Getting laughs is serious business for Comedy Night host Denise McCarty
May 14, 2023 | By Ingrid Jonas | Correspondent 
Denise McCarty, courtesy photo
When was the last time you laughed hard and how did you feel afterward?
Comedian Denise McCarty wants to spread the word that laughter is healthy, it releases dopamine and helps us forget our worries. “People want to laugh. And especially over the last few years, people have been trying to find things to uplift them,” she explained while discussing her role hosting an upcoming comedy event to benefit Waterbury Ambulance Service.
The Friday, May 19, Comedy Night will be held at the American Legion in Waterbury to benefit the EMS service’s Station Creation project to build a new ambulance station in Waterbury Center. (details below)
“I thought we would come out of COVID softer and more understanding of each other because collectively we survived this. I think we forgot we need each other and we are all connected,” McCarty reflected.
As the intensity of the pandemic receded, McCarty said she thought of ways she could help the community come back together to share positive experiences, and laughter, as a way to move past the painful impacts of COVID-19. Given the role the ambulance service played during the pandemic, McCarty explained how she thought comedy could play a role in giving Waterbury Ambulance a boost.
“Waterbury Ambulance Service was pivotal during COVID and on the front line. They deserve a building that can accommodate their work,” she said. “Their work is critical to the community and always has been, but they really shined during COVID.”
She approached the agency with the idea for a comedy show as a fundraiser for the new station project, and soon she was recruiting other comedians for the lineup. Getting involved to organize the fundraiser seemed like an appropriate way to channel community support and gratitude.
Waterbury Ambulance Executive Director Maggie Burke said the idea was a hit. As McCarty organized the talent, ambulance Administrator Jackie Lombardo got to work on the event poster, ticket website and logistics. “We are simply the beneficiary of all of her hard work,” Burke said of McCarty’s efforts.
“They were so humble,” McCarty said. “I am honored they let me support them in a small but impactful way.”
Life throws a funny twist
McCarty, who lives in Moretown and works full time as a state cannabis control agent, shared some of her unique life story that led to her interest in comedy. She found humor to be an outlet during hard times as a young Vermonter. At the age of 3, her parents brought her home to Springfield, Vermont, from an orphanage in Seoul, South Korea, her place of birth.
As a child in Vermont with Korean heritage she looked different than her family and most of her peers at school. She experienced racial harassment and bullying as a young girl in school. “You normalize it to stay sane,” she said. It was then that she learned humor could help her cope with adversity, as well as deflect some of the mistreatment she was enduring.
McCarty’s life story added a unique chapter when at age 45 she was unexpectedly contacted by her birth family in Korea, including an identical twin sister. “I joke that I should have been taller, but there were two of me in the womb,” McCarty laughed.
In 2016 she had submitted her DNA to a program in Korea that helps reunite families. In 2020 she received a shocking phone call from Seoul and then life as she knew it took on many new layers; not only did she learn her biological family lives in a village near Seoul where she was born, but they had remained there in perpetual hope she might return.
The incredible reunion story was covered by WCAX Channel 3 in Vermont and picked up widely by national media including People magazine and the New York Post. McCarty traveled back to Seoul in 2021 to meet her family of origin in person.
Pointing out that she stands under five feet tall, she had a twinkle in her eyes and a smile on her face as she described some interesting encounters during her time working for the U.S. Census during the pandemic. In 2020, McCarty was employed part-time as a Census worker covering several counties in rural Vermont. She said she saw it as a way to do her part to help society while getting outdoors and seeing the seasons change in a time when most travel was being limited for health reasons.
“This was during a time when there were misperceptions about people of Asian descent,” she recalled, remembering some seemingly surprised reactions as if people wondered, “‘Why is this strange woman with a mask knocking on my door?’ But I turned it around by using humor to deflect people’s trepidation to speak with me – ‘You’re scared of me? That’s hilarious!’”
Today, Denise McCarty weaves her unique and international life story into her stage humor. Laying claim to be Vermont’s only Korean stand-up comic, McCarty has been performing stand-up for over a decade now in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and Massachusetts. She’s entertained audiences at the Flynn Theater, the Lebanon Opera House, Vermont Comedy Club, Monkey House and hosted a weekly comedy show in St. Albans. She’s recently conducted comedy workshops at the Waterbury Public Library.
On Friday, McCarty hosts the Comedy Night fundraiser for Waterbury Ambulance Service’s Station Creation project at the American Legion Post 59 on Stowe Street starting at 7 p.m. The lineup for the evening features Vermont comedians Ashley Watson, Mike Thomas, Meredith Gordon, EJ Murphy. See more on each of them on the event website.
Tickets are general admission, $30*, available online or at the door (cash only) if there are tickets remaining by show time. Ages 21 and older. Doors open at 6:15 p.m.
*NOTE: Earlier information on the ticketing website indicating a drink came with the ticket price was an error. The event will have a cash bar.