Get ready to laugh until it hurts when comedian Deborah Kimmett makes her hilarious return to Peterborough this fall.
Well known as ‘One Funny Lady’, Kimmett is bringing her one-woman hit show “Overnight Sensation” to the Nexicom Studio at Showcase Performance Centre in downtown Peterborough at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 19th. Tickets are $44 and are available online at showplace.org, by calling the Showplace box office at 705-742-7469, or by emailing boxoffice@showplace.org.
Selling out from coast to coast, Kimmett’s latest show is her response to turning 65 years old, as she asks herself if she’s too late to become an overnight sensation on the verge of her first old-age security cheque. Throughout the 90-minute performance, audience members will be laughing and crying along with Kimmett as she offers commentary on the way society stereotypes aging women.
“As you get older, you become more invisible and you get called ‘dear’ and ‘honey’ and everybody kind of gives you an eye roll,” Kimmett tells kawarthaNOW, which is sponsoring the show.
Throughout “Overnight Sensation,” Kimmett will be sharing stories of her own relationship with her mother, while riffing on how to audition for the nursing home, how to get along with your neighbours (especially the ones who try to tell you how to parallel park), and how not to deal with hecklers (even if the heckler is your own mom).
The comedian, who has spent 17 years on CBC’s The Debaters and has had two shows featured on the network’s Laugh out Loud show hosted by Ali Hassan, has received high praise while taking “Overnight Sensation” across the country.
VIDEO: Deborah Kimmett brings “Overnight Sensation” to Peterborough
Kimmett last performed in Peterborough in 2019 for her “Downward Facing Broad” show, which was also largely centred around the ageism she experienced after turning 60 years old.
After that show, her mother went into a nursing home with dementia, the pandemic hit, and Kimmett turned 65. These combined events inspired her as she began writing “Overnight Sensation.”
“I started writing about that experience and how things change so quickly,” she recalls. “It’s all about my relationship with my mother and my relationship to my own aging and being patronized as a senior.”
Despite this focus, Kimmett says the show is not solely meant for those who are in or approaching their “golden years,” adding that it will appeal to everyone because of its relatability and honesty to be treated differently based on how young or old you are.
“Ageism kind of runs the gamut for all generations a bit,” Kimmett notes. “I think younger people identify with Overnight Sensation because they get a different version of ageism — like being told Gen Z doesn’t know anything.”
In her show, Kimmett break downs and critiques how society treats people based on age by really “poking fun” and mocking society — including her friends for making her join choir with them.
In addition to her comedy, the former Second City instructor has been teaching writing workshops for several years, and has published three books and multiple plays. She explains she’s always explored her own life experiences when scripting her shows, from raising children and teenagers to her divorce, and now aging.
“A lot of people have followed me as I’ve aged and, as my comedy progressed into other areas of my life, I put everything that’s happened to me — the big moments — on stage,” she says. “The more I tell my story, the more the audience really connects it to their own story. That’s something that’s been really cool about this show.”
In performing “Overnight Sensation,” Kimmett feels she’s reached a wider audience with her comedy, much more than she had over four decades ago when she first took to the stage. In the past if a female comedian was doing a solo show, she explains, it would be an opportunity for a “girls’ night out” and men would not be in attendance. For this show, however, she estimates about 50 per cent of the audience has been male.
“It’s a lot more diverse than it was years ago,” she observes. “It’s good because I do believe I speak to that.”
Kimmett adds that’s one of the reasons she’s eager to return to Peterborough, as she feels there’s an opportunity to engage with an even larger audience.
“There’s so much culture in Peterborough,” she says. “There are so many bands, so much diversity, so much political activism, and so many people trying to open their minds to things they wouldn’t have thirty years ago.”
Joining Kimmett on stage once again will be musician Kim Pollard. A bluesy singer who, like Kimmett, hails from Napanee, Pollard will provide the opening score, before musically accompanying Kimmett throughout her storytelling.
“It’s not just straight stand-up,” Kimmett points out. “It’s stand-up, storytelling, and singing, and they’re all woven together to make this really beautiful mode of theatre.”
With this combination of theatrics, Kimmett’s shows do a lot more than make the audience laugh hysterically. While she says she often sees female audience members with mascara running down their cheeks from tears of laughter, Kimmett says her shows also tug at the heart strings.
“What I really love doing on stage is making people laugh their guts out — and people do laugh their guts out — but there are always touching moments. I’ve always loved balancing that comedic part with something serious because the audience, once they’ve laughed, will go there with you emotionally too.”
That real-time connection with her audience is something Kimmett greatly missed during the restrictions of the pandemic, when people were unable to gather for a collective laugh.
“I feel like people need a laugh and they need to go out and laugh together in community,” she explains. “We really need that connection, and I think that’s what live theatre and especially comedy does. You can get that connection just through such a good belly laugh. It’s so good for the soul.”
Though she’s now cracking jokes about her age, Kimmett wants you to know that aging is not holding her back in the slightest.
“I don’t find that I’ve aged — I feel like I’ve gotten stronger and more creative,” she says, before adding a few choice raunchy words for those who treat her like she’s fragile or weak because of her age.
VIDEO: “I Have To Swiffer Under My Bra!” – Deborah Kimmett
“Overnight Sensation” takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 19th in the Nexicom Studio at Showcase Performance Centre in downtown Peterborough. Tickets are $44 and are available online at showplace.org, by calling the Showplace box office at 705-742-7469, or by emailing boxoffice@showplace.org.
For more information on Deborah Kimmett or to view her workshops, visit kimmett.ca.
For regular laughs, you can also follow her on Facebook and Instagram.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a sponsor of Deborah Kimmett’s “Overnight Sensation”.
