Deena Nyer Mendlowitz is well known in the local comedy scene for her stand-up routines and her advocacy for those dealing with mental health issues. In addition to being a stand-up comedian, She’s also an improviser, playwright and educator, who trained at The Second City Cleveland and The Second City and Annoyance Theater in Chicago, and has been performing and teaching for more than 20 years.
Now Deena has released her first stand-up special, co-produced by and filmed at a performance at Cleveland’s Imposters Theater where she teaches, performs and coaches improv regularly. It debuts on YouTube on October 10—World Mental Health Day.
“The special is called Shrimp Catcher, and it is really a love letter to my son,” Deena says. “It focuses on living with mental health, being in the psych hospital, and the luck I had to be able to parent through that. There are also jokes about pop culture, and menopause, and politics. It is a stand-up show about living with suicidal thoughts and all the good stuff that keeps getting in the way.”
“The special was rehearsed and finished forming while I was a patient at a psych facility this summer,” she adds. “I did three performances in the psych facility and they wound up being a pivotal experience, both for me and the other patients.The special itself talks a lot about mental health and other topics too and I’m very proud of it. Finishing up the special and getting to rehearse it while I was in a psych hospital this summer was more meaningful to me than the special itself. I got to perform this special for a jury of my peers and make everybody, at least for 45 minutes or so, feel less like a patient and more like a person.”
“I wound up doing two more shows there and having just as much fun with those ones as the first. Honestly, if you were to ask me, what would be my dream to come out of this special? It would be to be a touring comic who performs solely in psych facilities who for one night, brings a comedy club into a psych ward, and brings empathy, humor, and lived experience as part of it.”
Deena is also the creator of This Improvised Life and Mental Illness and Friends, two shows that focus real-life stories, comedy and community.