Poppy Champlin :: funny, fearless and in Ptown
She’s funny, fearless and in your face. She’s Poppy Champlin, a lesbian stand-up comic of blisteringly quick wit and energy who appeals to gay and straight audiences alike. A 25-year veteran of the rough-and-tumble that is the stand-up circuit, Champlin has overcome sexual discrimination to become successful and well-respected in a profession that, until recent years, has not been especially gay-friendly.
Champlin discovered comedy while she was attending the University of Rhode Island. Tall and athletic, she had originally gone to URI to play basketball. But because no post-collegiate opportunities existed for women basketball players in the late 70s and early 1980s, she found another focus - theatre. Champlin quickly gravitated toward stand-up comedy and never looked back.
But the road she has traveled since then has not been an easy one. The venues where she began working in Rhode Island and Boston were all male-dominated. Worse still, fears that the "goons" at those clubs would "kick [her] ass" for being gay kept Champlin in the closet and feeling that she would have to pass as straight to get by as a professional comic.
Yet she still prevailed - and even thrived - during the fifteen years and more that she remained silent about her sexuality. Her climb to success began when she moved from Rhode Island to Chicago in 1988 and joined Second City. Not long afterwards, she began opening for the likes of Ray Ramano, Bill Maher and Rosie O’Donnell. And by the time she left Chicago for Los Angeles in the 1996, she herself had become a headline act and earned national notice as "America’s Funniest Real Woman" on The Joan Rivers Show.
It was not until 2000 that the Rhode Island native felt she could acknowledge her homosexuality professionally - 20 long years after she had come out in college. From then on, she began getting work at the gay comedy clubs that have since become her mainstay. Her work has been featured in the Emmy-nominated 2006 HBO documentary, "All Aboard: Rosie’s Family Cruise" and, more recently, in her 2009 LOGO special, "One Night Stand Up."
Champlin, who has also appeared on VH-1, A&E and the Oprah Winfrey show, now stands poised to gain serious mainstream recognition. She stars in the upcoming Showtime special, Pride: Gay and Lesbian Comedy Slam! which will air four times between July 13 and 29. When I spoke to her, Champlin was eager to share her excitement about her past accomplishments and current successes, which are finally beginning to affirm her status as an entertainer - who just happens to be lesbian - of the highest caliber.
Why stand-up?
EDGE: What made you decide to get into comedy and in particular, stand-up comedy?
Poppy Champlin: I did a cabaret in college called Oceanatics and we were all fish: I was one of many in many skits. But one in particular skit, I was a stand-up fish and did a fish shtick and it was hysterical. And every night, I was a stand out with my stand-up and that was it: I was hooked. "Kelp, Kelp, is there a sturgeon in the house?" "What pacifically is the porpoise of this?" etc. for 125 puns...
EDGE: Which comedians have been of source of inspiration to you and why?
Champlin: Lucille Ball for her leadership and fearlessness with her funny. And Joan Rivers for teaching me delivery and timing and cadence.
EDGE: What challenges have you faced as a lesbian comic in a profession that, up until fairly recently, was dominated by straight men?
Champlin: It was tough to come out early on - I didn’t dare. I was too scared. I had to pretend I was straight and that had some backlash. And still it’s hard to get stage time in the clubs in LA being gay.
EDGE: How many years have you been doing stand-up and has there been a particular moment when you felt that you, as a lesbian comedian, had broken into - or come close to breaking into - the mainstream?
Champlin: I’ve spent twenty-five years doing stand-up - and I still haven’t broken into the mainstream. I may be on the precipice of doing so with this Showtime special, although the gay and lesbian comedy slam name does not lend itself to much of anything straight or mainstream. But when I get back to LA. I will focus on my acting again and see what I can dig up.
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Watch Poppy Champlin in this clip from Logo:
