Arts & Entertainment

'Carlin Home Companion' Revisits a Comedy Icon at Throckmorton

George Carlin's daughter comes to Mill Valley Sunday night for the U.S. premiere of her one-woman show of storytelling, videos and photos about the 'Seven Dirty Words'-famed comic and her life as a showbiz daughter.

Comedian Lewis Black, famed for his “Back in Black” segments on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, is currently hosting his 2nd annual Comedy Cruise, gathering select standup comics and a few hundred diehard fans for six days of laughter aboard the Royal Caribbean.

He debuted the event last year, and in doing so, he needed daytime entertainers who ventured outside of traditional standup. Black turned to his friend Kelly Carlin, the daughter of one of his idols, the late George Carlin, to share some stories and clips about being the daughter of the comedy legend whose thought-provoking, hilarious work included the landmark “Seven Dirty Words” routine.

“I just made it up that day,” Kelly Carlin says of her performance. “But I knew I was in good hands with the fans. They were rabid Lewis Black fans, so I knew they also had to be George Carlin fans. I knew I didn’t have a lot of convincing to do when I got out on stage.”

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“But I was surprised about how gushing people were,” she adds. “All of the comedians said, ‘You have to take this show on the road.’ It got such an incredible reception.”

That response spawned A Carlin Home Companion, Carlin’s one-woman show laden with storytelling, videos and photos of her uniquely showbiz life as the daughter of a famous comedian.

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The show gets its U.S. premiere at Sunday night at 8 p.m. Carlin, 48, has performed at the Throckmorton before as a spoken word artist, is friends with and attended the several years ago. Sunday night’s show is being filmed for a “sizzle reel,” or trailer, to shop to promoters, venues and agents in advance of a U.S. tour in 2012.

“I love the Throckmorton,” Carlin said. “And we love the look and feel of the Throckmorton as a perfect place to do my show. And I’m a huge fan of Mill Valley.”

Carlin debuted the show in July at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal in July, drawing rave reviews.

“Watching Kelly speak at length about her experiences while taking in classic comedy clips of the elder Carlin, one couldn’t help but smile knowingly at the chip carrying on in the wake of the block’s passing,” Emma Kat Richardson wrote on Laughspin.com.

Carlin has since refined the show into 90 minutes, drawing on family photos, home movies, clips of George Carlin performances and her own storytelling to paint an intimate picture of her dad as both a performer and a father.

“It was a real journey of finding my way through some of my own personal stuff and getting to the other side of it and then being able to tell the story,” Carlin says.

Carlin has had a love-hate relationship with show business over the years. She’s done TV production work and co-wrote the script for Rose McGowan b-movie thriller Devil in the Flesh, as well as an episode of Fox’s The George Carlin Show.

But in 2001, after two decades in show business, Carlin got her masters in Jungian Depth Psychology and has been a life coach in recent years. After the Comedy Cruise and the response in Montreal, however, she decided to dedicate at least the next year to writing and performing.

“I really don’t know how one builds a career with both performing and coaching,” she says. “I may find out. Like my dad, I am in general a thinker and communicator. We’ll see where this takes me.”

Carlin is quick to note, however, that she’s not a standup comic per se.

“I love doing spoken word storytelling,” she says. “It’s my art form. It’s not my father’s art form - it’s different than what he does. And I still have lots to learn as a performer.”

The 411: Kelly Carlin’s A Carlin Home Companion makes its U.S. premiere at 142 Throckmorton Theatre on Sunday, Nov. 13, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $18 in advance and $21 day of show. Buy tickets by calling the box office at 415.383.9600 or at the Throckmorton’s website.  


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