WOMEN WRITE FUNNY Celebrating Women Keeping Humor Alive in Dire Times

We’re celebrating our Women Write Funny BEST OF SEASON ONE to mark the end of our first season! Check out the highlights from my interviews with amazing brilliant funny kickass comedy creators who all share the same DNA as Thalia, Goddess of Comedy. Juicy excerpts from:

Ep. 1: “Cooking Up Comedy” award-winning Off-B-way playwright/star

ANTOINETTE LAVECCHIA

Ep. 3: “Not Caring After 50” Stand-up Star and Mega Comedienne

KAREN MORGAN

Ep. 5: “What’s Not to Like?” playwright, actor & web sitcom creator

LYNN N. SILVER

Eps. 7/11: Happiness Coach, Corporate Shapeshifter & Comedy Wild Card:

BROOKLYN DICENT

Ep. 9: “Sending Up Shakespeare” with Red Bull winning-playwright gifted actor

KATE ABBURZZESE

PART TWO: Brooklyn Dicent is the world’s only CHO “Chief Happiness Officer” and founder of The Happiness Consulting Company whose bottom line is to bring joy, laughter and conscious-raising comedy to corporate America. Join Host Didi Balle as she interviews Brooklyn in PART TWO of a wise cray off-the-wall interview.

Brooklyn never stops honing her comedic gifts as a performer, improviser, stand-up, former DJ, intuitive healer/humorist. She’s an admitted COMEDY AGENT OF CHANGE. In PART TWO you’ll learn about her mission to interact with audiences in positive, joyful ways to get people to “elevate their thinking, elevate their energy to create something.”

What’s a “Conscious Comedian?” A “Curandera Comedian?” And how Brooklyn uses humor to open hearts and awaken audiences. PLUS find out why “gay people are the funniest and happiest people and on the planet." And why Puerto Ricans are the world’s gay culture. (Hint: Whether protest or fiesta it’s gonna be a party with fun, congas, food trucks, clanging pots, music, dancing, and yeah, laughter).

Tune in to my interview with Happiness Coach and Consultant, Brooklyn Dicent who believes the key to being happy in life is to be creating.

Listen to Episode 7 for PART ONE of my interview with Brooklyn Dicent!

Listen. Learn. Laugh.
Women Write Funny The Podcast

This week's Interview With My Psyche:

IS YOUR THERAPIST A FLAMING NARCISSIST?

Written and Read by Didi Balle

I usually Interview My Psyche in the middle of the night but once a week in the light of day I delve into my psyche with a bona-fide therapist.

This week’s Interview With My Psyche asks what few dare: “Is My Therapist a Flaming Narcissist?”

Hear how I made the scary discovery during a Zoom therapy session just last week.

Can you imagine your therapist falling asleep while you’re telling him/her your dream and then, when he/she wakes up, he/she tells you his/her dream and asks you to analyze it? Peak weird? Nope. That’s just the start!

This week I interview thirty-something Brooklyn-based actor, playwright and comic illustrator, Kate Abbruzzese, a grad of NYU Tisch School of the Arts Grad Acting Program.

Kate’s comic influencer is a genuine classic: William Shakespeare. She's inspired by the Bard to reimagine his plays like McBeth, As You Like It and The Tempest … cherrypicking her fav characters and setting them in contemporary sitcom-ish scenes exploring their day to day lives from the serious to the mundane.

Her short (10 min.) plays are quirky, serious and inexpliquably funny. Her Shakespearean-based characters speak, act, and think like regular peeps from the 21st century … and can’t help but reveal what’s going on in their heads/hearts … in ways the Bard never imagined.

Her first 10-minute Shakespeare send-ups earned Kate first prize in the Red Bull playwriting contest twice. Their success has inspired her to expand “The McBeths” (set in 1950s Scotland) to a full-length comedy/drama.

What’s the fine line between comedy and drama?

The connection between honesty and humor? Find out:

LISTEN. LEARN. LAUGH.

Women Write Funny The Podcast

www.womenwritefunny.com

This week is about writing memoirs. Or not. Mines called: “MEMOIRS I’LL NEVER WRITE” and it’s full of stuff any self-respecting author would never include in their enviable life story. If you’re interested in making someone grin or laugh the first thing to go are literary aspirations, which is why I prefer writing entertaining stories from an unexpected point of view like Disney meets peyote. Herewith the first chapter of my anti-memoir:

DIARY OF A POODLE AU PAIR

Yes It’s shallow, and a far cry from The Diary of Anne Frank but sometimes something shallow and silly is the perfect antidote for apocalyptic times.

