Sassi Keegan’s one woman show, The Girl In The Mirror chronicles her experience as an adopted child growing up in a wonderful family still feeling different. It takes us through her struggles with an eating disorder, the loss of her brother which comes full circle with a happy ending reunion with her birth mother. You may have seen Sassi on MTV, Nickelodeon, a Lysol Commercial, Good Morning America, or doing promos for Adult Swim Super Deluxe! She has worked with Chicago City Limits, Blue Man Group: Tubes and The National Theatre of Performing Arts. She has been featured in the New York Underground Comedy Festival, The Mamapalooza Festival and The Women and Comedy Festival. Sassi appears regularly at New York Comedy Club and Broadway Comedy Club as well as many clubs across the country including,The Laugh Factory in LA.
Eye PR Media got a chance to chat with Sassi Keegan about her one-woman show, her career, and beyond:
So Sassi, What was your inspiration to write such an honest and revealing one woman that portrays some of the best and also hardest times of your life?
I began the story when I was in high school and most struggling with body image and and eating disorder and did about 5 minutes of it at my Junior Prize Speaking Contest. I didn’t win the contest but I felt that it was a groundbreaking performance for me because it was so honest. It was truth, not trying to please others. As a woman with an eating disorder, it’s always about being pleasing others, looking a certain way, not wanting to be too much, therefore not eating that much to avoid taking up too much space…When I wrote this I think it was a step in the right direction for my acting and my writing because truth moves people, not trying to be something you are not. Half the time we try to please others, guess what they are thinking, and become what they want, and all it ends up doing is annoying them because it’s awkward and fake. People actually relate better to the truth. Then everybody can stop trying so hard and relax. What really inspired me to bring the piece back and finish it was my very close friend Mary Dimino. I open for her on the road doing stand-up all the time. She is a brilliant actress and comedian and a very dear person. She wrote her one woman show,”Scared Skinny”, which made it’s world premiere at the 13th Annual New York Fringe Festival where it won the 2010 Fringe NYC Best Solo Show Award. Mary and I love working together! I brought my piece back so I could continue opening for her and we could continue working together across the country. Our pieces are very different, yet have the same recurring themes of the journey to self-love, coming to terms with one’s sexuality as a young Catholic woman and dealing with losses of different kinds. Her show is more about overeating and chronic dieting, where as mine covers not only those subjects, but bulimia and anorexia as well. Between the two of us, all aspects of the eating disorder spectrum are covered.
Are there certain aspects of your life that you choose to leave off the table over others?
I’m adopted and my piece is also about my struggle to fit into my adoptive family when even though I was very loved, I was different. It’s circumstantial, which doesn’t have anything to do with the way I was raised. I still didn’t put too much in this incarnation of the piece about my adoptive family who is my real family. I don’t want them to think they did a bad job raising me because they didn’t. Everybody struggles and nature and nurture both contribute. I have a lot of love in my life which I’m grateful for. Part of the happy ending for my show is that I find my birth mother and find out that she wanted so badly to keep me but she gave me up because she was a single mom on welfare at the time and didn’t want to mess me up. Even though deep down I knew it was for the best, I carried that experience as a rejection until now. It’s been so healing to know that she really loves me and that her rejection was God’s protection. No matter who raises you, you have issues to deal with. My son is 7 and he is already in therapy. I am taking early precautions so hopefully I won’t mess him up too much!
I without a doubt admire your bravery and strength to leave so much of yourself on that stage. Did you ever think that one day you’d become so fearless?
Thank you for saying that! I tend to think I’m crazy. It’s a need actually. They say if you can do anything else other then be and entertainer, do that instead. Only entertain if you feel your spirit will die if you don’t. It is crazy, to get up on stage by yourself and be the only person holding the audience in their seats for 35 plus minutes! Yikes! But if I stopped and thought of that every day, I couldn’t go on. I did work on wall street for a while and the money and benefits were great. I would have stayed but I got laid off after 9/11 and this hunger for expressing myself onstage was still haunting me, so I continued performing and have never looked back.
You openly discuss being a young girl and having an eating disorder. What would you say to the young girls out there today that are struggling with weight?
Oh gosh, it’s so complicated, but really you’ve got to just not worry about what everyone else thinks and love yourself, find your inner and outer beauty. And the funny thing is that God, if you believe in God, gave us all appetites and our appetites are not really out of control. We actually have a barometer that tells us when we are full. Trust that and work out, and when you are not eating or working out, be in the moment and don’t obsess about weight or food. Easier said than done. The body image stuff in this country is out of control. There are so many drop dead gorgeous women literally dropping dead from starving, binging, purging, and taking drugs to be thin, it’s sad. Meanwhile there are people world wide at poverty level who are starving because they have no choice. It’s ironically tragic.
When you came up with the idea for this show, did you know from the start that you intended it to be a dramady?
Ha ha, no. I was hoping. It gave me tremendous freedom just to write my story without worrying about punch lines and a laugh count. I was joking that everything that ever bombed on a stand-up stage was going into my show because my show could be serious. Then it turned out to be funnier than a lot of my stand-up! My friend Harrison Greenbaum, who also has an amazing one man show: “Harrison Greenbaum: What Just Happened?” says it’s the Les Miserables effect. In that show people die in the war and then they have the big crazy number with Master of the House who is hilarious. Same with my show, I talk about suicide and then make a joke. The audience is so relieved to hear that joke, they just bust out laughing.
If you could change one aspect of your life, what would it be?
I hate to say it because I pride myself on putting happiness, love and spirituality before everything, but I would like more money. I’m ready to take my career to the next level and not have to live hand to mouth anymore. I’m sure a lot of the country would say the same thing no matter what type of job they have. Although I have to say I’m super grateful that I am even working. Usually in a bad economy the arts are the first thing to go. I guess it’s because in a depressed economy, people need to escape, so entertainment is still thriving. Thank God.
When did you know you wanted to be an Entertainer turned Stand Up Comedian?
I became a ballerina at age 4 and I was hooked on performing. I’ve done every type of performing, I’m a singer, dancer, clown, actress and stand-up comedian. I sort of fell into Stand-up because it was easier for me to get booked on a stand-up show than to get consistent parts in plays. I think my late dad Joe Sassi also influenced me. He loved to laugh and was a very funny man. It was a way we connected. I sucked at sports unlike my brother and sister who were natural athletes, so my dad and I laughed together.
What is your biggest drive?
It used to be for sure following my dream of being a performer but now that I have a child, it’s to protect my child. There is nothing more powerful than a mother’s instincts. I am still very ambitious about my career but the passion I feel for my child over rides that. It’s kind of a relief to care more about someone else than myself.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
I have a screenplay that has to be made. It’s called, “We Have to Stop Now.” It’s about a girl who falls in love with her therapist. I want to be writing and acting in my movies and acting and writing for sitcoms.
What sets your show apart from others?
It’s mine. That’s the great thing about telling the truth. Writer/performers are always so terrified of others stealing their material, but if you really write from the heart, it’s original and nobody can steal your story.
Eye PR Media wishes Sassi Keegan endless wishes of Success, Happiness, and Strength. We hope she never loses the ability to stay true to herself in all of her future endeavors and beyond.
