The soul of Witter: New York City comic settles in Wilmington, and she's far from retiring

Naturally funny people are often told they should try stand-up comedy. Nancy Witter's best friend took it a step further.

When Witter, 65, was 40 years old, her friend, Carol Manire, bought Witter a comedy class. "I killed that first night" in front of the other students, Witter said. A career in stand-up comedy, one she'd put on hold for more than a decade while she raised children, was reborn.

"She knew as a single mother I couldn’t afford it," Witter said. "She believed in my talent and that one thing changed everything."

Looking back, Witter said recently over beers at comedy and music venue The Vibe in downtown Wilmington's Cotton Exchange, even if she was just cracking up her colleagues in the lunchroom at the New York City bank where she worked, "I always was doing material whether I knew it or not ... There was a cadence to it. Even though I wasn't on stage, every story had a beginning, a middle and an end."

"I was born to be on stage," she added, a statement that's hard to argue with once you've seen her act. At once polished, relatable, occasionally edgy and effortlessly funny, Witter riffs on everything from family dysfunction to cultural trends that can seem alien to many people in her generation, like politically correct speech monitoring.

“The University of Washington had a list of 85 offensive words. One of them is the word 'crazy' as it minimizes the struggles of mental illness. Yeah, I get that," Witter said. "But I have a problem being able to talk about my family without using the word 'crazy,'"

Witter has had plenty of success over the past 25 years. She competed on Nickelodeon show "Funniest Mom in America" in 2005 and appeared in its associated, nationwide Mom's Night Out comedy tour. After using her comedy talents to win the Ms. Senior New York pageant title, the first pageant she'd ever entered, Witter scored a spot on cooking star Rachael Ray's show and endeared herself to the host with a bit on how to get up off the ground if you've fallen. She even scored a part as a Nerf-gun-toting grandma in a national commercial for the toy brand.

Witter is now living in active semi-retirement in the Wilmington area. She and her husband, Jack, who she often roasts in her act, as well as an adult son (a doctor of physical therapy) and a daughter (a comic like her mom), decamped from New York to the Wilmington area during the pandemic. (Witter technically lives in Leland, and she's got some material about the drama from her Brunswick Forest neighborhood that gets posted on the social media site Nextdoor.)

Her sister was already living here, Witter said, and when she visited during the early days of the pandemic, "I said, 'That's it, I'm moving here.' And (her sister) said, 'You've always said that.' And I said, 'No, I'm going home and putting my house on the market.' And I did."

It was a big change of pace after living in New York her whole life, but "Wilmington now feels like home to me," Witter said. "I find downtown manageable, quaint and exciting. I can see potential. I could see myself as being some kind of a fish in this pond."

NYC to ILM

In her short time here, Witter has endeared herself to Wilmington's comedy community, offering encouragement and constructive criticism to comics, some of whom are 40 or more years her junior.

In addition to regular, paid performances around the region, like a recent stand-up gig at a Charlotte retirement community − she also does comedy-laced motivational speeches for various groups − Witter pops up occasionally at Wilmington venues, both as a performer and an audience member.

Earlier this fall, during Wilmington comic Lew Morgante's semi-weekly Gruff Goat Comedy Night at Waterline Brewing, Witter had the crowd rolling, with some audience members literally in tears. Many of the jokes were at the expense of her husband, Jack, 75, who was sitting in the audience.

“After getting remarried at 50 I was so happy, I would pray, ‘God, please let me die first, I’d miss him so much if he died first," Witter said. "Now I’m married 15 years and I’m OK if he goes first. I mean, I still love him. I’m just not going to miss him.

"I know what he is going to say before he does. I can lip sync to him talking. I’ll never ask myself, 'What would Jack say?' I already know."

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The roasting got so intense at one point that Witter's daughter, Annie, went up to her stepdad and gave him a pat on the back as if to say, "You OK, buddy?"

But Witter said, "He loves it. He's in on the joke. (The audience) likes to look at Jack looking at me. They get a kick out of it."

