BILL CARROLL
Special to the Jewish News

S

Funny man
Steve Solomon

upporting Kadima is important
in the Detroit Jewish communi-
ty. For almost 20 years, the
Southfield agency has been helping
people who struggle with mental illness,
providing counseling, employment,
housing and socialization.
So when Kadima planned its annual
benefit program this year, it came up
with an "important" comedy show; not
just a comic doing 20 minutes of
standup, but a comedian proficient in
50-60 dialects playing 14 characters in a
two-hour show with scenery, music and
a team of producers and directors!
The comedian is Steve Solomon,
often referred to as the best American
comic you never heard of." Kadima
supporters will hear — and see — plen-
ty of him Tuesday, Sept. 20, when he
brings his unusual show to Detroit's
Max M. Fisher Music Center. The
show's name alone is worth about three
dialects: "My Mother's Italian, My
Father's Jewish, and I'm in Therapy."
Solomon, who is single, "50ish," and
calls himself "the youngest person living

in Boynton Beach, Fla.," has taken the
art of impersonation and honed it into
a science, weaving different dialects and
crazy characters into his stories and
witty observations.
He's a native of the multi-ethnic
Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of
Brooklyn, N.Y., a perfect training
ground for a dialectician.
"I started at age 10 impersonating my
father on the phone," said Solomon. "I
would answer with a husky voice,
`Hellauh,' and the person would say,
`Oh, hi, Herman, let me talk to
Gladys'.
"Then I got a job as a delivery boy
for a Chinese restaurant. But when I
rang the doorbell and told people in
English who I was, they seemed reluc-
tant to let me in. So I started answering
them with a bunch of Chinese gibber-
ish, and they said, 'Oh, fine, come on
up.
Solomon always was the class clown,
then dabbled in emceeing local enter-
tainment events, but he turned some-
what serious and obtained several edu-
cation degrees in New York colleges,

KADIMA SHTICK on page 41

• .4. %

9/ 8
2005

37