Dr. Lynda Zentman, aka Laytzee the Clown, says
her clowning career began when she “retired from real life” about six years
ago, after being a teacher and principal in Rockland County, New York, for many
years. Now she lives, part-time, in Israel.
“Once I retired, I felt this was
something I wanted to do,” explains Dr. Zentman, a great-grandmother who feels
like a 16-year-old when she puts on her clown makeup. “I’ve always enjoyed
production, acting, singing, and dancing – which were part of my previous life
as well – but to dress up as a clown and go and make people feel happy was a
dream come true.”
If you think becoming a clown is
as simple as donning a red nose, you are mistaken. Dr. Zentman had to undergo a
three-hour training session with a group in New Jersey. “I already had my
costume picked out and sort of knew what my face would look like,” reminisces
Dr. Zentman, “but then I saw an advertisement for a group called R.S.V.P,
Retired Senior Volunteer Program, based in Rockland County, New York. I went to
their office, and I have to tell you it is not easy being accepted as a clown.
They asked for letters of reference, and you have to go through a whole
procedure; they have to vet you to make sure you were never in jail and that
you know how to blow up balloons. I failed balloons! I had to take a ‘balloons
for dummies course.’”
Dr. Zentman was a CIT – a clown in
training – for several months, until she officially got her badge, allowing her
to do things. She shares, “When I put on my clown makeup, I really turn into a
different personality. I can make a fool of myself – what’s better than that?
We hope to brighten the day of the people we interact with: those in senior
citizen homes and head-start programs, as well as special needs young adults.
It’s really a lot of fun; I recommend it highly.
“If I get a stretch of time in
Israel, I aspire to take the 6-month medical clown training course given there,”
says Dr. Zentman. “It’s more of a psychology course than a clowning course,
where you are taught how to deal with children. You accompany a child who has
to go into surgery as far as the last door, just to keep him/her company. When
the child wakes up, that clown will be there.”
Concludes Dr. Zentman, “A clown is
the best thing to be – always to be b’simcha.
I think all of us Jews have to keep laughing; otherwise we’d be crying. That’s
what Jewish comedy is all about. We have to have comedy in our souls to survive
everything that happens.”
Kosher Comics
Of course, not every clown is an
actual clown. Actress/singer/comic Judy Winegard was classically trained in the
performing arts and has performed in musical theater for 35 years. Her credits
include Jekyll and Hyde, West Side Story, and Fiddler on the Roof. Since becoming
observant 26 years ago, Judy performs exclusively for female audiences. She has
always found it easier to perform comedy than drama.
“Having grown up in a very comical
family, it was all about laughter,” shares Judy. “If you can laugh at yourself
and a situation, you can get through anything. My parents were comedians. They
both had day jobs but also comedic jobs. My mother, Thelma Glass, worked with
her mechutanim as entertainers in New York, doing Yiddish
humor and song. They opened for Alan King at the Lincoln Center.”
Judy starred in Kol Neshama’s A Light for Greytowers, the first
full-length musical film produced for Jewish women and girls, and The Heart That Sings. These are but two
of a plethora of credits to her name in the frum world.
“I always loved doing comedies in
college and in places like the comedy club Improv,” says Judy. “I performed a
lot before I was religious. I think if you can play off the tragedy with
comedy, it’s like flipping a switch; in life, that’s what happens. You have to
be prepared for anything.”
Judy is in the process of starting
a by-women-for-women-only theatre in Dallas, where she fairly recently moved
from Los Angeles.
* * *
One of Rena Konar’s most recent
performances was in a by-women-for-women Artists Circle production at the Black
Box Theatre in Silver Spring, where she and her husband live. Rena does sketch
comedy and improv, and unlike a stand-up comic, she needs other people to work
off of.
“I was raised in Wilmington,
Delaware,” says Rena, “and did what any attention-starved person does; I went
to the University of Delaware and studied theatre, followed by a summer study
program at the Musica Humana Institute in England.”
Seriously considering a career of
straight classical acting, at age 22 Rena decided to go the comedy route after
being advised that as a character actor – rather than a leading lady – she probably
would not work until she was in her 30s. After spending a couple of years
post-graduation in the Philadelphia area, she was in one of the first professional
touring improv groups there, Comedy Airlines, and toured the Tri-State area
comedy clubs. Two years later, in 1990, she decided it was time to go to
California, where she studied with The Groundlings and joined the Acme Comedy
Theater.
