There’s an old joke about the comedy business. One comedian says to another: “I hear you’re the world’s greatest comedian? What’s the secret of your success?” Without waiting for the end of the question, the other comedian jumps in and answers: “Timing.”

Watch any comic actor—from Lucille Ball to Ellen DeGeneres to Wanda Sykes—on television, in films, or onstage at a comedy club, and you’ll find that joke to be true. And yet, becoming a comedian takes a multiplicity of skills, something more than pulling a prank on a sibling or doing an impression.

Ask any of the women doing comedy in our region—performing standup, taking a class, or as a member of a popular improv group. They’ll tell you comedy takes courage, work, commitment, and a kind of reckless honesty most of us are unwilling to practice. But when their routines remind us of our own human foibles and we giggle, laugh, or guffaw, that’s when comedians are making it possible for all of us to relax, loosen up, and let go.

HAPPY HEALING

Any life challenge can be a wake up call, says Joy Julian, 38, librarian at the Chesapeake Center for Science and Technology. Joy was always funny, the one who could make or take a joke in any group. But three years ago, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, a friend challenged Joy with the question: What do you want to do before you turn 40? Her friend wanted to jump out of a plane, and she did. Joy was only 35, but she decided to act on her own wish: She really wanted to do stand up comedy. Now, she does.

Joy’s friend treated her to a standup comedy class with Ken Phillips at the Muse Writers Center in Norfolk almost two years ago. Joy learned quickly, developing a string of jokes in a character based on “ a caricature of myself with an exaggerated Southern drawl.” For the last year or so, Joy has been stepping out on stage in clubs like Cozzy’s in Newport News and the Cinema Café in Virginia Beach. She has turned her life around using comedy, along with her faith, to help her heal. She’s cancer free now, happily married with a 4-year-old daughter, Perry, and using her comedic skills to lighten the lives of other women with breast cancer. Just recently, Joy performed for a luncheon for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

“I can get a roomful of cancer survivors laughing because we’ve all been through it, and we can laugh at ourselves,” Joy said. “We get it!”

She develops her routines from life experiences, conversations, and creative twists on the things other people may think, but she’s willing to say out loud.

“The other day, I was in Harris-Teeter and I was thinking about how the young guys at the check out ask, ‘Do you have your Vic card?’ and then if you say ‘No,’ they say: ‘I can look it up with your phone number.’ Then I wondered about cougars and what they might be thinking in a situation like that. A cougar might say ‘Sure, I’ll be happy to give you my number!’ And then I develop a routine about that,” she explained, chuckling.

“They call me the ‘Chesapeake Charmer,’ and because I live here, I describe it as a place full of rednecks with money,” Joy said.

Though some kinds of jokes seem to criticize particular groups, comedians intend for us not to take ourselves, our causes, or our identities so seriously. Joy admits that comedy plays up stereotypes, and that helps audiences relate. “At its best, comedy should be universal,” Joy explained, “but it’s also an outlet to allow us to make fun of target groups, whether they’re based on politics, religion, race or gender.”

After Joy took classes in standup, she expanded her comedy repertoire by taking improv with Sean Devereaux and Brad McMurran, the founders of The Pushers, a popular comedy group who perform locally and out of state. The group does a blend of sketch comedy a la Saturday Night Live, combined with the improv intensity of “Whose Line is it Anyway?” With improv sketches, Joy is learning how to relate to her on-stage partner and how to be more spontaneous.

“There are rules in improv. For instance, you have to be in agreement with your partner,” Joy said. “Although sometimes, in the middle of a scene, you freeze!”

But a wrinkle in a performance won’t stop her. Joy says that she’s always learning, and she’s delighted that her friend nudged her toward a new expression of life and vitality, post-cancer. Her comedy colleagues also get a boost out of Joy’s seemingly innocent, preppie image, and her zany reactions on stage. Comedy brings out many layers of who we are—and Joy Julian is enjoying every punch line.

CHUTZPAH RULES

She’s the single mom of a junior at JMU, a former teacher, a New Jersey-born Jewish woman in her forties, raised on musicals, She has curly red hair and flashing blue eyes. She’s disarmingly polite and friendly. If you met Rona Hyman at her part-time job at Cigar Masters in Chesapeake, you might not suspect that she can wow a crowd in a comedy club with outrageous adult material.

A few years back, when her son went off to college, Rona took a look at her life. From her teen years on, she loved performing in plays and felt right at home on the stage. She said “I’m going to do standup.” So Rona enrolled in classes at the Muse and launched a new career.

“I don’t know how anyone does comedy without classes,” she said. “My teacher, Ken Phillips, helped me so much. I didn’t even know how to hold a microphone properly!”

She’s been doing standup comedy for a few years, performing in every regional comedy club—including The Upper Deck and Funny Bones and she spent six months as an MC at Red Bones. These days, working on improv, she’s uncovering the joy of stretching her talents, creating characters using parts of her own personality.

“Believe it or not, I was a bully when I was a little kid, so that comes out, although now I feel funny being mean,” she said thoughtfully. “I like doing a little kid, and a drunken character. But it all depends on what happens up there on stage. And sometimes, I’m thinking: ‘Where did that come from?’”

