“I used to play X-Men with my older brother and the kids in the neighborhood, but I never wanted to be the boy characters,” recalled gay comedian Tim Murray, who will perform at Feinstein’s at the Nikko on October 29.
“I wanted to be a woman with super powers. So I’d be the Wicked Witch of the West. Then, when I was around seven, ‘Hocus Pocus‘ came out, and it was huge. Some girls in the neighborhood and I would pretend we were the Sanderson Sisters.
“This older girl was Bette Midler, I was usually Kathy Najimy, and one of the younger girls would be Sara Jessica Parker. We’d pretend our bikes were broomsticks and ride around, like ‘We’re flying! We’re flying! It was so gay, and it was so fun.”
The same can be said about “Witches!,” the seasonal and spicy cabaret act Murray has been touring the country with each October since 2022. It’s a very queer, unabashedly autobiographical romp, complete with musical numbers, in which gay boys and witches share status as “magical outcasts.”
Murray opens the show in full Margaret Hamilton-era Wicked Witch of the West drag: black hat, big dress, big wig. Sneering and pointing a crooked finger, he slowly casts his eyes across the audience holding it in a creepy tension.
Then, in an instant, the evil mien disappears, his shoulders fall, and he greets the crowd in his disarmingly cheerful midwestern voice.
Murray puts the “witch” in code switching.
Casting the right spell
For most of the year, the easygoing 36-year-old Murray performs a more conventional stand-up routine, playing on multi-comedian bills at Laff Factories, Giggle Holes and the like from coast-to-coast. It’s an act that he changes based on the night’s audience and the venue he’s been booked into.
“Comedians talk about our ‘tight five,'” said Murray. “That’s your road-tested five minutes of jokes that are going to work anywhere; with an 18-year-old in Los Angeles or an 80-year-old in upstate New York.”
But after that, Murray has to read the room, for filth, or not.
“My home base is a gay bar in LA that does comedy night on Tuesdays. It’s pretty much my go-to spot and if I’m in town. I play there about twice a month. It’s where I test new material. When I’m touring, the audience is usually gay guys and women around my age who are fans from the internet.”
Last year, Murray won a competition at the Broadway Comedy Club in New York.
“So they started putting me in regular lineups,” he said. “I’d get out there and go ‘Hey, where’s the gays?!’ and there’d be silence. It was all people from Germany or Oklahoma or Indiana who were wandering around Times Square and got a flier with a discount for the show.”
Those audiences were not the best for his material.
“I have my tight five, but to be honest, I don’t think that’s really my funniest stuff. So I’d occasionally drop in a couple of what I’d call raunchier gay jokes. And whoa, they fell flat. I could feel the audience’s disgust. Straight audiences do not want to hear about gay sex.”
Murray said, “It’s not overt homophobia, but it is homophobia. It’s like ‘Ewww!’ They’re grossed out. It’s a form of privilege, like they’re living in this other universe, and why would they want to hear about something that doesn’t apply to them. It’s crazy how much I had to adapt and change.”
Sexual innuendo always fares better with a queer crowd.
“I think gay men are usually pretty down to hear about straight sex or any kind of sex,” said Murray. “We talk about it more. We do it more. It’s a much bigger part of our culture. Straight people don’t really talk about sex at lunchtime or their dinner parties. But we do. It’s a little bit hard, mentally, to navigate when I’m playing to that broad general club audience, because I sometimes really feel like I’m neutering myself up there.”
Mirror, mirror
“What I love about ‘Witches!’ is that it’s all me,” says Murray. “When I was a kid, my brother and sister, who are six and eight years older, would babysit me, which is how I got to see a lot of stuff I probably shouldn’t have seen at as young an age as I did. My brother and I would watch stand-up all the time.”
Murray name-dropped his early inspirations.
“I loved Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykes, and later, Sandra Bernhard. Also, Norm MacDonald from ‘Saturday Night Live.’ I always liked his specials because he seemed like one of the weirder people. I’ve always liked less accessible, alternative comedy.”
Murray points to Steve Martin, who was considered highly avant-garde in his early years and later incorporated music and playwriting into his career, as a role model. He also acknowledges the wisdom of a more conventional comic.
“Jerry Seinfeld once said that the best stand-up involves being yourself to the greatest extent that’s humanly possible, more than in any other art form. In sketch comedy or acting, you’re playing a character. But with stand up, audiences want to know what you think. And how you think.”
“In ‘Witches!,’ said Murray, “I’m completely myself. The show is truly balls to the wall.”
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