Andrea Morton as the Transgender Menace

The performers of the Transgender Menace show

Morton’s show fit the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of diverse. Photo: Roberto Valdez

Community

Salt Lake City’s Andrea Morton produced her third show at the DLC in Quarters on Thursday, July 23. The show, Transgender Menace & Her Funny Friends: A Comedy Show, featured a local lineup. When asked about the show’s title, Morton explains, “It’s a joke about the transgender menace destroying our youth … I want [the show] to focus on quality. Diversity is a primary thought, too.”

Morton started comedy after finishing a hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. As she explains, along the hike she was listening to a lot of podcasts, including one by Dan Harmon of Community and Rick and Morty. Harmon’s cadence and themes inspired Morton. She shares, “I felt directionless after I ended the hike and I didn’t know what to do with my life. So I started doing open mics, and I’ve been doing open mics for 12 years.”

Now, Morton’s found her own voice, cadence and writing process. As she explains, “I write down half an idea several times and then before I go on stage, something speaks to me, and it just falls together … It’s like the puzzle pieces click.” She creates from her life: “I talk about the experience and absurdities of living as a trans person … It’s the identity stuff, you know – being fat, being trans … [My comedy] sort of normalizes my existence … We laugh together … It’s a shared human experience, which is really valuable.”

Morton’s DLC show was diverse. After Morton opened the show, Aaron Orlovitz came on. Orlovitz, who is not a racist despite his bald, white head, started with a bit on longing for a Pinocchio dick and growing up in a Jewish and Christian household. Nicole Rivera followed with a bit on winter sports’ appropriation of sacred land in Arizona, shriveling salamander dicks from estrogen-polluted water and the perennial problem of lesbians in the female locker room, made worse by a foot fetish. Juwayne, who describes himself as a “Panda Express Person” (looking Asian but made by Mexicans), shared tit, geography and furry mango/pussy eating jokes. He attributed his allyship to the queer cause for his entry in the show’s lineup.

Alexandra, who produces comedy shows in strip clubs, followed with a bit conflating medicine for male baldness and dogs. Then, Quinn Johnson, a gay man from Provo, brought the local culture in. Johnson spoke of Joseph Smith as a queer icon and the absurdity of renaming Harvey Milk Boulevard in Salt Lake City after Charlie Kirk. “The gay bars will still be there!” he says. Morton, who had a short bit before the headliner, continued with Utah’s absurdities, joking about her legal obligation to pee in the county pool following passage of a Utah law which banned her from changing rooms in state buildings. Sam D’Antuono then closed with tales of his bisexual escapades, his eccentric Sugarhouse neighbor who tends to a plot of corn in his backyard, a devil DP joke, daddy problems and a T-rex impression.

Overall, Morton’s show fit the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of diverse: “The practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.” Transgender Menace & Her Funny Friends: A Comedy Show was a take on our queer existence. As Morton shared, “It’s just putting a twist on the weird sadnesses of the world and recontextualizing them as silly.”

For future catharsis, follow Morton’s Instagram to stay tuned for her next show that pokes fun at the absurdity of this thing called life. —Katrina Cano

Photos by Roberto Valdez: