Deborah Trefts
Staff Writer
In most people’s lives, for whatever reason, at least one period opens up when there’s time to think anew about how some unscheduled time should be filled.
Making time for laughter, and for learning how to make others laugh, is a sound choice. Including, let’s say, for highly knowledgeable and skilled civil servants whose public service jobs have suddenly been, or soon will be, terminated through no fault of their own.
The therapeutic rewards for actively giving amateur comedy a go as an avocation are immeasurable. There are a number of forms and pathways into them, and merriment is embedded in each.
At 9:15 a.m. Thursday at the Chautauqua Women’s Club House, Sally Craig — aka Sally Love — will regale Chautauqua Speaks attendees with her talk “Funny Business: My Comedy Origin Story.”
“I’ve always been funny, but to do stand-up is a high-wire act,” said Craig, who first got into it when she was 75. “People think it’s improvisational, but it’s not.”
Born Sally Love Banks and raised in Long Island, New York, Craig headed to Tufts University near Boston for college and majored in history and English.
After serving abroad in the Peace Corps for five years during the late 1960s — first in Guinea, then Tunisia and finally Congo — she moved to Washington D.C. to work at Peace Corps headquarters.
Then a radio and TV engineering school caught Craig’s interest, and she enrolled from 1973 to 1974, but sexual harassment by her male classmates pivoted her toward massage therapy and joining the effort to establish the first chapter of the National Organization for Women.
Through NOW, she became one of a group of five “women in cable” who possessed the technological know-how to operate a channel for women’s programs. In the early 1980s, she was involved in establishing a cable system for the city of Washington D.C.’s cable television office.
With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, secured by a Peace Corps colleague from the time she’d served as the associate director of its Tunisia program, Craig said she made 15 trips to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan between 1991 and 1995 to train factory workers in time management and teamwork. Her first trip to the Soviet Union — for a workshop for women — occurred in 1992.
Back in Washington D.C. that same year, she and a friend got a group of 10 women together monthly to talk about various topics of mutual interest.
One result of these gatherings was Sacred Circles: A Guide to Creating Your Own Women’s Spirituality Group, a book she wrote in part with Robin Deen Carnes (1998). Its publication led to a national book tour that not only included visits to bookstores but also additional workshops about small groups and consciousness-raising groups.
Afterward, Craig began working for the mayor of Washington D.C. on executive recruiting.
“I became very involved with something called InterPlay in 2004 in Washington D.C.,” she said. “It (includes) improvisational story, movements and play. I was in a performance group called The Big Yes. There was something about learning that it was OK to be silly and it was fun to be silly (that) put me in touch with my inner self. I did it hard for about five to six years.”
A yoga instructor for many years, Craig said she retired from teaching it about a year before the COVID-19 pandemic began and shifted to Qi Gong.
“My Qi Gong teacher says to give 70% effort, not 100%,” Craig said. “The harder the effort, the less easily the Qi will flow.”
At Chautauqua, Craig/Love has spearheaded three “pop-up” comedy shows at the CWC House. The first, in 2021, included the late political satirist and Buffalo native Mark Russell.
Her second show, “Let’s Keep Laughing 2.0: Sally Love and Friends,” was performed twice during the 2023 season by Craig/Love and six mostly-but-not-all amateur comedians, including Alison Russell.
The third — “Sally Love and Friends: Holding It All Together” — filled with “stand-up, storytelling and sharp one-liners,” will be performed this season on Monday, July 14, and Monday, July 21.
Craig has also spearheaded benefits for senior organizations, including one in the D.C. area and another on Cape Cod.
“I think there’s something that I have going for me,” she said. “I have a strong persona, but I’m not playing the type of an 81-year-old lady.”
People often come up to Craig and tell her that they’d love to do stand-up comedy, but they don’t think they ever could.
“I’d love for (them) to start thinking they could start taking courses,” she said.
To encourage that, Craig said she’ll “do some audience participation in addition to Q-and-A — or not just your typical Q-and-A” — at Chautauqua Speaks.
