By Madeline Baker, Times Chronicle

In celebration of International Women’s Day, Oliver’s Venables Theatre will play host to “Anything You Can Do Comedy Night” on March 12 featuring three successful female comedians: Jane Stanton, Amber Harper-Young, and the evening’s MC, Sharon Mahoney.

All three comedians come with impressive resumes: Stanton has performed at prestigious comedy festivals including Montreal’s Just for Laughs, Global Comedy Festival, and Bumbershoot Seattle, and has appeared on TV alongside Tom Green, Tig Notaro, Arie Spears, Godfrey, Bobby Lee, Natasha Leggero, and Saturday Night Live’s Michael Che.

Mahoney and Harper-Young have built their names over a combined 32 years – 20 for Mahoney, 12 for Harper-Young – of playing comedy clubs and festivals as far away as Australia and the United Arab Emirates, along with many tours throughout Canada. By all accounts, the experience has been endlessly rewarding but far from easy.

“Stand up comedy can be a hard career path regardless of your gender,” said Mahoney. “It’s a difficult thing to pursue regardless of who you are and what you’re doing. It takes a lot of tenacity. You face rejection a lot and you have to be really strong-minded to continually face all that and still double down, and believe in yourself, and continue to do it over and over again.”

“The further you get into comedy as a woman, it’s a more isolating experience because not a lot of women stick it out,” Harper-Young said of her own experience. “Women are still on the very low end of the ratio between the two basic sexes, and … in some ways, we’re almost speaking different languages than men sometimes.”

Mahoney also identified a double-standard she has seen and faced herself when it comes to what audiences have historically considered acceptable content from male versus female comedians.

“A woman can talk about something sexual or whatnot, and [audiences] are like “oh, women always have to be so dirty,” said Mahoney. “And you’re like, literally every comic that’s been on here has done dick jokes one after another. But when you come up and talk about your vagina, they’re like, why do women have to be so dirty?”

Both comedians identified self-empowerment as the secret to finding success while maintaining their sanity. “I encourage women to be assertive,” said Harper-Young. “We’re socialized to be the opposite, so it’s a big struggle for us because maybe we don’t even realize we’re not socialized to be neck and neck competitors with men,”

Mahoney concurred: “I’m really a believer in empowerment, in going “okay, well, how can I empower myself in this situation? What do I need to do to not be a victim of it, and instead move forward?”

To that end, Mahoney has worked throughout her career to see the positive sides of her role as a rarity in stand-up comedy. When confronting endless slates full of male comedians, which she called “an International Man Day show every day,” she chose to focus on her uniqueness among them as a selling point.

“I’m sure that there are a lot of challenges being a woman that some of the men don’t always have to face, but there are also benefits being a woman, like the fact that we’re doing this tour celebrating International Women’s Day. So here’s a show with three strong women on it and we’re touring throughout the interior of BC. That’s pretty cool.”

She has also watched the number of women in stand-up comedy grow steadily since she began 20 years ago, and said that the number of women attending their shows in support has grown accordingly. That balance in the audience is what she believes should be the ultimate goal for women in comedy.

“Feminism, for me, is about supporting men and women, so I really do believe that men are a part of this as well.”

Likewise, while the event is definitely intended to lift up female voices in comedy and showcase the accomplishments of women in a mercilessly competitive field, Mahoney and Harper-Young both emphasized that their comedic styles are flexible enough to meet the diversity level of any audience.

Harper-Young explained that she considers the audience of every show to be an intelligent entity, one that lets her know with their response whether she’s succeeding or needs to make adjustments for the sake of their entertainment.

By rooting her comedy in personal experience, she exposes her own vulnerability to create a connection with the crowd and tailors her tone accordingly, though she avoids painting a target on any one group or person as a rule.

“I don’t really want people to feel bad coming to a comedy show,” she said, “but when we all have that emotional intelligence that can understand intention and as long as the intention is good, it’s positive, and we’re all joking, then I think that should come across.”

“I really believe that my comedy is not just for women and relevant for women,” Mahoney said. “That’s important to me. My comedy is a lot of observation and I do talk a lot about issues of myself being a woman and being 50, but it’s for everybody.”

Leah Foreman, General Manager of Venables Theatre, has promised “an unforgettable night of laughter and fun” from Stanton, Harper-Young, and Mahoney, who she calls “incredibly talented and hilarious.”

Tickets for the Anything You Can Do Comedy Night are available online at venablestheatre.ca.