Queen Lessons: Laughing Wide to Let the Medicine In

Please join Holly Shaw (Queen Lessons) and Joyful Raven (Breed or Bust) as they ponder the artist as healer paradigm, the courage that can be gained from comedy, and the power of laughter as medicine.

At an age when some women feel like they have to begin to cover themselves up, Holly Shaw, a performance coach and hypnotherapist, did the opposite, taking the stage as a stand-up comedian. In Queen Lessons, Shaw invites readers into the wild world of comedy, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her and sharing the lessons she has learned for women entering their “queen years.”

Shaw’s portrait of the stand-up comedian in Queen Lessons builds upon Joseph Campbell’s idea of the artist as the modern day shaman. Shaw proposes that the comedian makes us laugh in order to “open our mouths wide and let the medicine in,” because comedy can help us release shame around things that are otherwise rarely talked about.

Holly Shaw is a stand-up comedian and “hypnotherapist and performance anxiety expert" living in Oakland, CA, who performs regularly at clubs and showcases all over California. Before becoming a comedian, Shaw had spent a lifetime on stage, television, and film as an actor, professional dancer, and speaker and coach teaching at SAG/AFTRA in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Her podcast "Performers & Creators Lab" was named “One of the Most Outstanding Podcasts of 2019” by Databird. She's authored and published three books: The Creative Formula, Making Art In the Middle of Madness, and most recently Queen Lessons.

Joyful Raven is an award-winning actor, comedian, director and "story midwife." Her first solo comedy, Tales of a Sexual Tomboy, won Best of the Fringe at the 2016 San Francisco International Fringe Festival and had an Off-Broadway run in 2017. Her subsequent show, Breed or Bust, recently completed a successful run at The Marsh in Berkeley and was named a Critics' Pick by the San Francisco Chronicle after receiving critical acclaim at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it was nominated for an Offie. She holds an MFA from UC Davis and teaches solo theatre at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and the Marsh.

Copies of Holly's book are available for purchase with your ticket and at the event.

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