CAMDEN — Karen Morgan is smart, funny and reminds you of your best friends from high school, the ones who could make you double over laughing, just with the delivery of a few sardonic remarks — mostly about yourselves and the absurd world. She is a comedian, a master of painting the ironies of our times with humor and grace, and she will get the crowd laughing.

Morgan is appearing at the Camden Opera House Saturday evening, March 29. She will drive up from Cumberland, where she lives, fresh off a tour of the Midwest (Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and then Omaha, Nebraska); her last show was in Nebraska Wednesday night. 

Her Camden show is called “Shiny Happy People Laughing” and while her material has been described as nostalgic and hilarious, with forays back in time to the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, she also peels back the layers of history to a less complicated time, when child-rearing bore little relation to today's helicopter-parenting, when the water hose sufficed as a drinking fountain, when children went to sports practice alone and there was no expectation of snacks or sliced oranges, when playing outside all day was the norm.

She ranges in her topics, touching on the dynamics that lead to women's walking groups (serial killers could take some tips from them), to her husband who decided to go vegan.

"And he's doing it," she says, before the microphone. "He gets up early every morning at 6 a.m. and puts fruit and vegetables into a very loud blender and he tries to make me drink it. 'I made this one with kale, and wheatgrass and almonds, try it.' And, I'm like, 'no!' I want bacon and eggs, and sausage and cheese and hamburger and happiness."

Or she will talk about raising teenage daughters (she has two sons and a daughter), getting dorm room supplies for her son at school, or the 836 college tours she has taken.

Morgan is originally from Athens, Georgia, and she delivers on stage with a melodious southern accent, her sentences rising and falling with easy rhythm.  And then she'll pause, grin mischievously at the audience, and deliver a zinger of a line, connecting past decades with the present, putting it all into perspective with humor. 

Maybe this has some trace of her training as a trial attorney, which she was before turning her attention to comedy. She has lived in Maine now for decades, she and her husband raising their family, and she eventually began to study comedy in Portland with Tim Ferrell, at his Comedy Workshops.

"The key to my comedy is nostalgia and where we came from; not where we are currently. I find great peace in going back to find the humor and joy in our childhoods, how we grew up and when we grew up. It is a nice escape into comedy that talks about the past."

Morgan often regales her audience outfitted in a swell pair of neon swirled bellbottoms, as if she just stepped off the state of the show The Dating Game, or the mat of the game Twister. That alone ignites the collective memories.

She  loves what she does, driving around the country and connecting with the different audiences. To restore her sense of peace and wellbeing while on tour, she seeks out the seeks out the local YMCA because Morgan loves to swim. 

Where do folks laugh the most?

"There is not necessarily a place that laughs the most," she said, speaking in a phone interview from Nebraska. "The people in the Midwest are certainly very friendly and they enjoy comedy a whole lot. They will drive long distances because there are longer distances between towns. There's a lot of land out here," she laughed.

"I find that everyone equally is in need of a good laugh, wherever you live," she said.

Morgan grew up in a home that appreciated humor. She and her father would watch Johnny Carson and Saturday Night Live. He had a smart, clever tongue, and: "he was always the one that would make us laugh in church. He would get a twinkle in his eye, talking about what was going on around us."

But she went on to earn a law degree in Georgia and practiced in the courtroom, taking the harder cases, such as criminal defense and medical malpractice. Then she met her husband in Maine, and Cumberland became her home.

Twenty years ago. she got intrigued with comedy and began taking workshops. The experience blossomed into her own comedic style, which she continues to refine.

Morgan never gets stage fright, and she loves connecting with the audience. It energizes her, and she makes eye contact with those she can see in first few rows of a house, before the seats deepen into darkness further in the back.

"After years of practicing and being in front of juries, I do not get afraid of much," she said. "You have to be able to think on your feet, and speak on your feet."

Stand-up comedy is an abbreviated form of storytelling, and it has its own poetry gleaned from observing life.

"As I drive around Ohio and Illinois and Nebraska, I am making mental notes about what I may create, and what story may become a bit in my comedy set," she said. "You never know."

She will nevitably return to mine the past for people.

"It gives them a nice safe place to be, and allows people to connect with each other, which is what I like the best about it all," she said. "When you talk about the past with a group of people that share the same nostalgia that you do, that shared connection has comfort in it. There is security and peace."

Morgan has been performing clean standup comedy in theaters and performing arts centers for almost two decades. She has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post and The Insider. Her credits also include Sirius XM Radio, Gotham Comedy Live and Nickelodeon Television. 

She is appearing in Camden, hosted by the West Bay Rotary Club. All proceeds support local and international charitable organizations.

Doors open at 7 p.m. Show starts at 7:30 p.m.  Choose-your-own reserved seats are $35 each at CamdenOperaHouse.com

Sponsors for Karen’s show include Vanderbilt Beach Resort, Edward Jones-Ken Gardner, Camden National Bank, Rockport Building Partners, and Lord Camden Inn.

About West Bay Rotary

West Bay Rotary Club, now in its 40th year, is dedicated to supporting local nonprofits through service, collaboration, and philanthropy. To learn more about its initiatives or how you can get involved, visit WestBayRotaryOfMaine.org or attend one of the weekly meetings, Thursdays at 7:30 a.m. in the Community Room at the First Congregational Church in Camden. All are welcome.