Christine O'Leary: A Comedienne for Life Back
Authenticity is expensive. But the return has been worth the investment for Christine O’Leary. It’s what makes her comedy soar. Audiences relate to her honesty about the journey of being a human being. They get to realize they’re not in it alone – and they get to laugh.
“Comedy is a way to tell the truth,” she says. “I find the closer I cut to the bone, the closer I am to the real truth, and helping other people find their truth, too.”
Christine hopscotched her way to full-time comedy, including a position as the executive director of a homeless shelter for kids. She now sees how integral that position was in creating her success as a comedian.
Working with children who had been abused and abandoned tugged at her heart and she admits having to work through fantasies of bringing them home with her. “I felt a tremendous responsibility to represent being a healthy adult,” she says. “I needed to get clean with who I was, what made me tick, so I could be an adult who wasn’t going to hurt them.”
Always an entertainer – she remembers putting on shows as a child for her parents’ cocktail parties – Christine used her natural humor to deal with difficult situations on the job. “Social work, comedy, it’s all the same thing,” she laughs. “As co-dependent as it is, I feel better when I help other people feel better.”
While at the shelter, she began performing at comedy clubs as an out lesbian around Maine and Massachusetts, and produced her first one-woman show in 2005. It was another step in becoming the authentic Christine, which for her is all about telling the truth. “I have to tell my secrets out loud,” she says. “That’s what keeps me current in my own evolution.”
When her employer told her that the image she portrayed on stage wasn’t aligned with their values, she wrestled with whether or not to buckle to the discrimination. Winning $1000 in a stand-up contest provided the security net she needed to leave and pursue a comedy career. “At that time, my personal economy was what people are experiencing now,” she says. “I had no idea where money was coming from. I just knew I couldn’t stay there.”
Christine knows that a lot people are terrified to tell the truth and admits that she used to be, too. “The way you learn to tell the truth is to say it out loud, especially all the things you think you shouldn’t say,” she explains. After blowing a fuse the first time she ever really stood up for herself, Christine fully expected the world to end. “Everyone lived and I was like Lord have mercy, I’ve wasted a lot of time.”
Although committed to her path, dedication to the truth has taken her down some unexpected roads. She used to weigh 100 pounds more than she does now, but insists it was shame, not carbs that kept the weight on. After purging the shame through years of self-discovery, she put herself on a food and exercise plan that supported her desire to be thinner. “I constantly tell on myself,” she jokes. “Like I told a friend who called – I had 12 corn chips, but corn is on my plan!”
She also walked away from a relationship that was not good for her. “What I learned about myself was that unless you kicked me in the teeth, I wouldn’t leave you,” she says. “That’s what it took for me to go. I wouldn’t be where I am today unless I was discriminated against in my job for being gay. That experience taught me to walk away when I need to. I let go of the 401k and health insurance for the freedom to walk away.”
Another road Christine finds herself on is serving as an honorary board member of the Gay American Heroes Foundation. She’s surprised at how others view the role. “Someone called me an activist the other day and I was like doesn’t everyone fight for equality like me?” She acknowledges that fighting with others who are unlike her for the right to be who she is can feel exhausting, but it’s important work.
“It just about takes me out at the knees, at times,” she says. “But part of being who I am means I have to both see the light in people and organize around the darkness that comes to my community. It’s a responsibility.”
With a gay murder occurring every nine days, according to the Gay American Heroes web site, Christine is committed to creating equality in whatever way she can. “I don’t want to drive around in a car that looks like a rainbow threw up on it,” she laughs. “But I have to take up space until we’re equal. Then I can be a regular person.”
Her relationship with Gay American Heroes is part of what brings her to Tampa this week. The organization is one of the charities that will benefit from The Monkey Suit Masquerade Charity Ball taking place on Friday, November 12 at the Wyndham Westshore.
“I love Tampa. I don’t know how I got so lucky,” she says of returning to perform. “The gay community is really strong and stellar here. It’s an infrastructure of fabulosity – not like in New England. Here, y’all are GAY and OUT!”
As Christine continues to tell her truth, she is determined to make her audiences laugh. “I live to leverage to the light out of people,” she says. “As a comic, I am very hard working – I will do anything to make you laugh. You don’t like that joke – I’ll change it.”
by staci backauskas
For more information and tickets for the Monkey Suite Masquerade Charity Ball, visit:
http://www.monkeysuitball.com/
For more information on Gay American Heroes and the traveling memorial they’re building to honor victims of hate crime, visit
http://www.gayamericanheroes.info/memorial.html
Christine will also be performing November 19 at the Epic Change event – Epic Thanks, Tampa Bay, a charity fundraising event and global celebration of giving. For more information, visit:
http://epicthankstampabay.eventbrite.com/