“I became frum in ’97/’98 and went to learn in Israel at Aish HaTorah’s
EYAHT,” relates Rena. “I returned to the States a year later to work and start
dating. I then started working with filmmaker and theatre director Robin
Garbose’s Kol Neshama summer camp and performing arts conservatory for frum teenage girls based in LA. I worked
there for the first 12 years, teaching improv comedy to the girls. I was also
in a couple of Robin’s film projects.”
Concludes Rena, “I think I have worked
more as a frum woman than I worked before I became frum.
There are so many people who want to be in show business.”
* * *
Jessica Schechter, a producer and
actress in the award-winning web series Soon
by You, shares that if you would have asked her high school teachers if
they thought she would end up in comedy, they would have looked at you very
strangely. “I wasn’t known as the class clown or anything like that, but I was
always into theatre and drama.” While at NYU, however, she studied educational
theatre, and in her senior year, she took a humor theory class called “What’s
So Funny about New York.” The final assignment was to do stand-up.
“My teacher was amazing and worked
with us the whole semester on our comedy routine, and then booked Stand Up NY,
where we did a little show for our class and friends at NYU. I was totally
hooked that I had beginner’s luck. It was such a great feeling. That’s how it
began.”
Periodically, over the next couple
of years, the class was invited back to do some stand-up in Caroline’s and the
Broadway Comedy Club. Jessica had a string of other amateurish gigs after that,
but after one bad comedy performance, she was ready to give up show biz.
“Fortunately, my mother convinced me to try one more time. What I thought would
be my last show turned out to be amazing; I really connected with the audience
at this singles Shabbaton on the Upper West Side. From there, I got my first
paid gig with others to follow.”
Jessica’s material reflects what
she is going through in life at the time – being single, the dating process,
marriage, and COVID. While caring for her 10-month-old baby, she is writing new
material to be ready for her next performance.
“Humor is best when you speak the
truth of what is going on in your life,” says Jessica. “One of my routines is
inspired by my friend Rachel, who compares dating to waiting for your bag at
Baggage Claim. Some people get their bags right away; some have to wait a lot
longer. Sometimes you see a bag and say, ‘That’s my bag!’ then realize that it
is definitely not your bag. Sometimes you wait there for a while and it feels
like the same bags are going around and around and around. Sometimes, your bag
is in China – a lot of Jewish men seem to think so. And sometimes, they never
bothered to pack their bag and have to go back to the beginning of their
journey to find what it was that they were looking for. But at the end of the
day, hopefully, we all find our baggage.”
Cathartic Humor
Baltimorean Pesha Chaya Brenner
has never shied away from the limelight and has always been the one making
people laugh. “Ever since I was a little girl, I would say things that would
make people laugh. I’ve always had a knack for impersonating. I would make
impromptu shows whenever I got together with my friends. People started asking
me, ‘Why don’t you do this?’ That is how I had my first gig and a melaveh malka show for Bnos Yisroel
teachers. Someone once told me, ‘Man, your life is so crazy and sad, you should
be a comedienne!’”
Pesha Chaya wonders if all the
funny things that have happened to her are Hashem’s way of helping her out with
her comic material. “Or maybe I just find the funny in the crazy,” she says.
She finds the humor in everything from pompom baby hats to dying. “I don’t take
things that seriously because of all the tragedies that I’ve been through. What
would bother someone else, I would take in stride.”
For instance, when Pesha Chaya
lost her diamond engagement ring for a year, she didn’t get all bent out of
shape; everyone else in her family was stressed out. “It’s only a rock…I’m not
taking it with me. There’s not much space in a coffin!”
You might have “caught” Pesha
Chaya doing an impromptu routine at Mimi Boutique, when deciding on an outfit,
or Seven Mile Market when her young child jumped on the produce scale. Or even
while Hatzalah came to her rescue.
Pesha Chaya notes there are a lot
of amazing inspirational shiurim for women – which she loves –
but she feels, “There is something very refreshing and cathartic for women who
are stressed out – even if it is just from the day-to-day grind of the busy
life that we all live – laughing at your everyday struggles and at yourself and
seeing the humor in it. I love bringing that to other women – good, kosher
entertainment.”
Virtual Gigs
Some of our readers may have
caught Eli Lebowicz's comedy routine when he performed at Baltimore’s
Congregation Ner Tamid on Purim, March of 2020, just before COVID began. He
also did a virtual show for the Mikvah Emunah Society of Greater Washington in
September 2020.
Like many comedians during COVID,
Eli had to shift from doing in-person gigs to virtual ones, which he admits
wasn’t an easy transition. But was an important one to stay relevant. He
realized how vital the number 40 was in Judaism: Moshe was on Har Sinai for 40
days, the Jews were in the desert for 40 years, and a free Zoom session shuts
off after 40 minutes.
