This is the first in a two-part series on the funny women of Philadelphia. 

All over Philadelphia's comedy scene, women are leading the charge. At Shot Tower Coffee in Queen Village, there's Hillary Rea running Tell Me A Story's monthly shows. At PhilaMOCA, performance artist Rose Luardo co-hosts the popular, eclectic Comedy Dreamz showcase. At the 2015 First Person Arts Festival, comedian Marjorie Fineberg Winther took home her second "Best Storyteller in Philadelphia" crown. And that's just the tip of the iceberg -- as evidenced by the Bechdel Test Fest, an exciting new women-centric comedy extravaganza coming to Old City on February 6. 

Kate Banford, co-owner of Good Good Comedy, is another rising star on the local scene. In January, her group launched a Kickstarter to fund a new theatre, which will open in Center City in May. They surpassed their $12,000 goal in 48 hours. 

Banford, 25, has been producing concept comedy shows with Aaron Nevins for two years, originally under the banner of Five Dollar Comedy Week (which involved thirty shows at $5 each). The weeklong festival was so successful that they did two more over the next year, and in October 2015 founded Good Good Comedy to produce performances on a regular basis. 

Those shows include "Burn It Down," a monthly roast on a specific theme (the last one took aim at the Philadelphia Parking Authority), and "Frog Night," in which comedians and theater artists invite the audience to "dissect" live acts. The group's recent "Telethon" -- which took place at Plays and Players on January 30 -- raised more funds for the theater.

"What we want Good Good Comedy to be is a destination, a thing to do in Philadelphia," says Banford, who graduated from the University of Delaware and worked as a film production coordinator before committing herself to the company. "We want [the reputation] to be, 'Philadelphia has an amazing comedy scene.'" 

Another standup, Rachel Fogletto, co-hosts the monthly Funny Females show at Ray's Happy Birthday Bar with veteran comedian Phyllis Voren. 

"One of the best things about the Funny Females show is the spirit of how it started," says Fogletto. "Phyllis had the idea and reached out to me when I was still fairly new. With her experience having done comedy for so many years, I've learned a lot from our collaboration. The show itself actually forces both of us to always be looking for newer female comics who are working hard that we'd like to feature on the show, which is great because we're constantly promoting female talent." 

The show has even helped increase Philadelphia's profile nationally.

"I have personally had female comics from other cities who have reached out to me to be on Funny Females because they heard great things about it," adds Fogletto. 

Fogletto is also one of the producers of the Bechdel Test Fest, an upcoming comedy festival celebrating the female and trans comedians essential to the local scene. Taking place at Christ Church Neighborhood House (20 N. American Street) in Old City, the event is named for the Bechdel Test, which asks whether a film or story features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.

"We wanted to just have a place," explains Jessica Snow. "To do scenes that pass the Bechdel test, but also just to have everyone meet each other."

Snow is artistic director of the Philly Improv Theater, communications director for the improv group the N Crowd and one of the founders of the all-female improv community known as Improvaries; she started hosting ladies-only improv jams a few years ago. The idea of a women's comedy festival was natural extention. The organizers put together a lineup that includes musical parody groups from local colleges, a "sex-ed burlesque" show and a clown (the real kind, not the birthday-party variety). Experienced standups -- like Fogletto -- will perform next to newer acts. 

"Everyone can learn from each other, help each other out, and meet and share audiences," says Snow. "We want the audience to see what the women in Philadelphia can do." 

Snow has been performing locally for almost twenty years, and says the number of women in comedy is ballooning right now. But she is also quick to acknowledge the hilarious females who paved the way, pointing to Kelly Jennings -- she ran the "Funny Fest" women's comedy festival in Philadelphia for years and was a mentor to Snow when she was a Penn Charter high school student -- as well as Jen Childs, co-founder of 1812 Productions.

Manayunk's Kristin Finger, the education director at Comedy Sportz, has been performing for ten years. 

"I love being a woman in Philly's comedy scene because I don't think I'm looked at as a woman in a comedy scene," says Finger. "I love that I'm not a woman comedian...I'm a person." 

Finger attended acting school in New York City, where she started doing standup in the early 2000s. There, she had chance encounters with Jimmy Fallon (he was walking through Penn Station and she went up to him: "I literally made him sign a gum wrapper") and Jim Gaffigan (they used to take the 6 train together after weekly standup sets at a comedy club), who both suggested that she give improv a try. She signed up for classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade. When she came back to Philly, she was cast in Comedy Sportz. 

"I never once was like, 'Wow, they don't have a lot of women here,' or 'Wow, they don't treat us [the same as men]'... It was never that way," she recalls. "It's not that I'm a woman and it's not that they're men, it's because we're all Comedy Sportz players and I can't begin to explain how wonderful that is." 

In her current role, Finger is working to expand the reach of the theater's Girl Scout workshops, where troop members earn a badge for learning improv. 

