Live in Tallahassee: The Comedian and The Rabbi

By Martin Merzer

Have you heard the one about the traveling standup comedian and actress of growing national fame who is performing this month at Temple Israel of Tallahassee as part of a reunion with her camp counselor who’s now a rabbi? “That’s what’s so interesting about life,” said Erica Rhodes, who will bring her observational comedy to Temple Israel on Thursday, December 26. “You think you’ll never see someone again and, the next thing you know, they’re saying, ‘Hey, do you want to do a show in my synagogue?’ ” Rhodes, widely identified as one of that nation’s most promising young comedians, performed for years on A Prairie Home Companion – beginning at the age of 10 – as host Garrison Keillor’s conscience. Her deep list of credits also includes appearances on TV’s Modern Family, New Girl, and Comedy Central’s @midnight with Chris Hardwick and in numerous movies and web-based productions. Lately, Rhodes, 33, has focused primarily on standup comedy, with recent bookings in clubs and theaters in New York City, Boston, Cleveland, Sacramento and Washington, D.C. And now…Temple Israel in Tallahassee, which last month hosted a performance of the Matzo Ball Diaries by the visiting Jewish Women’s Theatre Group. Not exactly the Borscht Belt. More like the Biscuit Belt. It’s part of Temple Israel of Tallahassee’s evolution into a multi-layered Jewish Community Center. “This perfectly fits in with our plan,” said Rabbi Michael Shields, who succeeded retired Rabbi Jack Romberg at Temple Israel this past July. “We have this amazing facility here and we’re going to use it in new, innovative ways.” Shields and Rhodes met 20 years ago when both attended a music-oriented summer camp in Maine. Rhodes, who played the cello, was a camper; Shields, who played clarinet, was a counselor. “She was at my camp table for lunch,” Shields recalled. They kept in touch intermittently through the years. When Shields learned that Rhodes would be in Tallahassee this month to visit relatives, he asked her to perform at Temple Israel. Rhodes, a native of Newton, Massachusetts, attended the Boston University College of Fine Arts and graduated from the Atlantic Theater Conservatory. She knew from an early age that she was destined for the stage. She loved performing, when she wasn’t standing on her head in gymnastics class. “I wasn’t very good in gymnastics,” she said, “but I could stand on my head longer than anyone else. It turns out that I have a very flat head. I won a pack of bubble gum.” Her long-standing relationship with Keillor is both family based and professional. Her mother and Keillor grew up in the same Minnesota small town (Keillor ended up marrying Rhodes’ aunt) and young Erica met the radio and literary celebrity when he traveled to Massachusetts for a visit. The next thing she knew, Rhodes, only 10 years old, was sharing a dressing room at A Prairie Home Companion with actress Allison Janney and also working with Meryl Streep and Martin Sheen. “It’s been such an amazing experience over the years,” she said. Now fully invested in her standup career, Rhodes plans to give Tallahassee residents an entertaining serving of her comedic take on various, sometimes bewildering, aspects of modern life. “I do a lot of personal stuff – dating and my family and that sort of thing,” she said. “I talk about my life, my own struggles, things people can relate to.” Rhodes’ grandfather was Jewish. She said he changed the family name from Rosenblum to Rhodes “because he thought the Jewish name might be hurting him as a salesman, but maybe he just wasn’t a very good salesman.” Regardless, her material appeals to general audiences and rarely touches on religion. So, how strange is it to be performing in a Southern synagogue for the guy who used to be your camp counselor in Maine? “Well, when you phrase it like that, it does sound pretty crazy,” Rhodes said. “But I’m excited. It sounds like a fun thing. It’s just so random. You meet people and they come back in your life in so many different ways.” -- Tickets for Comedy Night with Erica Rhodes can be purchased at https://www.templeisraeltlh.org/form/Erica%20Rhodes