One of Rona’s recent routines is about an ice cream truck that appeared near the new home she shares with her partner, Christine. It had been years since she’d lived in a house in a proper neighborhood, and the van with a tinkling tune sent Rona into high gear.

“I lost it! I screamed!” she said, laughing. “I jumped in my car and followed him around the block. I was his first customer. My next door neighbors were ready to kill me because they have two little kids and now the ice cream man is showing up everyday.”

Rona says she used to be envious of the twenty-something women who are breaking into comedy, but not anymore. At 45, she says she has so much experience to draw from, including struggles with her weight and being a single parent. For instance, she shares a story about the day her son was born. At the time, she was unmarried. Rona’s mom informed her Jewish grandmother about the blessed event. Grandma’s reply?

“Mazeltov! Did I miss the wedding?”

Rona incorporates aspects of her personal life in her standup routines with gusto, creating humorous contexts for real-life situations she’s encountered. And she admits she probably wouldn’t have had the confidence to get out there twenty years ago. Rona suggests anyone who wants to do comedy has to promote herself, do everything she can to improve,  and get up on stage as much as she can. It takes “chutzpah,” a Yiddish expression for “audacity.”

“Now, I just say, ‘I’m doing this,” Rona said. “I don’t have to be famous or rich, but I’m doing comedy two or three times a week.”

Comedy is not paying the rent, but occasionally there is a small stipend. And Rona says in this economy, many of the comedy clubs don’t charge admission.

But who knows? Someone could see Rona at 37th and Zen or at Cozzy’s and hire her for a television sitcom or a part in a movie. Especially after they see her new comedy sketch about a drug called “Happy Stallion” with its humorous side effects.

“I’m open to that possibility,” she said.

TOTALLY PRESENT

Though every comedienne is not an actress, it helps if you’ve had some experience on stage. In the case of Alba Woolard, a graduate of Old Dominion University’s theater department, it also helps if you have a full-time job using your acting skills. Currently, Alba is a trainer at Eastern Virginia Medical School for a group of actors known as “standardized patients,” professionals who give feedback to medical school students as they play the roles of patients with certain diseases and disorders.

But that’s not where Alba gets laughs. Audiences in Tidewater know her as one of the members of The Pushers. The group’s founders and Muse improv instructors Sean Devereaux and Brad McMurran invited Alba to do a guest spot with their group about four years ago, and in 2009, she became a regular member. Being funny comes naturally to the 24-year-old, who was raised in a military family and grew up in North Carolina and Italy.

“I always used to make my family laugh when I did impressions of my Dad, even though I got in trouble for it,” she said. “He would say to me, ‘You should be in your own TV show!’”

Alba thrives in sketches with other comics, which she says takes concentration.

“You have to be to be totally present and master the ability to react quickly to any situation,” she said, including the off-beat characters and edgy behaviors that rise up in her male and female colleagues’ performances. Alba says that she hasn’t created any regular characters that re-appear in The Pushers’ sketches, but she does have one recurring bit: she sings parody songs, accompanied on guitar, co-written by other cast members. The most recent one, appearing on The Pushers’ website, is about a difficult admission a woman makes to her boyfriend. She delivers it deadpan, sitting at the edge of a bed, while the actor playing the boyfriend is noticeably upset in the background.

Brad, The Pushers’ co-founder and also a standardized patient, says that while improv and sketch comedy is admittedly male dominant, Alba holds her own.

“Women have the hardest time in the world of comedy because they are so often the brunt of jokes, including constant stereotyping,” he said. But when women transcend that, are okay with the joke, and don’t seem offended, they become strong performers, he explains.

“The Pushers hold up a mirror and help us laugh at all the faults we share, men and women,” Brad says. “Alba does as many ‘dude’ jokes as we do.”

Alba says women really have to work at comedy because it may not be as biologically natural in her opinion. “I think men, in general, have more logical, problem-solving ways, like doing math formulas, while women react more emotionally,” she said. “When you put the two together, you can create some really funny situations.” This explains why comedians thrive when they work in groups, she thinks.

Alba adds that it really is harder for women to get into comedy in a national spotlight, so she takes strength seeing Amy Poehler and Tina Fey gaining credibility, though her comedy heroes include Robin Williams, Bill Murray, and the late Chris Farley.

The Pushers are on the road every so often, and they’re open to unusual venues. In October, they took a gig on the Norfolk Tide on a Saturday night. Imagine a comedy group on your commute to MacArthur Mall. Yet for Alba Woolard, the challenges are worth it.

“The more relaxed I get and the more I can let go, the easier it is,” she said. “And the more committed you are, the funnier you will be.”

So how many women does it take to change a light bulb? Only one. But at the same time, she’s answering the phone, cooking dinner, checking her email, and learning a new joke! 

Joy Julian is a guest performer at the Cinema Café Comedy Night, November 5, 2011, at 9 p.m.

Alba Woolard and Rona Hyman perform with members of The Pushers and local improv students at 37th and Zen, Norfolk during “Improvageddon V”  on November 29, 2011, at 8 p.m.

Kathleen Fogarty writes regularly for Tidewater Women. She lives on New Earth Farm in Va. Beach.