Written by Tanya Terry
#IMOMSOHARD is a two-person stand-up act centered on the real, messy and funny sides of motherhood, coming to Flint soon! According to the show’s stars-comedians and best friends Kristen Hensley and Jen Smedley-they wanted a rowdy, relatable night for women where they could laugh at the hard stuff, feel seen and leave uplifted.
Both ladies are from Nebraska, but made their way out to Los Angeles to pursue comedy. After meeting for the first time at a comedy show in L.A. where they ended up talking and hanging out in the parking lot, they immediately became friends.
“We just had this fast friendship where we kind of spoke each other’s language right away and could sort of like skip to the heart of the matter,” shared Smedley.
Smedley said once they married and had families, they thought their close friendship would change.
“But then we just sort of shifted and made the focus of our comedy,” Smedley added.
The #IMSH viral web series was soon birthed, which both women write and produce. Within five years, their videos received nearly 300 million views worldwide.
Additionally, the series has been acquired by Warner Brothers TV for development.
Smedley and Hensley wanted their truth-telling to counter social media “perfection,” which they see as key to the show’s resonance.
Smedley said: “So once we met our husbands and had kids, and we were staying up with kids.…You don’t really have an outlet. You don’t have that much connection. So we thought, let’s put something online that’s going to give women a way to like, laugh and not feel so alone and that they’re not doing a terrible job because you always feel like you’re doing awful when you’re a mom.”
#IMOMSOHARD has completed sold-out national tours. The show makes only one stop in Michigan this time around-at 8 p.m., on April 17, at Flint’s Capitol Theatre!
“Every show Jen and I have written has about an hour’s worth of material that makes every generation feel connected,” stated Hensley. “Then, one of our famous bits that we’ve been doing for over a decade is that we go through the women’s bags. So, we go into the audience and we grab women’s purses, and we bring them on stage, and we go through them. So, every show is different! If you’ve been to an #IMOMSOHARD show before, this is all new – from soup to nuts. So, you can expect all new jokes that are written, but one of the tried-and-true things that we do is go through those bags. And it’s funny every single time.”
But the fun doesn’t end with shows.
“Jen and I are very excited,” shared Hensley. “Several years ago, we wrote our first book, which was just the #IMOMSOHARD, a book co-written by Jen and me…We wrote it together. We wrote it from our personal POV (point of view) and then together merged as what we call the we voice. And talk from the perspective of #IMOMSOHARD. And then we wrote a children’s book, and now we are very excited to say that in the fall, we are anticipating the launch of our third book.”
That book is a middle school mom’s survival guide!
The ladies are still having the time of their life performing comedy!
“They’ve done these studies where women like get to not complain, just talk about what’s really going on in their life,” said Smedley. “…It lowers their cortisol levels. Like it just, it gets a laugh and it gets healthy flowing and it’s like going to these shows is a little bit of like manna for the soul. It’s like you’re laughing like ugly face laughing, you’re crying. Hopefully we get you laughing so hard you pee or something like that. That’s our absolute favorite part! We’re just there for an hour and a half to have this great party for women to like vent, release and like feel like a normal human again!…”
For tickets, visit https://thefim.org/event/imomsohard/.
