Elisa Decarlo Written by Yolanda Shoshana Photos courtesy of Elisa DeCarlo

I met Elisa Decarlo and her publicist, JoeTrentacosta at a coffee shop in midtown Manhattan. Decarlo had just finished a rehearsal for her show Cervix with a Smile, which she is performing for the 2005 Midtown International Theater Festival.

Elisa Decarlo was destined to become a performer. One of the houses she lived in as a child had a theater in the attic. According to Decarlo, "The previous tenants had actually built a small theater with a backstage and a dressing room. My older sister staged shows and forced her younger siblings to be in them. She's a lot older than me so I didn't have any choice."

Decarlo came into the city to see musicals with her family. She also listened to musical albums, over and over again. She was a self declared "dumb stage-struck teenager," but due to being a hundred pounds over weight, she was type-cast in old lady roles. "I really wanted to be a star and I was an old movie freak. I wanted to be Heddy Lamar. I really wanted to be Marilyn Monroe, but I looked like Rod Steiger," said Decarlo with a big grin on her face.

At her first audition for an acting job, Decarlo was accepted into an improv company. The only catch was the fact that she did not know how to perform improv. Luckily, she was able to take improv classes and fake-it-until-she-made-it. She performed sketch comedy for a few years and then began to lose interest. It was at that point that Decarlo saw a show which inspired her to write. "I saw Eric Bogasian's show Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll, explained Decarlo. And I thought... I want to do that. So, I started working on I Love Drugs.”

Decarlo won San Francisco Best of Fringe Award in 1995 with her show I Love Drugs. Two years later she returned to the San Francisco Fringe to win Best of Fringe with her show Cervix with a Smile.

Decarlo's shows are packed with lots of characters. One of the characters Decarlo created drives straight women wild - her drag king persona, Big Red Berkowitz. Decarlo told me how she became one of the first drag kings, "Big Red started when I wrote a skit for three men and we only had two actors. It was a talk show called ‘Broads Christ’. One man was the sensitive new age man, the other was a G. Gordon Liddy witty type and the moderator was a big stupid idiot named Big Red. I showed the sketch to my husband, he read it and said, “Big Red is you.".

So she put on overalls, a hat and a flannel shirt and then she stuck a tube sock down her pants and became Big Red Berkowitz. Decarlo is so convincing as a man that straight women throw their underwear on stage and stay behind to talk to “Big Red” after the show.

Decarlo has quite a few projects in the works. Her solo show Toasted has forty- five characters and may be performed Off-Broadway. But this time Decarlo would be stepping aside to let a celebrity take on her role. I could not get any juicy details out of Decarlo because the deal was still in negotiation. The Exit Theatre in San Francisco is also interested in doing a project with her that is tentatively called The American Dad. "It's about me and my late father; he died in late November of last year. I took care of him the last couple of months before he died. I learned a whole lot of stuff about his side of the family. [It was] all news to me [that] would have been nice to know, “said Decarlo with a serious look, Decarlo keeps it real, what you see is what you get. She has over ten years of performance and writing experience. I asked her if she had any words of wisdom for other performers, what they need to make it. She thought for a second and replied "a tough skin." Well, Decarlo may have developed a tough skin, but she is also a woman with a lot of heart.

 

For more information on Elisa Decarlo and Cervix with a Smile: www.elisadecarlo.com