Jen Childs has lived in the city for 25 years. Nineteen years ago she co-founded 1812, the only professional regional theater company in the country dedicated to comedy. Childs makes 50 to 70 percent of the work that is produced each year, and considers herself somebody who "makes comedic theater or theatrical comedy...I use a lot of comic forms or structures associated only with comedy, like stand-up or improv, but I still consider myself a theater artist." 

Childs has a new solo piece premiering in April called, "I Will Not Go Gently." 

"[It's] about aging and about being 47, which is how old I am right now," she explains. "[I] woke up one day [and] I'm at the beginning of the second half of my life...Comedy is my way of making sense of the world and grappling with issues that I don't really understand." 

Childs also runs the Funny Girl Comedy Boot Camp Weekend for Women (the next one is in May). The program focuses on improvisation, character work, storytelling and what Childs calls "finding your own funny."

"We often think of comedy as something that's outside of us, something we have to get better at, but... we all have our own comic voices that are so interesting," she says. "I feel like every woman is funny, just like every person is funny, but a lot of times as women, we're not encouraged to be funny growing up."

Childs isn't the only veteran creating space for other female comedians. Bobbi Block, a Penn and Villanova grad who lives in Center City, was one of the original founders of the Philadelphia branch of Comedy Sportz 22 years ago. Block was also part of Lunchlady Doris, a legendary local long-form improv group that performed for twelve years. Block's "spontaneous theater" company Tongue and Groove presents unscripted theater using a collaborative audience-artist relationship. The group recently received a standing ovation from a sold-out Kimmel Center crowd at the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. 

While making strides in the Philadelphia comedy community, these women learned from their own experiences. 

Banford was originally hesitant about trying standup, but found the scene welcoming once she did. 

"I had this mental block, [thinking] it seems like a male thing to do," she recalls. "But when you start doing it, you're like, 'What was wrong with me? Why did I think that?' Standup was very empowering." 

Once Banford put herself on the circuit, she found that show producers who wanted diverse lineups would actually go out of their way to book women.

Snow has seen a change in how female comedians are perceived: "If something's funny, it's funny, and people are getting better at noticing that," she argues. 

Finger, meanwhile, encourages younger female comedians to stop seeking approval and be confident in their abilities: "Ladies, you're all awesome! Stop it!" she enthuses. 

Block, looking back on her experience in the improv scene, is reflective: "More than ten years ago, fifteen years ago, it was not good for women, but I don't see that as the case anymore at all," she says. "I think it's a little bit of a myth."

Childs makes the point that the scene has evolved for all Philadelphia performers. 

"When I first moved here, Philadelphia was not a place you stayed, it was a place you studied and left," she says. "But in the past 25 years, there's been such a huge growth in the theater scene. It's possible now to make a living as a theater artist here and not have to wait tables and do other jobs, but be a performer. There are more actors and stage managers and technicians who work in theater as their only job and own homes and have kids...it's become a really great and livable community." 

She acknowledges that there is still a long way to go. 

"Statistically, there are more roles for men than there are for women," she explains. "So my response to that was making my own work -- making work that features women to create a platform for some of those voices." 

The Women and Comedy Project -- an initiative started during 1812's 2012-2013 season with the show It's My Party -- was a step in that direction. 

"Doing the show, I did a lot of generational labs," she recalls. "I was really interested in how women of different ages are funny and what things come up in their conversations. I did a week with women fifty and up, a week with women thirty to fifty, a week with women in their twenties. With the women in their fifties and above, thirteen of them are never in a room together, because there's always one role [for women in that age group]." 

Banford wishes that more women would step forward to pitch new concepts and run shows. Only about ten percent of pitches for Good Good Comedy come from women, despite the fact that she works to expand that number. She encourages both the seasoned and inexperienced to give it a try: "We have an open door policy...if you're interested, come to us to present your concept."

The opportunity to perform -- and the space to build your own opportunities -- is what keeps Philadelphia a destination for female comedians. 

"I get so jealous of the women who are graduating college right now," says Snow. "Because it's even bigger now and there are even more stages to be on, but it's because we've always been doing this for each other...for a really long time." 

Childs advises young female comedians to get out and get involved. 

"Don't be afraid to ask for what you want. Don't be afraid to ask for access to be in on processes. .Get out there," she says. "Make your own work, write your own stuff. There's all kinds of story slams where you can work things out and if the work that you want to do isn't out there, then make it yourself." 

Banford, twenty years behind Childs but following in her footsteps, agrees. When she was in school, she witnessed a funny female role model flop with two jokes in a row, and then land a third that sent everyone on the school bus into hysterics. It was a key moment for her. 

"You can fail and fail and then hit," she says. "No matter how many times you fail, if you hit, you hit and you're funny… Don't be so afraid to [mess] up." 


MARTHA COONEY is a Philly-based writer. She is founder and director of StoryUP!, which inspires kids to build literacy skills through comedy and storytelling.