That Shari Bender, a Long Island mother of two, is valedictorian of Comedy College is a joke.
As a Toyon freshman, Bender entered a college comedy competition held at the CoHo. She lost. "I was so used to winning everything my whole life and being No. 1," she recalls, "it was a rude awakening not to win. It's not so funny not to win."
So Bender stayed away from comedy—for 20 years. Then, in 2010, she signed up for an eight-week course at Long Island's Comedy College. There were five other students. "I graduated valedictorian, just because I asked to be valedictorian," she says. "No one had ever asked to be valedictorian before."
In December, Bender was set to use her funny bone to raise money for the Connecticut Hemophilia Society. Her 13-year-old daughter has hemophilia, and Bender founded and is now president of the New York City chapter of the National Hemophilia Foundation. She helped initiate a program for newly diagnosed families and a national fund-raising walk. Last year, when she and designer Dana-Maxx Pomerantz were working on a project together, they decided to create a Victory for Women Dress whose sales would benefit the foundation's initiative for women with blood disorders. The $425 satiny red dress went on sale November 11.
Bender, whose favorite comedian is Jerry Seinfeld, draws her material from topics people can relate to, like pets, kids or Facebook: "I hate it when my friends post pictures of me on Facebook where I look bad," starts one of her jokes. "I think they actually post unflattering photos of me to make themselves look good. At least that's what I do."
Promotional materials that trumpeted her valedictorian status helped Bender land gigs at Sunnyvale's Rooster T. Feathers comedy club and at Castagnola's restaurant at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.
Stanford friend Eric Krock, '91, wasn't surprised when he received an invitation to the Rooster T. Feathers show. He says Bender has always had "a natural, witty, irreverent, wisecracking sense of humor." He remembers a story she told that night: Before doing a performance for a Christian ministry wary of offensive content, Bender and the other comedians were told that if the audience members found something offensive, they would signal their discomfort by rattling the bowls of pretzels on their tables. During her set, Bender told the group the only thing she found offensive was rattling pretzels.
Bender says when doing stand-up comedy, "you're very vulnerable," and admits, "if people don't laugh at a joke, it really hurts." But, she has had positive experiences so far, partly because audiences usually warmly welcome the few women in the field—and maybe partly because everybody likes a valedictorian.
