Letter from Lisa

October 28, 2024

Dearest Kung Pao-ites,

I’m so glad you found us, whether you’ve been attending Kung Pao Kosher Comedy™ for one year or 31 or just stumbled upon our web site.

(Two years ago, we celebrated our 30th Anniversary, and it’s been quite a ride!

I honestly thought I’d do the show once, in 1993, but then the event made Critic’s Choice in all the papers, sold out with a line around the block, 200 people were turned away, the show grew exponentially each year and kept selling out, AND Henny Youngman graced our stage, as did Shelley Berman, and David Brenner. (All 3 have since passed on.)

And here we are celebrating our 32nd year!

In 2020 and 2021, we have found ourselves producing our show during a pandemic! A what? And in Cyberspace! As of 2022, the show is now hybrid: both in-person AND livestreamed!

New Asia, the Chinese restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown where we’d held the show since 1997 (the 5th year, the Henny Youngman year) has closed due to the pandemic. Actually, they transformed into an Asian supermarket in 2020 in order to survive, and the building is slated to be torn down and turned into low income housing. New Asia is supposed to return to that building… some day. AND last year in 2023, we found our new home in Chinatown, at the Imperial Palace Restaurant.

We’ve given thousands of people in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond a TRADITION! (Some have attended for 25+ years; one couple comes up from LA every year.) We’ve formed a family. And we’ve lost some of our Kung Pao family members (Howard Siegel, Sanfy Weinberg, Barney Sherman, Marty Sussman…) We also lost my old friend, Marty White, the designer of our logo. We became friends when I was 9, and he was in his 20’s.

The New York Times did a ¾ page story on Kung Pao in 1994 (the second year)!

We founded a “Comedy Clinic” at the local Jewish nursing home. The bi-weekly class ran for a dozen years. It’s one of our proudest accomplishments.

We have raised 10’s of 1000s of dollars for various charities.

An entire chapter of the book A Kosher Christmas: 'Tis the Season to be Jewish focuses on Kung Pao.

Seven years ago I appeared in the Canadian documentary Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas. The film, which is about the Jews who wrote the Christmas songs, was on TV in Canada and Europe and did the film fest circuit.

I spent the large part of the past 4-1/2 years in Florida living with my 90-something year old Mom in her retirement community, and she has graced the virtual stage of Kung Pao and the monthly Lockdown Comedy. Sadly, my mom passed away in August. The shows this year (and forever) are dedicated to her.

If it wasn’t for a phone conversation with my summer camp friend, Tobi, in 1993 about the irony of having just told Jewish jokes at a Chinese restaurant in South Hadley, MA the night before, Kung Pao would never have been born, and I might have a desk job (though I doubt it).

Love,

Lisa