Carole Montgomery, Las Vegas Sun

Columnist Lisa Ferguson: ‘Confessions’ turns Montgomery’s ‘Fantasy’ into reality Lisa Ferguson Friday, March 4, 2005 | 8:51 a.m. As the comic star of the topless "Midnight Fantasy" show at Luxor, Carole Montgomery is accustomed to working around women who bare themselves in public. Now it's her turn. A fully clothed Montgomery will expose her life's "journey," spent juggling a successful stand-up comedy career with marriage and motherhood, when her one-woman show, "Confessions of a PT & A Mom," debuts tonight through Sunday at Seat, a theater inside the Arts Factory, at 103 E. Charleston Blvd. What a trip it's been, says the New York native who started in stand-up in 1981, sharing Big Apple-club stages with such up-and-comers as Andrew Dice Clay and Richard Jeni. "It was a really interesting time," Montgomery recalled recently from her Spring Valley home. "I had tunnel vision when I was first starting out." Comedy was "all I wanted to do." But that changed 13 years ago when Montgomery and her musician-husband, Todd, welcomed son Layne into the world. "That threw a wrench in the whole (expletive deleted) plan," the bawdy comedian jokes. "Then all of a sudden, I wanted to be a mommy and stay home with my baby." For a time, the family lived in Los Angeles while Mom regularly took to the road to perform shows, including at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal; and made the rounds on television (VH1's "Stand-up Spotlight"; ABC's "Politically Incorrect"; and Comedy Central's "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" among them). Nine years ago Montgomery, who had tired of leaving her little one behind at home, received a job offer she couldn't refuse: hosting the "Crazy Girls" production show at the Riviera. The Montgomerys relocated to Las Vegas in the mid-'90s. A "very feminist" Montgomery went to work performing her trademark profanity-punctuated, sexually suggestive humor for showgoers who pay not to watch a comedian, rather a stable of topless dancers onstage -- a fact not lost on the funny lady. "I immediately disarm the audience," she says of her nightly routine, explaining how she jokes about the waning perkiness of her own fortysomething-year-old breasts, followed by quips about bedroom antics and such. "I love doing it, but it's not an easy gig," she says of fronting topless production shows, "because (audiences) don't want to see a comic; they don't want to see the singer; they don't want to see the tap dancer in the show. They want to see the naked girls." After five years with "Crazy Girls," however, "I missed doing stand-up." So Montgomery quit the show and returned to road gigs. "I took a year off ... and was having a ball," she says. Ironically enough, on the one-year anniversary of her departure from "Crazy Girls," she received a call offering her a starring role in "Midnight Fantasy," in which she's performed for three years. The decision to accept the job was a no-brainer: "Even though my son was older at the point -- I adore my kid; I sound like one of those syrupy moms -- but I just wanted to stay home with him." That she does: Though Montgomery escapes into "Fantasy's" world six nights a week, "If you saw me in the daytime, you wouldn't recognize me because I'm a typical mom," she insists. "I've got my hair up in a scrunchy; I've got my sweatpants on; I've got my snacks." She has served as vice president of the PTA at her son's school; and has long been "very involved" with Layne's Little League baseball endeavors (he plays pitcher and covers first base). "Vegas is a duality," she says. "You've got the casinos and the gambling and the drinking and the sex, and then you go off (The Strip) just a mile and you've got suburbs and Little League." That is, in part, the inspiration behind "Confessions of a PT & A Mom," which Montgomery co-penned with her husband. In reflecting on her untraditional work situation, "I thought, 'Wow, how unusual is that, that I can pull that off and that my son turned out to be a very well-behaved, polite young man.' " "Most people," she says, "assume, 'Well, she's in a sex show; they must do drugs all the time,' and all the stuff that's associated with Sin City. And here I am bringing up a kid." Not just any kid -- Layne is also an aspiring thespian who has enjoyed roles in a few local stage productions. "So he's directing me" during rehearsals of "Confessions," Montgomery says. "It's very hard to listen to someone whose butt you used to wipe, but he really does have a great eye." Beyond motherhood, Montgomery also tackles tales from her childhood; her adventures in dating and marriage; and her rise through comedy's ranks in the one-woman show, which she calls "a work in progress" despite having previously staged a couple of scenes at the Las Vegas Comedy Festival, and the Powerhouse Theatre in Santa Monica, Calif. "There will actually be some dramatic moments," she assures of the content, which makes the comedian all the more nervous: "It's not the same thing as doing stand-up. There's a certain rhythm you get with stand-up, where you're setting up the joke and the punch line. Here ... timing and delivery aren't really gonna matter. It's a huge change." Still, a microphone stand will be onstage, "so when I feel like there's a part that's kind of stand-upish, I'll go over and do stand-up." Following its initial run this weekend, Montgomery plans to continue staging "Confessions" at Seat intermittently throughout the year, possibly on Monday evenings ("Midnight Fantasy's" dark night), and/or scheduling weekend matinee performances. Her long-term goal is to see the show produced in New York, where she's already working with a theater director. "She said, 'You know, you should bring this to New York,' and I went, 'OK, but I'm not gonna bring it to New York without trying it out first,' " Montgomery recalls. "I'd rather be able to work out the kinks out of town, and then bring it to New York." As a comic, she explains, "Whenever I try (new material) out, most of the time I have to say it once onstage with a crowd so I can get the beats in my head going." With the one-woman show, "I have no idea how the wording is gonna work until I have people in the crowd and I can hear the sounds: Is there a poignant moment here? Is there a funny moment here? Should I stop here?" Though it may be awhile before her show finds a home on (or off) Broadway, Montgomery is content to wait. "Because it's such a personal story, it's not like I'm gonna run out of material." Consider, after all, the endless fodder that will accompany Layne's foray onto the dating scene: "OK," she says, unnerved by the prospect, "I'm gonna slit my wrists." Out for laughs Congratulations to "Kathleen Dunbar's Divas of Comedy" at Sahara, which celebrates its first anniversary with a performance at 9 p.m. Monday. Admission to the show -- which stars Dunbar and Carla Rea, whom have both previously graced this space -- is, as always, free. "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno returns to the Mirage's Danny Gans Theatre for a pair of performances at 9 p.m. tonight and 10:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $85. A couple of programming notes: Check out comedian Mark Cohen, who starred as the Joey Bishop character in "The Rat Pack is Back" during its run at Sahara, when he guests tonight on "Last Call with Carson Daly" (1:35 a.m., Channel 3). Also tonight Greg Giraldo, who has played The Improv at Harrah's, is set to appear tonight on "The Late Show with David Letterman" (11:35 p.m., Channel 8).