such names as Tig Nataro, Todd Barry, Michelle Wolf, Anthony Jeselnik and other national stars.
Comedy as an inanimate object
While the Louisville comedy scene keeps McKelvey plenty busy, Indiana has been extremely kind to her. She regularly performs in Bloomington, South Bend and Indianapolis, where she’s been able to stretch her legs not only in the one-woman/fringe scene but doing character work for “An Evening with the Authors” series. These shows feature regional comics reading from fictional works by fake authors they portray.
In Louisville, McKelvey is also a co-producer of the “Character Assassination” series of fictional roasts with a twist. Comics dress up as humans — from Eva Braun to Super Mario — or even inanimate objects as they comedically roast themselves and others in attendance. McKelvey listed her portrayals of romaine lettuce after a nasty recall, the Titan submersible after its 2023 implosion and an undesirable Tetris piece as some of her favorite performances to date. They even helped her be herself on-stage when she wasn’t portraying a submersible responsible for killing billionaires.
“Putting on a wig and pretending and putting on an accent and putting on a different walk and pretending to be someone I wasn’t helped me zero-down to the meat of something when writing jokes,” McKelvey recalled. “For example, ‘Tetris’ was my game. I taped a bunch of boxes together, painted them green and was the ‘z’ shape, which is the most unwanted shape in ‘Tetris.’ What does it feel like to be the ‘z’ shape when everyone wants the ‘stick?’ I put on a Russian accent, and I did it.”
While it took many years, McKelvey has finally opened up about her past and present with just the help of a microphone, a stage and some people nearby to listen, laugh, relate and even cry.
“Now that I do standup, I constantly divulge personal information,” she said. “Standup really cracked me open and allowed me to expose all of that inside stuff. I feel the safest when I’m up there with a microphone.
“I’m just a person and when I communicate about my personal experience, other people feel close to me and that feels amazing.”
Tim Brouk is a longtime arts and entertainment reporter. He writes here (almost) weekly, tracking things to do for Based in Lafayette.
For more Tim’s Picks, here’s this week’s edition of five prime ideas heading into a Greater Lafayette weekend: “Tim’s Picks: Back with more.”
Thanks, again, to today’s sponsor Purdue Convocations, presenting Melissa White (violin) and Pallavi Mahidhara (piano), Friday, Feb. 23, in Loeb Playhouse. Get tickets here.
Thank you for supporting Based in Lafayette, an independent, local reporting project. Free and full-ride subscription options are ready for you here.
Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.