Karen Williams offers
her hilarious take on subjects from lesbian sex
workshops to Buns of Steel. Karen Williams is the
founder of the International Institute of Humor and
Healing Arts (HaHA) which offers a series of
workshops designed to build self-confidence and
self-esteem. Sessions offered include: Humor and
Healing; Dream Work and Goal Setting; Dealing With
Difference; Exploring Cultural Heritage; Humor and
Writing; Let's Laugh About Sex; and Humor and Stress
Management in the Workplace.
 Karen
Williams is known as that thin Black lesbian
stand-up comic with a lot to say and the gift for
saying it in a screamingly funny way. Heads turn at
her rapid-paced raps on single motherhood, dating,
relationships, celibacy, AIDS, economic inequity,
racism, codependency, and whatever topic strikes her
fancy, or object from the audience catches her
attention. Audiences marvel at her strong and
thoughtful presence, her acute awareness, but it is
her attitude — anger and angst masked behind
diffidence — which brings her observations home.
Once a model and a
serious dancer of African-Haitian and Modern styles,
currently a committed Buddhist, Williams considers
her non-humorous writing of great sustaining
importance. She has acted in a department store TV
commercial and in a play on lesbian life.
Born in the Bronx
(”What two cities are so important that they are
always called by the prefix,’the?’ THE Bronx and THE
Vatican”), Williams grew up amidst creative and
lively people. Through her eventual relocation to
the West Coast, she garnered a panoply of California
jokes (”What is tofu anyway? I throw away my old
sponges”). Williams debuted in and promoted herself
through the night clubs in the San Francisco Bay
Area. Interspersed with her international successes
as a comic, she is raising two boys, establishing a
network for touring women performers, learning
French, and lending her organizational skills and
political commitment to AWMAC, the Association of
Women’s Music and Culture, as their President. Her
recordings include 1996’s Outrageous and 1997’s Way
Out.
- Laura Post, All
Music Guide
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