Grace Overbeke FIRST LADY OF LAUGHS

August 27 | In-Store | 6:00 PM

Grace Overbeke, First Lady of Laughs

Before Hacks or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, there was Jean Carroll, the first Jewish woman to become a stand-up comedy superstar! Join Grace Overbeke, author of , the critically-acclaimed biography of this lost legend, in a conversation about Jean Carroll and the birth of stand-up comedy. Grace will be in conversation with Rabbi Brian Immerman. Followed by a book-signing.

Paid tickets include a paperback copy of the book at a 10% discount.

Grace Kessler Overbeke is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre at Columbia College, Chicago.

Doors and minibar open at 5:30PM

Getting here: We are located at 1620 Orrington Avenue, in downtown Evanston, just one block east of the Davis Street Metra and CTA public transit stops. There is metered street parking as well as numerous parking garages nearby.

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About the book: First Lady of Laughs tells the story of Jean Carroll, the first Jewish woman to become a star in the field we now call stand-up comedy. Though rarely mentioned among the pantheon of early stand-up comics such as Henny Youngman and Lenny Bruce, Jean Carroll rivaled or even outshone the male counterparts of her heyday, playing more major theaters than any other comedian of her period. In addition to releasing a hit comedy album, Girl in a Hot Steam Bath, and briefly starring in her own sitcom on ABC, she also made twenty-nine appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Carroll made enduring changes to the genre of stand-up comedy, carving space for women and modeling a new form of Jewish femininity with her glamorous, acculturated, but still recognizably Jewish persona. She innovated a newly conversational, intimate style of stand-up, which is now recognized in comics like Joan Rivers, Sarah Silverman, and Tiffany Haddish. When Carroll was ninety-five she was honored at the Friars Club in New York City, where celebrities like Joy Behar and Lily Tomlin praised her influence on their craft. But her celebrated career began as an impoverished immigrant child, scrounging for talent show prize money to support her family.

Drawing on archival footage, press clippings, and Jean Carroll's personal scrapbook, First Lady of Laughs restores Jean Carroll's remarkable story to its rightful place in the lineage of comedy history and Jewish American performance.