During her Waterline set, Witter also contrasted her New York City upbringing with her new, Wilmington life. Witter's "Southern women" friends, she said, will tell her things like, "You have to be careful down here. People will say things when you're not around, like, 'Oh, bless her heart,' and stab you in the back."

Witter paused, then said, "I tell 'em, 'That's OK. Where I'm from they stab you in the front. With a real knife.'"

And the crowd roared.

Pushing the envelope

To some extent, funny is in Witter's genes.

"My father was a great joke teller," Witter said, and he did stand up in New York City's Greenwich Village.

Her daughter Annie is also a presence on Wilmington's comedy scene, running the Wednesday night open mic at The Vibe and performing regularly around town.

"I was going to end up in (stand-up) whether I wanted to be or not," Annie said, adding that her mom "steals half my material anyway."

"I do," Witter admitted.

"So I may as well as perform it," Annie said.

Annie has jokes about her mom and her stepdad, and how dropping them off and picking them up from various bars in the area reminds of her how her mom used to ferry her around to school and activities when she was a kid.

And Annie's mom has jokes about her, or more specifically about her generation. The whole Boomers vs. Millennials thing "actually works out pretty well, especially if we're on the same bill," Annie said.

Witter has a way of approaching potentially sensitive topics in a way that's disarming. When she talks about her daughter's friend who identifies as polyamorous, Witter can say, "In my day, we just called that 'a slut,'" in a way that somehow comes off as loving rather than mean-spirited.

"I think when you can make fun of it in a way that's not diminishing it, I'm making fun of myself," Witter said. "I have to get them on my side."

"I have 10 minutes to live. I don't care if you're gay or transgender," she added. "I couldn't be any more liberal. But, if you take one step over, they're like, 'That's just a like a cisgender binary person to say that.' I don't know what that sentence means."

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She likes to push the envelope, and admits that she sometimes crosses the line. When Witter first started doing stand-up, she had a joke about former President Bill Clinton getting sued for sexual harassment by Paula Jones. Riffing on Jones' then-famous nose job, Witter said the joke went something like, "'Suing him? She should send him a thank you note!' Now, how would that play in 2022?"

These days, she might comment on current events, but she mostly steers clear of politics.

In her humor it's easy to see Witter's biggest comedy influence, which is the late Joan Rivers. (She and Annie even went out downtown this past Halloween dressed as Rivers and her daughter, Melissa.)

"I saw Joan Rivers and I remember thinking, 'That's exactly how I feel,'" Witter said, recalling a joke Rivers once told on "The Tonight Show." It was about how Rivers' parents used to say, "'Why can't you be more like your cousin Rachel?' Rachel was stillborn."

"Joan Rivers, she was very mean," Witter said. "Very edgy and very, very funny."

Witter first tried comedy in New York when she was about 30, she said, but had to give it up to raise her family. As a single mother raising multiple children, "It was so hard: financially, emotionally," Witter said. "My coping mechanism was being able to make it funny."

She honed her chops at a New York City piano bar and venue called Don't Tell Mama, where she became a regular. There she learned that, at least for her, comedy is much like a song in that "every word is important. Comedy is rhythmical. People say it's timing? It's rhythm. Mel Brooks has music in everything he does. That's why 'The Simpsons' has songs."

If you could hear a joke without words, she said, it would sound like a little ditty.

"People say, They don't want to hear the same thing over and over again,'" she added. "Well, they like the hits. I could listen to Billy Crystal over and over and laugh every time."

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One of Witter's goals in Wilmington is to start a workshop with up-and-coming comics to help them hone their material. Wilmington has a lot of talent, Witter said.

"I love teaching and I love new talent. I want to get my hands on them," she said. "I love being the cheerleader," adding that when she sees a 20-minute set that should probably be five, "I go out of my mind."

Comics now ask her for feedback, she said, and she'd like to formalize that instruction in a "safe space" like a workshop.

"I'm no longer up and coming. I'm nobody's competition. I want to teach," Witter said. "I want to be the grand dame of Wilmington comedy."

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: New York City stand-up brings laughs to Wilmington's comedy scene