Sharon "Mama" Spell, Monkey, Pony, Chupa "Chupy" Cabra, Etc.
Influences
alcohol, cash, ninners
Sounds Like
My Mother, Belle Barthe, Steve Martin, Bette Midler, Moms Mabley, Roseanne, Joan Rivers, Mrs. Miller, Andy Kaufman, Sophie Tucker, Rusty Warren, Jerry Clower, Pee-Wee Herman, Minnie Pearl, Elizabeth Taylor, Marshall Applewhite
"If you think ironic and uplifting are contradictory traits that cant coexist, maybe Mama Spell can change your mind. Part comedienne, part performance artist, the Pittsburgh resident (via south Mississippi) tells stories, provides social commentary and performs hilarious lounge versions of seemingly incongruous songs..."
-- Jack Silverman
Nashville Scene
"... Sharon “Mama” Spell taught us 'The Mama Dance,' its only requirement that you make a V with your arms...."
-- Shaula Clark
The Boston Phoenix
"...hip and danceable brand of twisted song/comedy..."
--Foxy Moxy
Piedmont Triad Hippo
"Mama's show is a one-woman extravaganza..."
-- Mik Davis
Hattiesburg American
"...a pop art Gracie Allen."
-- Ruth Cartlidge
Chattanooga Pulse
"And she's got so much style that she wouldn't look out of place in a John Waters movie." -- The Winston-Salem Journal
"Stories With No Morals offers highlights of her live show, the Mama Spell Comedy Cabaret, with singing, storytelling and Mama just being Mama."
--Mike May
Pittsburgh Magazine
"Her whimsical Southern manner and offbeat humor... is abetted by some stuffed animals and her trusty Casio CTK-631 keyboard. She's threatening to tap-dance at Saturday's show."
--Gary Budzak
The Columbus Dispatch
"The highlights of Spell's performances usually are her songs, with the comic bits filling in between, or leading up to, a song. Spell accompanies herself on piano. This isn't the easiest way to do stand-up, but in her case, it works."
-- Mike Machosky
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
"Spell spins many a yarn on Stories, always with a healthy dose of irreverence. She begins by explaining her matronly moniker, which was given to her by a vehicle-challenged friend from college. 'I was his only friend with a car, and so my car became Mama's Taxi, I became Mama,; she explains."
--Kelly Delaney
Pulp
"It takes a skilled entertainer with a distinct persona to blend the many kinds of funny and still come out on top. Mama Spell, a Southern-born Pittsburgh hipster... pulls it off with grace and aplomb."
--Patrick Rapa
Philadelphia City Paper
"Mamas cabaret -- and Stories with No Morals -- works because Mama can come across as sincere as one of the Bushs first ladies, or a Reagan-era anti-drug commercial. And almost as funny. Because the fact is, Mamas really, really funny -- like a cross between June Cleaver, Liz Taylor and Absolutely Fabulous."
-- Justin Hopper
Pittsburgh City Paper
"This CD didn't skip once!"
-- Jackie Beat
friend to the gays since 1989.
..Categorized on Myspace as Music, Mama Spell is music to many a tonedeaf ear. But she's also a personable person and does not serially add random friends in this format. If she requests you as a friend here it means she likes you, she really likes you!
And although her training and background geared her for a life of sitting alone in a studio inhaling paint fumes, southern-born fashion plate Sharon Mama* Spell longed for a life before an audience. She moved to New York City from Hattiesburg, Mississippi (via Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) after earning a BFA from the University of Southern Mississippi in Painting and Drawing. Her visual art has been described as possessing a "fine and distanced beauty that suggests abstract expressionism." It wasn't very long after graduation that she dove headfirst in the cabaret performances, putting her fine and distanced beauty onstage, spouting abstract expressionist humor that everyone can relate to.
Her show is more rock-n-roll than stand-up comedy, the kids dig it and you can dance as you laugh along to it (think Steve Martin + Pee Wee Herman + [Liz Taylor / Belle Barthe] = Mama Spell). She tap dances, sings songs, tells stories and plays her funky keyboard. Sidekick Press Agent Pony also steps in to lend a comedic hand hoof.
Spell has performed her comedy (and tragedy) at venues across the United States. Currently making her home in New York, she co-hosts a weekly variety show called Shrink @ Otto's Shrunken Head and in her spare time enjoys painting, being a model, and spending time with her Monkey and Press Agent Pony.
*She got the nickname "Mama" from a friend from college. She was his only friend with a car, and so her car became "Mama's Taxi," and she became "Mama." Her show and sense of humor are joyous, not hateful. Mama Spell just wants you to sit down and finish making your macaroni necklace while she finishes drinking her martini, quietly. Can't we have just ONE nice Thanksgiving? Thank you.
girl i have been thinkin so much about you!!!! and spent some time laughin' from your great stuff on myspace this morning. how are you, besides fabulous?!!!
touched base with rachel jerome last week, whose child, i understand, you are a babysittin!!!!!!!
i will get to a show a.s.a.p.
so glad to see you are taking new york by STORM!!!!!!!!
Great to see you, too! Hopefully it will not be as long between the next time. Let's chat about forming a Libra Comedians Formerly of Pittsburgh coalition of some sort.
