ABOUT SECOND HELPING
As seen at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Hiram College, featured in Kristin Duffy’s Second Chapter podcast and Chris Vepoli’s Worst Time For Anything. BBC Scotland, BBC-4, and in a beautiful piece by Matilda Davis for the Sun Times. Kelli performed an excerpt from Second Helping as part of an event with Glasgow’s Friends At The End and MSP Rona McKay. Because…well, that’s the kind of thing Kelli does.
PSSST want to watch a few excerpts? Don’t tell anyone but you can watch a few choice moments…
When Heather was dying, she fancied herself a comedian…
Cheryl and I played a game called NYC when
What kind of first confession does a future nun have?
Kelli Dunham grew up the youngest child in a large Midwestern US farm family that taught self-reliance as a religion.. When Kelli lost not one but two partners in a row to cancer, and then was the victim of an unfortunate exploding knee replacement incident, she was forced to start making different choices. And also there was a whole weird nun thing in the middle.
SECOND HELPING is part stand-up comedy, part sit-down tragedy with love and body fluids in the cracks in between.
SECOND HELPING is a show, and a workshop, and a movement.
I mean, we’re trying to make it a movement.
Second Helping is produced by brilliant Beth Lapides (the godmother of alt comedy-the LA Times)
There are more resources and practical guides to learning how to accept help included on Kelli’s blog right here.
ABOUT THE NEW YORK SHOWS
ABOUT NYC SHOWS
Program and thanks for NYC shows here
NYC DATES–just two nights left 4.22 and 5.18. (5.18 has a VIRTUAL option, for access and geographical access reasons) Well actually two nights and one afternoon. A weekend afternoon. We’re looking at you, Department of Education folks. The show is at Caveat and tickets are here.
But wait wait wait wait: for the NYC show we have special VIP tickets (for IRL and virtual show) with special seating (that’s for the IRL, we can’t do much about your at home seating), snack pack, homemade beef jerky, and KELLI WILL MAKE YOU A PERSONALIZED COLORING BOOK! More details here. Or a trophy. Just take a look, Kelli’s offering some cute stuff.
With special guest Elizabeth Dunham Toner, RN (yes that’s right it’s a two nurse show!)
Beth Toner is a nurse, writer, erstwhile theatre major, and nerd who still hasn’t figured out what she wants to be when she grows up. When she’s not working her day job or volunteering at the local free clinic, you can find her trying to decide which crochet project to start (and not finish) next or trekking doggedly up and down hills in a trail race while the younger, faster folks greet her with “good job!” and “on your left!” She’s currently writing Disaster Girl, her one-woman show, which is kind of about her obsession with the Titanic and tornadoes but also about her family.
ABOUT THE TOUR
Kelli just returned from Hiram College where she performed Second Helping as a part of visits with nursing and narrative medicine students.
We’ve got a Boston show scheduled for June 9th (details TBA), Philadelphia May 3rd (7 pm at William Way Center) and more in the works.
ABOUT BOOKING SECOND HELPING AT NURSING SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, AND CONFERENCES
SECOND HELPING is not just hilarious entertainment for colleges, communities of faith and healthcare providers, it’s also a great conversation starter about mutual aid, care, ableism and disability. If you’re booking Second Helping for your conference or organization, rvery performance of SECOND HELPING comes with an additional workshop about these issues. Because Kelli likes to be helpful. Of course.
HELP: I NEED SOMEBODY: THE ART OF ASKING FOR (AND ACCEPTING) HELP [WORKSHOP]
Part of being a compassionate and social justice-minded human in the world is seeing needs and wanting to immediately assist where we can. But being in the habit of meeting others ‘ needs doesn’t always mean we are able to accept help. In this workshop we’ll consider how our help-receiving skills compare with our help-giving skills, discuss why it’s just as important to receive as to give, learn hands on skills for becoming more comfortable with asking for help, and consider what mutual aid has to do with it all.
WHEN A CASSEROLE IS NOT ENOUGH: BUILDING TEAMS OF CARE [WORKSHOP]
Family caregiving is in an unprecedented crisis and caregiving by groups, rather than by individuals is at least part of the answer. In this weworkshop–which draws on Kelli’s more than ten years as a community health nurse, her experiences during the early years of the AIDS crisis as well as her lived experience as the primary caregiver of two partners who died of cancer– participants will discuss ways to develop and leverage community mutual aid, build caregiving teams and learn how to communicate about their teams with the mainstream healthcare system.
TEAM CAREGIVING: BUT WHO WILL BE ON MY TEAM [WORKSHOP]
In this workshop–created as a direct result of questions asked during other team caregiving workshops– we’ll talk about the nitty-gritty of building a sustainable positive caregiving team, with a special emphasis on troubleshooting for folks who are geographically, socially or otherwise isolated.
