Hill native headlines night of comedy at Keswick

by LEN LEAR

When Chestnut Hill area native Craig Shoemaker performs, as he will at Glenside’s historic Keswick Theater on Saturday, September 25, 8:30 p.m., he puts it all out there straight with no chaser. No one-trick pony, this actor/writer/producer/comic has material that’s stronger than bus station chili. He’s mixed the comedy cocktail just right, with just enough fizzy soda and whiskey.

I like to think I actually discovered Craig because I wrote the first article he ever received; it was in 1980, and I wrote it for the now-defunct Philadelphia Journal after seeing Shoemaker perform at Rick’s Cabaret, a then-hot club on the 700 block of South Front Street, where he was also a bartender.

I found Shoemaker to be very funny, creative and original, so I asked if I could interview him after the show. (Does a pig have knuckles?) During the interview, I discovered that the good-looking young Temple University student was majoring in radio, TV and film while moonlighting at Rick’s Cabaret. His first paying job as a comic was at Casa Conti in Glenside (also long-defunct).

I also discovered that his family had moved frequently and that they had resided at one time or another in Mt. Airy (Stenton and Duval), Erdenheim, Wyndmoor, Flourtown and Oreland. At the time of the interview, he was living in a house on Willow Grove Avenue in Chestnut Hill with four friends from Craig’s years at Springfield Township High School.

Why on earth did his family move so often — and each time just one or two miles away? “It’s because my mom loved to get those Welcome Wagon coupons,” he explained. “The ones that gave us discounts on dry cleaning and pizza and shoe repair. The savings really add up, so it pays to move to a new house every now and then.”

I proceeded to write a column about the aspiring Chestnut Hill area comedian, predicting stardom for him. Several months later, I wrote about Craig again when he performed with three other comics at The Taproom in Ambler. Again, Craig “killed” the audience.

“You praised me and two of the others,” recalled Craig during a phone interview from his home in Hollywood. “You really knocked the fourth comedian, but today that guy is a successful writer out here. He has written for Seventh Heaven and other shows, so I guess you weren’t 100 percent right.”

Shoemaker, now 41, has a remarkably accurate memory of those incipient days of his career. “You gave me my first two reviews, and I still have them,” he insisted. “I read them over and over because I was so excited to be written about. I can practically recite every word in those articles, even though I could not tell you what someone wrote yesterday.”

Like so many professional comedians, Shoemaker had turned to humor as a defense against the cruelty and insensitivity of other boys. In the 11th grade at Springfield High, he was only 5-foot, one inch, and weighed just 95 pounds.

“The other kids pulled up my underwear so much,” he recalled, “I feel like I invented the thong. . . I really didn’t have much choice but to turn to comedy. I had to make all the bigger kids laugh to keep them from picking on me. It worked, too. Comedy got me out of so much trouble, you wouldn’t believe it.”

Interestingly, Craig shot up seven inches in his senior year at Springfield and continued to inch up skyward through his years at Temple. Today he is 6-foot-2 and weighs 200 pounds. In high school he wanted desperately to play varsity sports but was way too small for each one.

The frustrated athlete continues to dream, however. He has attended a Phillies’ Fantasy Camp (the current Phillies team may have to attend the same camp to achieve the fantasy of winning), for instance, and in 2002 he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Phillies-Expos game. “I told the catcher, ‘I’m bringing the heat,’ and threw that baby 85 miles an hour.”

Because of the fame he has achieved in show business, Shoemaker has made contacts that have allowed him to take batting practice with a few Major League teams. “I keep hoping I’ll be discovered,” said Craig. “Just in case someone needs a 41-year-old comedian, I’m going to keep warmed up. I’m ready to step in anytime a team gives me the green light.”

Much of Craig’s comedy down through the years was derived from incidents in his youth (again, a common thread in the comedy fabric). For example, he asked 13 girls to the high school prom before one said yes — and even that one wound up making out with another boy.

Many years later Craig did a scene on a TV show with famed supermodel Cindy Crawford. At one point in the sketch, he mentioned the actual names of his high school prom date and the guy she made out with. He then turned to the camera and said, “But now I’m with Cindy Crawford, so eat your heart out!” According to Shoemaker, “I found out later that she (the prom date) was watching the show, so I definitely did get some satisfaction.”

Craig has obviously achieved other satisfaction as a writer, actor and comic. In 1998 he was awarded the prestigious American Comedy Award for “Best Male Standup Comic.” The next “Best Comic Award” winners were Ellen DeGeneres, Jeff Foxworthy and Jerry Seinfeld, so Shoemaker said he may create a sit-com about “a gay redneck in a show about nothing.”

Also in the works is a pilot which is the direct opposite of Bravo’s “Queer Eye” show… it’s entitled “Straight Guy for the Whipped Guy,” and it’s getting great feedback. “The premise is to bring in the straight guys to balance our country because it’s really getting out of balance with feminization,”  says Craig.  His philosophy is that women want real men, so his team would come into your house and teach men how to be men again. 

The Hill native has performed in every major comedy venue in the country; he has appeared in more than 100 TV shows and was a regular on Hollywood Squares. He played a lawyer on Family Law, co-starred in Safe House with Patrick Stewart, was a teacher in Scream 2 and wrote The Love Master, co-starring Farrah Fawcett and Courtney Thorne-Smith, which won the Independent Film Festival in Los Angeles. He’s also had two successful comedy CDs and has written several sit-com “pilots” that were not picked up by any of the networks. “I’ve done more pilots than any flight attendant,” he insisted.

Shoemaker, who has a wife of six years, Carolyn, and one son, Justin, 6, will be performing this Saturday night with other local comics Joe Conklin and Big Daddy Graham at the Keswick Theater in Glenside, which has 1,300 seats. “I saw my first movie at the Keswick Theater,” said Craig. “It was The Sound of Music in 1968. I also saw my first R-rated movie there, but this will be my first time performing there.

“If the kids I grew up with are there. I will tell them all their old locker numbers. . . I’ve had e-mails from some of them, including one kid from the third grade in Mt. Airy. Luckily, I don’t owe any of them money.” For ticket information, call 215-572-7650 or visit www.keswicktheatre.com or www.craigshoemaker.com.