Aside for his active social media
accounts – posting Jewish jokes on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – he ended
up doing nearly 100 virtual shows, which was especially challenging. “You don’t
really hear any feedback, and the only time you get a response is if someone
emails afterwards that they were upset. My rabbi said, ‘Now you know how I
feel.’”
While Eli was in his first year at
YU in 2008, he performed comedy for the first time at an open mic fundraiser
for Camp HASC. About six months later, he performed at Stand-Up NY on the Upper
West Side. Since his start, he has performed at comedy clubs all over New York
City and at a variety of Jewish events from shul comedy nights to Pesach
programs to school dinners, and even sheva
brachos.
“I pride myself on being able to
be clean and funny,” says Eli. “Shuls are hesitant to have a comedian because
they tell you horror stories of events that didn’t go well. Most conversations
with a shul president start, ‘Well, we had a comedian one time in 1985, and he
swore the whole time, and it was the worst Tisha B’Av we ever had.’”
Eli is still doing the occasional
virtual show, but these days he’s glad to be performing in person again, and he
doesn’t take it for granted. He kids, “The fact that I can do a live show now
and not have to stare at a bunch of nostrils from people who don’t know how to
use a webcam is amazing.”
You can see some of Eli’s material
on YouTube or his website at EliComedy.com.
105 Impersonations
When 24-year-old SJ Tannenbaum, of
Edison, New Jersey, was in the eighth grade, in 2011, he started doing
impressions of some of his rabbis in school, which grew to include teachers,
family, and friends. Since then, his repertoire has expanded to include 105
celebrities, politicians, comedians, TV and movie stars, and rappers, among
others.
“The first time I did stand-up
comedy was when I was 18, in 2015, at my JEC high school fundraiser talent show
dinner,” notes SJ. I performed before a crowd of over 500 people. It was the
biggest crowd I’ve ever performed for.”
The first time SJ performed open
mic was in Israel, in 2018, at the Off the Wall Comedy Club in Yerushalyaim.
His first professional stand-up gig was in America, in 2019, when he opened up
for Ashley Blaker, in Edison. Since then, most of his stand-up routines have
been delivered virtually, in addition to those held at comedy clubs, corporate
conferences, and private events. Some of the major clubs where he performed, in
New York and New Jersey, are The Stress Factory Comedy Club in New Brunswick;
Broadway Comedy Club; Gotham Comedy Club; and Dangerfield’s, which can be
viewed on YouTube.
SJ recommends that people try
stand-up comedy, even once in their lifetime. “It is such a good experience and
can do so much good – such as conquering the fear of public speaking, helping
you with your writing, and teaching you how to deal with failure and move on if
you are a flop. It teaches you, also, how to take criticism in a healthy way.
It’s a very liberating, freeing experience for those who have a fear of public
speaking.”
SJ is presently a full-time
student at Yeshiva University, going into his last semester. He is triple
majoring in marketing, finance, and strategy and entrepreneurship. He also
plays on the YU baseball team, started the Menswear Club and the Entertainment
Business Club, and is a sideline reporter for the basketball team’s broadcast
network, MacsLive.
SJ sure did leave me laughing when
he customized his impressions of Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama
mentioning my writing for Where What When.
Check him out on his social media links: https://linktr.ee/sjtheimpressionist
Kosher Komedy
Kenny Gluck, president of Perfect
Pitch Entertainment, in New York City, is not the run-of-the-mill comedian. He
attended Yale University graduate school to pursue theatre; by day, he runs a
marketing, production, and entertainment company. Always having one hand in
entertainment, he did his first “Kosher Komedy” show in 2009 in the Five Towns,
where he grew up and raised his own family, as well.
“At the time, there was only one frum comedian in the business,” notes
Kenny. “Coming from a business-oriented family, I thought clean comedy is
something that we don’t have in my world. I came up with the concept that
people can go out and eat glatt kosher food and enjoy a show,
and both the food and the comedy are kosher.”
Kenny produces four of his own
shows every year and also books acts for country clubs, shuls, fundraisers,
Pesach programs, and summer camps. Starting with stand-up comedians, his
business morphed into illusionists, variety acts, and all types of
entertainment. He also books country clubs, concerts, and shows in the summer
months, and represents and manages specific acts but says his baby is “Kosher
Komedy.”
“Years ago, frum comedians didn’t have the ability or platform to go out and
work; a lot of them are working full-time now,” explains Kenny. He jokes,
“There are enough shuls out there, especially with all the breakaway
shuls.”
