Turning Bipolarity into Hilarity

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on December 9th, 2004

An article in Metro, the Silicon Valley’s Weekly Newspaper, talks about comic Beth Schumann‘s incorporation of her bipolarity into her hilarity.

What’s more, Schumann found that many of her fellow comedians were also on medication for some mental health issue or another—a fact that probably won’t surprise many standup comedy fans—and she helped put together a performance troupe called Mixed Nuts.

They had us until the “a fact that probably won’t surprise many standup comedy fans” crack. Let’s face it, there are a lot of people out there with bipolar disorder. The only reason that people might think there’s a higher incidence of bipolar and other mental disorders among standup comics is because of the tired cliches that the press loves to perpetuate. Their dreadful lack of imagination keeps them coming back to the “laughing on the outside, crying on the inside” hook for an alarming number of feature stories on comedians and other entertainers.

Give Schumann and her compatriots credit, though for finding a hook. From our perch, we suggest that they ditch the clubs and go the corporate/non-profit route. How many mental health associations would love to book these guys (for an eye-popping amount of money!) into their annual fundraiser shows?!? Work a couple of morals and lessons and some audience participation (and on the spot diagnoses!) and you can pitch the whole affair as “An Afternoon On Mental Health for the Employees of (Fill in the name of the Fortune 500 company here)!! We can see the boards in the Doubletree lobby now! Gotta change that name, though… there’s a comedy troupe in the Philadelphia area already using it… and they do corporate. Read the rest here.

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