Wonder what it’s like to have two massive standard poodles with intellects superior to your own who assume you’re their personal Au Pair? Find out! Meet OSCAR and SASHA my two canine companions who without my knowledge hired me as their personal au pair.

Listen. Learn. Laugh.


Women Write Funny The Podcast

Brooklyn Dicent is the world’s only CHO “Chief Happiness Officer” and founder of The Happiness Consulting Company whose bottom line is to bring joy, laughter and conscious-raising comedy to corporate America.

How much better would it be with thousands of CHOs instead of CEOs? What if companies like Apple, GM and Amazon had a CHO whose mission would not be to rocket off in a giant metal penis to their personal fame and glory but instead would be focused on uplifting employees by facilitating collaboration and creativity with bad-ass inspirational, interactive comedy? ENTER: BROOKLYN DICENT!

Fascinating listen to a grounded out-of-the-box comedian whose mind is a combo of a petri dish and an incendiary device. She explodes with on target takes about the why/how/what-ifs of seemingly effortless comedy performance which always includes riffing and reading the room.

PART 1 OF 2 INTERVIEWS

Join WOMEN WRITE FUNNY PODCAST host and humorist Didi Balle in this laid-back rant about anti-sloth propaganda. Learn some cray scientific facts about sloths. How they share common traits with writers. And why the Bible has zero respect for these funny creatures. If you're hell-bent on discovering why Laziness aka SLOTH is the Secret Weapon for Success, tune in.

LISTEN. LEARN. LAUGH.

Did you know that sloths, those crescent-grinning creatures who like to hang upside down in trees munching on tender leaves, have survived for 62 MILLION years, longer than any other mammal on earth because of their strategic survival secret called sloth aka laziness? Is the so-called Deadly Sin “Sloth Lifestyle” a vice or a virtue?

Women Write Funny The Podcast: Episode Five

“WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE?” with Actor, Playwright & Thalia Clone

LYNN N. SILVER

speaks with fellow NYU Tisch Grad Acting Alum Host & Writer Didi Balle

LYNN N. SILVER Creator, actor, writer of “Dinner with Mom” a YouTube sit-com about a Jewish mother who knows no boundaries and her daughter who can’t live without them. Based on Lynn N. Silver’s play “Rules” (performed by Olympia Dukakis playing Lynn’s on-stage mother with Lynn playing the role of daughter).

Are there times when humor runs away and hides and can’t be found? Can "funny" or "timing" be taught? Is making people laugh the ultimate weapon against anxiety? Tune in:

Listen. Learn. Laugh.

Women Write Funny The Podcast

Get those endorphins going with this week’s 9 MINUTE WOMEN WRITE FUNNY PODCAST

Episode 4: Interview with My Psyche: “HUSBAND OR HANDYMAN? A Philosophical Query”

A comic monologue written and read for you by Did Balle

Here's the thing:

Divorced women like me often get asked by well-meaning divorced friends:

"Do you think you'll ever seriously date or marry again? "

I tell them: "For me it all boils down to a simple question:

"Husband or Handyman?"

By the end of Episode 4 you'll know my answer!

If anyone can redeem the name “Karen” ... KAREN MORGAN can!

Although who needs redemption when your DryBar Comedy Special “After 50 You Just Stop Caring” has nearly 2 MILLION downloads on YouTube, 3 MILLION followers on Facebook, and more “likes” than the entire population of Bangor, Maine?

WOMEN WRITE FUNNY PODCAST Host and Writer Didi Balle interviews the seriously funny KAREN MORGAN about making people laugh, perfecting comic timing, using her husband and kids as comic fodder, and what it's like for a former Southern Belle to live in rural Maine where moose rival mint juleps.

KAREN MORGAN is a bona-fide Comedy Influencer although she's loathe to admit it. How did she become a stand-up phenomenon after starting her career in her 40s? And what does she think about these amaze-ball stats?

In addition to being a badass lawyer (warning: never steal one of her jokes), Karen’s a national touring comic with sell-out shows, a producer of comedy shows, a triathlete, a mom, a wife, and a former Georgia peach who escaped to Maine but has yet to meet a moose face-to-face. Always in search of new comedy material, she pursues random moose encounters on her early morning runs.

When I asked if her next comedy special is called: “Trawling in Lobster Boats with Comedians” she denied it ... but I wonder.

Tune in. Find Out. Laugh.

Women Write Funny The Podcast

DIDI BALLE. HOST-WRITER-PRODUCER