Kenny also founded a comedy
training program for at-risk teens and young adults. Professional stand-up
comedians worked with them, gratis, at Our Place in Brooklyn, teaching comedy
writing and performance. Unfortunately, after one season, there was a lack of
funding and interest. “I still believe that this concept can work and want to
develop it.”
Also to Kenny’s credit is the
production of a comedy-related cable TV show and the production and direction
of a TV pilot. He was also involved in raising funds for several Broadway
shows.
Kenny has taken his show on the
road to shuls in such places as Michigan, Florida, and Canada. Some of his
comics perform Borsht Belt style, others are more modern style with a twist.
Even his non-Jewish comedians – who know the restrictions – bring a Jewish
flavor to their acts.
“In our world, you don’t even have
to be Jewish to be kosher; you have to be clean. People see the value in that,”
says Kenny. “They see they get professionals who are on late-night TV, like
Fallon and Kimmel. A lot of our comedians have all done that and they do it
regularly – unlike our frum comedians. That’s what we bring to
the table. We book a great line-up of comics to make you feel like you are at a
real comedy club and everything about it is 100% kosher.”
The King of Comedy
Writer/actor Mendy Pellin is known
for We Are a Miracle, Jewbellish: The Show, and a web-based
satirical news show called The Mendy
Report. He has a unique style of blending Jewish spirituality and
out-of-the-box humor and has worked closely with A-list celebrities, performing
internationally and appearing on the likes of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Conan O’Brian. He’s also gotten
millions of YouTube views with his unique viral videos. In fact, they are what
led him to being discovered by Hollywood and acting with Brad Pitt.
At the age of 21, while getting
his career in entertainment off the ground, Mendy attended yeshiva and
got semicha. His work has helped transform the face of Jewish
entertainment. Mendy says he didn’t really go into comedy; comedy came to him.
“Ever since I was a small kid, I was plagued with unique observations combined
with an intense satisfaction in triggering others to laugh. That satisfaction
usually outweighed any consequence – which wasn’t a good recipe for going
through a rigid yeshiva system.”
These days, Mendy mainly produces
video content, and he’s a comedic host at events. What does he enjoy most about
being a comic? Says Mendy, “Comedians have a license to tell the truth and
(mostly) get away with it. I love having the freedom to truly speak my mind and
express myself without being judged. When you’re labeled a comedian, people
tolerate more colorful interactions – aside from my wife. Whenever she starts a
sentence with ‘You’re so funny…,’ I know I’m in trouble. That sentence usually
ends with something thoughtlessly questionable that I’ve done.”
One of Mendy’s favorite standup
shows was headlining a Jewish comedy festival in Minnesota. He invited a
gentile sitting next to him on the plane to come to the show, and he ended up
coming with his wife.
“When I realized that he’d just
sit through over an hour of extreme Jewish standup, I asked him if he had any
questions. And boy did he have questions! A half-hour’s worth of questions. And
we went back and forth talking about everything from why the Jews complained in
the desert (“We like to complain; we can’t help it. After Moshe Rabbeinu hit
the rock, water came forth, and I’ll bet there was at least one Jew that
complained, ‘What, no cups?’”) to lessons on how to be a great Shabbos goy (my wife treats me like a Shabbos goy, everything she asks me to do is
with a hint). Then we talked about how the chasidic community is bad at marketing
(the most famous cookie produced, Ostreicher’s, is sold in throw-up bags). What
kind of message does that send the consumer? And what kind of message are you
sending to the consumer when, on the back of your cereal box, in big, you print
the number to Hatzalah with directions for the Heimlich maneuver underneath?”
Once a Chabad chasid always a
Chabad chasid, says Mendy. “When I was working on a movie set in Los Angeles, I
promised myself to keep it very professional, a promise I broke the first day
after I realized how many unwrapped Jewish arms there were. My eyes kept on
switching between the Jewish arms and my tefillin
bag, which I brought to the set because they started filming before the sun
came up.”
Mendy says there have definitely
been more secular people watching his content online than religious, although
his live audiences are usually frum. He jokes, “A few people
even messaged me that their journey toward Judaism was sparked by one of my
videos. Some people who eventually converted even blame me.”
Regarding Purim, Mendy admits, “In
my head, every day is Purim. So, it’s just a regular day for me. Seriously. My
kids told me the other Shabbos that they were bored. So I said, put together shalach manos from the school snacks we
have and give them out to the neighbors. The neighbors are still confused. But
I got an extra hour for a Shabbos nap. Which is all that really matters.”
