The Daily Times

It’s being billed as a “Hen Party,” but comedian Karen Mills wants the fellas to know — roosters are welcome on Saturday night, providing certain conditions are met.

“They have to be fun — they can’t be swelled up, sitting in the audience,” Mills told The Daily Times this week. “It’s a party — it’s fun. It’s music, it’s stand-up, it’s a little giveaway or two. In many cases, people come out and say, ‘I didn’t think my husband would like this, but he would have loved it.’ It’s an ideal girls’ night out, but we certainly don’t want to exclude any fun men from coming.”

The collaboration between Morgan and Mills is an outgrowth of their time spent together as part of the Southern Fried Chicks comedy troupe, of which the two were original members. They’ve since stepped down from touring full-time with the Chicks, but their particular styles mesh so well they’ve continued to appear together from time to time.

“We just clicked from the very beginning,” Mills said. “If you hear Leanne tell it, she was a sissy and I had to do the driving. We just have a great time together. It helps when you can make each other laugh, and that’s not always the case with comedians. We just have a natural connection. It’s not about running our shows to each other; it’s about having a good time.”

Mills has been all about having a good time since she was a kid. She played basketball throughout her childhood, but she was enthusiastic about drama classes and was always goofing off with friends in the hallways. At the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, the 5-foot-2-inch standout became an All-American basketball player, leading the nation in assists in 1981 and becoming the first female inducted into UTC’s basketball hall of fame.

“We used to have a ‘Meet the Mocs’ thing every year to introduce the players, and I always found a funny way to introduce everybody, sort of a take-off of ‘Saturday Night Live,’” Mills said. “I can remember one time this gentleman came up to me — he was probably in his 80s — and he said, ‘This is what you need to be doing.’ But I never saw it as a reasonable career path.”

After college, she moved to Atlanta where she became a mortgage broker — but she was unhappy. Finally, she started signing up for open-mic competitions at an Atlanta comedy club, and it was “like coming home,” she said.

“Even as a point guard, I’d rather make a great pass than score a point, because that really got the crowd going wild,” she added.

These days, she goes through life with eyes always open for potential show fodder. Her style is an observational one, and she takes situations, people and events from her day-to-day routine and adapts it for the stage. She’s also a “clean” comic, meaning she doesn’t rely on sexual or raunchy humor to get a laugh.

It’s a far cry from many younger female comedians popular on television these days, but as far as Mills is concerned, her style offers her more opportunities.

“You can’t do that kind of humor and do corporate and convention work, which pays a heck of a lot more,” she said with a chuckle. “With that kind of humor, you’ve almost got to get a TV deal to make any money. I’m not putting it down, but I’ve been able to carve out a nice living doing what I do for 17 years now. And when people come to me for advice on how to get corporate and convention work, I tell them the bottom line is you’ve got to be clean. For corporate work, they’d rather you be clean than funny.”

And as far as funny goes, she said, potential female comics can learn a thing or two from the woman with whom she shares Saturday night’s show.

“I’m a comic — I can write a joke, and I can deliver the joke, but Leanne can tell you about going to the mailbox and have you rolling in the floor,” she said. “It’s just her way. She’s a comedian as opposed to being a comic. This is a chance to see her up close and personal in an intimate little theater, and that may not happen again for a long time.”

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