Mandee McKelvey’s comedy Exes and Embryos comes to KC Fringe

Courtesy Jessica Ebelhar 2020

Louisville-based comedian Mandee McKelvey cares about more than punchlines.

Her day-to-day is filled with stand-up comedy gigs at bars and venues—along with her full-time job at a psychiatric hospital. But her one-woman shows—including Exes and Embryos, which comes to Kansas City July 21 for KC Fringe Fest—give her the freedom to “mine the depth for funny,” as the South Carolina native says.

“To me, it is so much funnier if there is room for people to be upset or sad or angry before the funny comes,” McKelvey says. “In one-woman shows, I get to be all of the things. I get to be disgusting, vulgar, impenetrable. I can make fun of every single thing; nothing is sacred. I get to be sad when I want to be sad and angry when I want to be.”

Her shows are layered with laughs and messages on body autonomy, sexuality, and reproductive rights. McKelvey unabashedly assumes the judgment tied to all the taboos we’re not supposed to discuss.

Courtesy Mandee McKelvey

“I’ve decided that’s fine,” McKelvey says. “I’ll do that part; let me get judged harshly.”

While many assume their day-to-day issues leave them in the minority, her show reveals the opposite. This has connected her with hundreds of women with similar stories and the growing feeling that all women are exactly the same.

“We don’t think we’re the same because we are so separated from each other—divided up all over the world, amongst men and children and various households,” McKelvey says. “But if we were all together, the amount of support that we would be able to get and give would be…well, I mean, we’d actually be okay. We might get our rights back.”

Making light of everything dark in her and other women’s lives has always been McKelvey’s forte. Her first one-woman show, My Left Boob—which earned her KC Fringe’s “2022 Best of Fringe” award—centers around her uneven breast development and the slew of breast surgeries that followed.

Returning to KC Fringe for her second year, McKelvey will continue themes of body autonomy in her latest show, Exes and Embryos. Through her irreverent storytelling, McKelvey pokes fun at all the things her friend did to try to conceive during her infertility journey and delves into a more serious segment about abortion for the last half. Though raw and a little bit rude, every part of it is done out of love, she says.

“It’s all done out of pure love for myself,” McKelvey says. “Pure love for my idiotic friend that turns out wasn’t an idiot at all. And absolute love for mostly the people in the audience who don’t have the ability to say all the things that I have the ability to say.”

It’s not uncommon for individuals to approach McKelvey with their own stories following the show. She can hear them saying it for the very first time. She says that many folks share their experience with abortion, fertility, or breast reconstructions because they know they can trust her. Being met with tears from strangers is a pattern she is happy to be navigating but still not used to.

“As soon as they hear themselves say it, they start to get the emotional release from it,” McKelvey says. “I love that shit. I have no idea how to navigate it. Not a clue.”

Now 45 years old, McKelvey is selling out venues in her home base of Louisville, KY, traveling nearly every weekend, and has been named one of the 50 best undiscovered comics in the country by Thrillist. But it took a long time for her to work up the courage to tackle such taboos in front of an audience, let alone get up on stage.

Having grown up in rural South Carolina with little to no exposure to the comedy world and diminished self-confidence, Mandee Mckelvey’s comedy dream had always seemed far-fetched. Her only hope, she deduced, was being fatefully discovered at a local grocery store like movie stars from the ’90s.

“I’d always wanted to do comedy,” says McKelvey. “And yet, I had never once acknowledged that dream because it was like, “Obviously, I can’t actually go on stage, or I’ll die.”

Courtesy Mandee McKelvey

At 27 years old, McKelvey says she was late to the game in comedy when she did her first open mic in 2006. After years of hesitation and self-doubt, it was a period of destitute grief and loss in her life that finally landed her on stage. 

“I think the beauty of grief is everything becomes possible again because nothing matters anymore,” McKelvey says. “I needed to be broken down and reshaped. I had developed some weird ideas about how the world worked as a young girl in a rural trailer park. I was just not open. I was anxious. I was scared of everything.”

McKelvey says her start in comedy was a slow burn. The first 10 years were a steady grind of open mics with no significant tangible progress noticeable at the time. Back then, in the 2000s, some aspects of comedy felt like they were stuck in the ’70s or ’80s, she says.

Oftentimes open mic lineups included 19 boys and herself. McKelvey showed up like it was her job. The boys showed up for the social outlet and a free pass to say disgusting things into the microphone.

“They were either dismissive or ignored me—or somehow even worse—befriended me for all the wrong reasons,” McKelvey says. “This was back when I was young, so I don’t think people had started to believe how disgusting I think men are.

In 2019, McKelvey became the first woman to headline the fundraiser event Night of a Thousand Laughs, benefiting Louiville’s A-list comedy venue Gilda’s Club. That same year she was awarded Indy Fringe’s “Underdog Award.” And she has produced the successful roast show Character Assassination along with a small group of comedians since 2011.

Though it doesn’t feel like the ’70s anymore with some increase in diversity, McKelvey says all-male comedy lineups are still extremely common in the Midwest. Especially with bigger clubs and bookers, she, without fail, will need a reputable male comedian to vouch for her.

And when female comedians do make the stage, pressure is on them to bolster and preserve the reputation of all women in comedy.

“It’s amazing the way that one female comic still has to rep all of us when she goes into a new setting,” McKelvey says. “Women have to bring the numbers to be respected. Women have to come in there with an insane amount of followers and a built-in fan base to be taken seriously.”

In other words, women comics have never had the liberty to be mediocre.

But McKelvey, along with her mediocre peers, is reaping the benefits of a higher demand for female comics. In seek of a more diverse lineup, bookers seek out McKelvey and other female comics to cater to their audiences. With a smaller pool to choose from, this is allowing more mediocre comics stage time.

“We were never given the opportunity to be mediocre,” McKelvey says. “You couldn’t do it. You’re either the worst thing on that stage, the audience hated you, and you were single-handedly holding back feminism. Or you had to be so good that the boys would, ‘Let you be on their show.'”

All this while, as McKelvey points out, “male comedians almost solely exist in the range of mediocre.”

McKelvey has five showtimes for Exes and Embryos at KC Fringe, set to perform July 21, 23, 26, and July 28-29 at The Bird Comedy Theater. You can get your tickets here.