#IMomSoHard brings double the zany fun to PAC

Danger, danger... the moms are coming!

However, with these two wild and zany moms, the only danger will be in cracking your funny bone.

Kristin Hensley and Jen Smedley, the creative minds behind #IMomSoHard, are currently on a national tour and will be soaring into the Performing Arts Center at Kent State University for a one-night performance April 19 at 7:30 p.m.

“The Flashback Tour” features these two hilarious moms who delve into all things motherhood, tackling issues like surviving marriage, questionable fashion choices, belly fat and the biggest kahuna topic of all, raising kids.

The show is for mature audiences, and while it is geared toward women who best understand the rigors, challenges and antics of motherhood, there is a growing sentiment for men to attend and gleefully take one on the chin, so to speak.

The two women both were drawn to Los Angeles where they each studied in improve and stand-up comedy and didn’t know each other until a chance meeting at an improve show, where they discovered that they both hailed from Nebraska.

They utilize their real-life experiences to shape inventive new material because life never stops banging out ideas, pretty much on an everyday basis.

Getting to work together on stage makes the show exponentially funnier.

“Playing off each other is the best,” Hensley said. “It’s everything you’d think it would be and more. We’re sharing our lives and experiences together, and all our material comes from our life experiences.”

The duo’s material extends well beyond their experiences with their families. They gather a great deal of material from their childhoods, shared experiences that Smedley said they don’t necessarily recognize as humorous until they start banging ideas around.

“Much of our material is us making fun of ourselves, and now, with the Flashback Tour, we get to make fun of ourselves from 30 years ago,” Smedley said.

She added that many of their shared experiences are struggles, like when one thinks parenting can’t get harder. Smedley said there are these “ah-ha moments” where they suddenly rise about the doubts and pain and realize that seemingly tough situations can be funny.

“It usually starts as an earnest moment where you call and wait for a response,” Hensley said. “All of a sudden you’re describing what happened and the other one of us is dying laughing, and you realize you’re on to something and at times we get to the point where we are laughing so hard no sounds are coming out.”

Being on stage performing and living and sharing their lives has led to a lifetime of outrageous humor and heartfelt laughs.

“It truly feels like we’re winning at life,” Hensley said.

Once they got rolling the duo quickly developed a huge following among moms, a crew they proudly refer to simply as “The Moms.”

Through their material, the two women recognized that they weren’t alone in all their daily plights.

“Ultimately, what we try to do is make others feel better about the situations they are in through humor,” Hensley said. “When you’re in these moments and you’re honest and humble, the comedy comes out and there’s a shared feeling that moms have in dealing with everyday life. We feel very blessed that they are part of our whole thing.”

Smedley added that in their innate ability to make fun of themselves, they tend to endear themselves to moms who are sympathetic to their struggles and laughs.

“It’s OK to be embarrassed,” Smedley said, admitting that she is shy in real life.

While the moms are a large portion of their following, they’ve seen more men coming to live shows.

“I’m willing to bet that 99% of the men out there if they are dads would have a blast at our show,” Smedley said. “Today’s dads aren’t the dads of decades ago.”

Now on their fifth national tour, their rowdy brand of humor hits home for women who understand the plight of being a mom and even nails it for dads who sympathize with them, mainly because much of their material is invented by dads being dads.

The dynamic duo has more than 3 million followers on social media, host a podcast show which drops new shows weekly and their book #IMomSoHard was written last year and found its way to the New York Times Best Seller list in its first week of release.

Tickets for the show are available now at: www.kent.edu/tuscpac/imomsohard.