Shelly Smith On Hold Show: Stand-Up, Songs, Puppets & Improv
Story and Photos By Hilary Nichols
Book the show, and they will come.
Shelly Smith had been building toward her one woman show for years, but it wasn’t until the night before it opened that she completed it. “I booked the date, then I knew I had to finish it,” Smith explained. “It was not done ‘til literally those last 24 hours, as I was fine tuning it.”
Her one woman show, On Hold returns to the Dreamland theater in Ypsilanti on January 9th and 10th. Following its debut last October when she workshopped her multi-faceted comedy production in front of a live audience, the hour-long show includes stand-up sketches, original songs, puppets, and prose. It is satirical and engaging, with seriously silly songs, smart banter, and important commentary.
A laugh riot, emphasis on the riot, Shelly Smith has something to say. She is a comedian, a singer, an improv player, a podcaster, and an M.C. “I am a bridge,” she claimed. Her resume is overflowing, but she can sum it up in one word: creative. “When I started living here in 2001, my main goal was to be creative.” She’d been working 80 hours a week when she realized the one thing she liked about interfacing with the public on the job was the stories. “I was a theater major. I like stories.”
Smith has been collecting and recounting stories ever since. “It is stories that make the show,” Smith said. She has been performing in Ann Arbor all the while. In 2001, she performed for the first time at her graduation showcase for her stand-up comedy class. She was hooked. “I ran a bunch of comedy showcases from that point on.” At the Firefly club she produced comedy for five years before they closed in 2008. She then produced a free weekly comedy night upstairs at OM of Medicine from 2010-2020 until the pandemic closed their shop.
As Improv theater locations were closing up in the area, Smith, along with a fellow fan of the form, David Widmeyer, held auditions to bring the artform back to town. “Over 60 people crowded into this tiny shop,” she said, and the Civic Improv Ensemble at Ann Arbor Civic Theater was born. “We had a feeling there was a real need,” Smith shared. Quickly they filled the void to house three active improv troupes.
Improvisational theatre, better known as improv, is the form of comedic theatre performed off the cuff, created by the performers spontaneously. In its purest form, the dialogue, action, story, and characters are created on the fly, from the actors’ own imaginations with a “Yes and…” rule to further ideas collaboratively.
Improv is alive and well again in Ann Arbor with new opportunities to enjoy or join-in at Hear.Say Brewery + Theater which opened in 2024. With her newly formed troupe ‘Micdrop’ Smith will bring her improv collaboration to their stages beginning on January 25th. As soon as her busy season simmers down.
Smith has been on a roll. She just completed three sold-out shows as the master of ceremonies for Ebird and Friends Holiday Show at the Ark in mid-December. Smith has been a part of the show for all 18 years and it is evident, with her comfort and commanding presence in that setting. Her effortless humor and charisma bring a familial, lighthearted grace to the evening. Smith initially joined the program as a backup singer. She has been a part of a number of musical acts over the years, most notably as the lead of the Cowgirl Cabaret that took the stage weekly at the Firefly Club. Shelly Smith is meant for the stage.
At the turn of the year, Smith will stage 50 First Jokes at the Ark, again, as she has for the last 10 years. The event was initiated at the Bell House in Brooklyn 20 years ago by John O’Donnel and has spread to 20 cities. “I’ve known John for over 20 years. He was at my very first show.” The format is fast and frenetic, adding to the heart stopping comedy. It is a great way to get to know all the comedians in the area, and to catch their freshly made material for the new year. Smith keeps comedians close. Many have joined her on air, for her Reads and Weeds podcast that will continue in the new year. Since 2017, she has logged nearly 120 episodes of her puffing with funny friends while reading something fun.
Such is the life of a creative. It seems like a lot to keep track of, but as she stood back, she saw a lot of patterns emerging. Her comedy life and her work life were echoing a few themes. It is from those patterns that her one woman show took shape. Smith shared her material at Fem Feedback. Started by Lisa Green, Vivian Burgette, and Julianna Loera-Wiggins, the all-woman showcase invites helpful inputs from a supportive audience of other female and trans comedians. “I realized that so many of my jokes were tech jokes about the most relatable frustrations of being left on hold,” Smith said. “As I was struggling with my ink jet to print out my act the struggle became the act.” She laughed. “Instead of trying to work around the problems I made the show about the problems!” Everyone can relate. “Tech advancements are supposed to be helpful, instead they are just sucking the life out of me.” Shelly Smith is a devout activist against the proposed data centers in the area. “They do not bring jobs. They take jobs, while messing with the environment of the planet and our lovely little farmland in Saline. And to what end do we need this industry at all? A resource sucking behemoth, with an all-day hum on 500 acres of virgin land,” she shared the sentiment on her Instagram page. “They loaded things into our life that use data we never needed in the first place. And then we have to rent it back from them.”
She wrote a song about it. The music, lyrics, and visions came to her in meditation. Smith brought a draft to her friend Jennifer Graham Phelps, professor of theater at EMU, with experience shaping acts for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. “She was the right person to talk to,” Smith affirmed. “She helped to nudge the weird along.”
“I got to know the characters as I found their costumes,” Smith shared. Claire Broderick, owner of This, That, and Odder Things in Ypsilanti opened her costume closet. As the music cue begins and the spotlight illuminates Shelly Smith on the intimate stage, her many internal characters find their voice, in song and sentiment, in wigs and sequins, with sincerity, and silliness. And it is like nothing you have seen before, but it is exactly what we are all thinking. “It occurred to me, my one-woman show actually takes a village of up to 35 talents combined. Too many to mention,” Smith laughed. “And it all takes place while I am ‘On Hold.
