40 | MAY 27 • 2021 

S

urrounded by people who complain 
about their family annoyances, Cory 
Kahaney jokes about hers in come-
dy clubs, on TV and for special events.
Funny family fiascos have built Kahaney’s 
career through the pandemic, and she will 
livestream her approach to raise funds for 
community service projects sponsored by 
the National Council of Jewish 
Women, Michigan.
“Raising Laughter,
” zooming 
into homes at 7 p.m. Sunday, 
June 6, also will provide fun 
material by local humorist 
Alan (Big Al) Muskovitz, who 
alternates between topical sub-
jects and what can be self-dep-
recating. Muskovitz quipped that he avoids 
the equal opportunity political humor he 
once shared with audiences because “I just 
want people to like me.
”
“I don’t do family relationship stuff,
” said 
the former longtime radio personality, who 
often emcees events, takes on voice-over 
assignments and writes for the Detroit 
Jewish News. “I wish I could, but then I’
d 
have to move out of my house.
”
Kahaney, based in New York, stays 
close to family at home and nearby as she 
adapts those relationships into her material. 
Muskovitz draws more on his own idiosyn-
crasies and the news of the day, convinced 
it is much funnier than anything he could 
make up.
“I’ll make everybody feel a little bit of 
normalcy,
” said Kahaney, whose TV perfor-
mances have reached from Comedy Central 
Presents to Stephen Colbert’s talk show. “My 

standup is very familiar to everyone. It’s 
about being a wife, a mother, an ex-wife, a 
daughter-in-law — all that is part of being a 
Jewish woman.
“I love sharing anything that makes 
people feel less alone, and I make a special 
effort to bring in Jewish content when I’m 
performing for a Jewish group. It’s a luxury 
when it’s all mishpuchah,
” she continued.
“I came to comedy because it was intro-
duced to me through Jewish channels, and 
I’ve done an ‘Erev Christmas’ show for a 
large audience. I tell my family if they don’t 
want it in the act, don’t do it.
” 
Kahaney’s interest in being a comedy per-
former started when traveling with parents 
to Jewish resorts in the Catskills, where she 
could glimpse star humorists. Lucille Ball 
and Joan Rivers, so often on TV through 
reruns, became additional inspiration.
“I was always being thrown out of class 
for making jokes,
” she recalled. “The teach-
ers who liked jokes loved me. The teachers 
who wanted a serious classroom couldn’t 
stand me.
”
Kahaney studied acting at New York 
University and wanted comedic roles before 
thinking of standup, which she tried when 
she was 21 and in her first marriage. To 
her dismay, stage fright took hold, and she 
established a career as a catering manager in 
a New York hotel.
Eight years later, she gave standup a sec-
ond chance.

STANDUP COMIC AS SINGLE MOM
“I was a divorced single mom so I pretty 
much chose doing standup comedy at the 

worst time anyone could possibly do it,
” she 
said. “I would not recommend it to any-
body, but it probably kept me sane. It was 
probably the right move because the doors 
started opening.
“When I was a catering manager, the 
head bartender worked at Catch a Rising 
Star, and I was dating a comedian casu-
ally,
” she recalled about incentives for the 
career turnaround. “
Also, one of the wait-
ers worked at Dangerfield’s, and another 
worked at Carolines on Broadway.
“I was surrounded by it, and I really got 
tired of people introducing me as ‘their boss 
but she’s really a comedian.
’ I tried it as a 
hobby but found myself where I was sup-
posed to be.
”

Kahaney, the wife of attorney Ken Misrok 
and mother of two, has had to make style 
changes for digital appearances although 
in-person club engagements are opening.
“Digital is not harder, but there’s a big 
adjustment,
” said Kahaney, who has enter-
tained pre-pandemic live audiences in 
Ann Arbor. “I think it’s like the difference 
between playing an acoustic guitar and an 
electric guitar. 
“Obviously, you’re far from people, but 
because you’re so close through the camera, 
you can’t be as dramatic and larger than life 
the way you would be onstage. 
“Because you’re in somebody’s living 
room, you have to do more conversational 
comedy. There’s nothing that gives me more 
pleasure than hearing an audience laugh, 
and I go to great lengths to do that.
” 

ARTS&LIFE
COMEDY

Cory Kahaney to 
headline NCJW 
fundraiser.

Cory Kahaney to 

Funny 
People

SUZANNE CHESSLER
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Cory 
Kahaney

“MY STANDUP IS ABOUT 
BEING A WIFE, 
A MOTHER, AN 
EX-WIFE, A 
DAUGHTER-IN-LAW.”

— CORY KAHANEY

Alan 
Muskovitz

Details

“Raising Laughter” will livestream 
at 7 p.m. Sunday, June 6. $36 
household; $75 patron. Tickets: 
ncjwmi.org/product/raisinglaughter 
or call (248) 355-3300.

