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MYTURN

Grandparenting
boomer
style

Beverly Munter
mines 81 years
of living for her
comedy shtick

Laughing
matters B
BY JIMIN KIM

Special to Newsday

Beverly Munter thrilled the crowd with her raunchy humor at Governors Comedy Club last week, the culmination of an eight-week workshop.

NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2016

NEWSDAY / THOMAS A. FERRARA

newsday.com

ackstage at Governors Comedy Club

in Levittown, Beverly
Munter sat waiting in
a room as the chatter
of more than 100
audience members permeated
the walls. After taking stand-up
comedy classes for eight weeks,
Munter, 81, was about to
perform her first show before
a paying crowd.
Im very excited, said
Munter, who had a list of her
jokes to help remember them
before going on stage last Sunday evening. I love performing
in front of an audience.
The Plainview grandmother
of three was one of seven fledgling comedians who recently
participated in Governors
Comedy College, an eight-week
workshop culminating in two
performances on the clubs
stage, where professionals are
booked every week. John
Trueson, a stand-up comedy
veteran with 30 years experience, taught the students how
to write and deliver jokes. Their
first show Sunday also featured
several veteran comics.
Of all the older students Trueson has taught, he said, Munter
just may be the best and the
raunchiest. She looks like a
sweet old lady, but shes the sort
of bawdy old grandma that everybody wanted to have, said Trueson, who lives in Levittown. She
will talk about sexual topics and
things of that nature. If people
are expecting a sweet old lady
when she walks out, theyre in
for a rude awakening.
Demonstrating his confidence in Munter, he gave her
the tall order of closing the
show. The audiences sat at
tables lined in rows, some
very close to the stage, which
was more like a platform
about the size of two king
mattresses. The setup created
an intimate feeling with the
comics who seemed within

See MUNTER on E20

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Comedy crowd pleaser

MUNTER from E19

reach. For each of the performers, the reception was

hearty and warm; family
members and friends of the
first-timers, especially, turned
out to support.
When Munter stepped on
stage, the greeting was wildly
enthusiastic. She began her
prepared material, rattling off
one joke after another, gesturing to accentuate her punch
lines. No joke was too edgy

for Munter, and her upbeat

attitude was infectious. She
told a story about meeting a
90-year-old man through
online dating. He was
lovely, Munter said. I had
such a wonderful dinner with
this guy, but he didnt call
me. And after two weeks, I
was so upset. But, then I read
in the newspaper . . . he died
. . . and I felt so much better. The audience howled.
Munters comedic chops
came as no surprise to her

daughter, Holly Koenig, 57, a

Westbury resident who attended Comedy College with
her mom and also performed
Sunday night. Shes the type
of person that sits next to you
on a train or an airplane and
you want to talk to her for an
hour. Koenig said.

COMEDY QUEEN

Munter said she owes a lot

of her personality to growing
up in Hollis, where she lived
with her parents and aunts

families in the same Queens

home. Leisure time was often
spent watching comedy films
starring Dean Martin and
Jerry Lewis. I went to every
one of their movies when I
was young, she said. Lucille
Ball was another favorite. As
the youngest child in her
home, Munter said, entertaining came naturally to her.
Anything that came out of
my mouth, everyone would
look to me to see what I was
saying because I was the

youngest, she said. So, I

think thats where the comedy came in. I would want to
make them laugh and I
would want to perform in
front of them.
Inspiration was provided
by her mother and father, she
said. When her mother was
young, she was a professional
tango dancer in Harlems
Apollo Theater. Munters
father, a World War I veteran,
was a traveling salesman in
Manhattan, hawking various

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When she was 18, she left

Queens to live in Dayton,
Ohio, and married Paul Leon
Munter, who was a first lieutenant working as an aeronautical engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In the
mid-1950s, they moved to
Long Island where they
raised Holly and a son, Rick
Munter, who is a dentist in
Jericho. She lost her husband,
who had endured many years
of physical problems, in 2004.
The couple was married for
51 years, and she still calls
him her soul mate. After he
died, she briefly attended a
bereavement group. I didnt
care for that at all, Munter
said. That wasnt my nature.
I wanted to go forward and
start a new life.

LESSONS IN STAND-UP
anna make em laugh? Here are
places on Long Island that teach
the art of stand-up comedy.

BROKERAGE COMEDY CLUB,

STAND UP UNIVERSITY
2797 Merrick Rd., Bellmore
In this seven-week course, students
learn how to create a five- to eight-minute
act. The class is taught by three professional comics, including Rich Walker,
a 21-year comedy veteran. In the sixth
week, students perform a live show. Week
seven, students receive a review of their
performances. Class limit of 10 students.
The next classes begin in March.

COST $295; or $500 if two students

enroll together. For more information,
email standupu@aol.com or call Walker
at 516- 810-5447.
GOVERNORS COMEDY COLLEGE
90 Division Ave., Levittown
An eight-week stand-up class taught by
30-year comedy veteran John Trueson.
Students learn how to write material,
deliver jokes and gain insight into the
business. At the end of classes, students
perform two live shows.
COST $275. For more information,
email comedyclass@aol.com or call
516-731-3358.
COMEDIC
COLLEAGUES
Munter, center,
waits backstage
with other
comedians
at Governors.
The Plainview
grandmother of
three, had the
honor of closing
the live show.
The retiree is
no stranger to
public speaking.

NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2016

items like towels and Christmas ornaments. Her father

wrote jokes on 3-by-5-inch
cards, using his prepared
material to make his customers laugh, she recalled,
and she was his practice
audience. I was very lucky,
Munter said. I had a wonderful relationship with my
parents.
Munter said her comedy is
more like storytelling and
that she draws from life experiences, both happy and sad.

FUNNY FAMILY Munter took comedy lessons with her daughter, Holly Koenig, right, at Governors
Comedy Club in Levittown, where both performed.

newsday.com

CROWD CONTROL
The audience
eats up Munters
performance,
full of raw humor
that breaks the
stereotype of sweet,
old lady, her
instructor says.

In 2012 and 2013, she volunteered as a motivational

speaker for senior citizens in
local community centers and
public libraries. Her talks were
meant to inspire: drawing on
her own experience of finding
love again as an older person
after losing a spouse.
Two years after she began
online dating, she said, she
had met 1,200 men and
dated 44 of them. The last
one was a keeper. H. Barry
Waldman, whom she affectionately calls No. 44, has
been her companion now for
nine years. Waldman, 80, a
dentist who is a distinguished
teaching professor in the
Department of General Dentistry at Stony Brook University, said he loves Munters
colorful personality.
Of the women I had been
with, she seemed to be on a
different plane, said Waldman, who lives with Munter.
She has the capacity to
make friends with the world
inside of minutes. The two
often travel the world together. Munter retired in 2010
after working for more than
35 years as a top administrator for a medical/dental insurance company in Hicksville.
There, she gave corporate
speeches and used her humor
to roast workers who were
retiring or had hit a career
milestone. Her public speaking for the company provided
her with endless stage time,
and she always felt comfortable in front of a crowd.
Performing as a stand-up
comic meant she could scratch
that goal off her bucket list.
But, she said after the show, it
may not have been a one-time
deal. I love people and I love
making them laugh.

NEWSDAY / THOMAS A. FERRARA

NEWSDAY / THOMAS A. FERRARA

LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE