Mom, son team up for a Mother's Day show

EAU CLAIRE — Mother’s Day is an ideal time to spend with your mother, and even better when you’re sharing a stage with her.

That is what will happen this Sunday, as Clear Water Comedy presents “Tommy and His Mommy,” featuring Tommy Ryman, a nationally touring stand-up comedian who audiences will recognize from the likes of Drybar Comedy and “Last Comic Standing.”

Accompanying Tommy will be his critically-acclaimed folk-musician mother, Barb Ryman. Barb Ryman is an indie-folk musician whose song, “All American Dysfunctional Family,” was used in the ABC series “Sons & Daughters.” She has also released a number of albums over the years, including “Catch the Sunset” and “Breathe.”

“I do feel bad ... I’m making her technically work on Mother’s Day,” Tommy joked.

Though it may initially seem a bit odd to pair two different genres of entertainment, the Rymans’ careers have been known to intertwine in the past.

“When I first started stand-up, she would let me open for her in front of her audiences,” explained Tommy to the Leader-Telegram. “And then later in our career, we used to do this ‘Tommy and His Mommy’ show, which was kind of like a talk show. She was my sidekick at the Bryant Lake Bowl.”

The shows in the past headlined comics and would feature a mix of Tommy’s comedy and Barb’s music, and Tommy noted that it’s been a few years since the two have been able to come together to make another “Tommy and His Mommy” happen.

He noted, though, that the two stay in their own lanes creatively, for the most part.

“She has funny songs she’s sung — she’s always been a folk humorist — but most of it’s very serious,” Tommy said of his mom’s music. “I did play clarinet on two of her albums, so I did bleed into the music stuff.”

“But I walked away from that because I wasn’t a very good clarinet player,” he said with a laugh.

Joining the mother-son team and playing host to the show will be up-and-coming Minnesota comedian Cianna Violet. Violet, described by MN Comedy as “a Twin Cities comedy wunderkind,” has most recently been at the Laugh Factory in Chicago. She has opened for Tommy several times over the last two years, and he is quite a fan of Violet’s comedy.

“She’s one of my regular openers, and she’s been touring all over and crushing it,” he said. “She hasn’t been to Eau Claire yet, and I wanted her to see it.”

Ryman stated that one of his draws to Eau Claire is its comedy scene and what the head of Clear Water Comedy, Cullen Ryan, has been able to achieve in the Chippewa Valley area.

“The Plus is a really fun venue. I think Cullen created such a good space for comedy. I had done it when he first started — it was around 2018 or so,” he recalled. “I’ve come back every couple of years, and I’ve always just had fun.”

Tommy stated that the Clear Water Comedy shows have always drawn large and appreciative crowds, with Ryan being very supportive of visiting comedians like himself. Tommy was one of the guest comedians at November’s Punchline Punchout competition. It’s here where Tommy floated the idea of his the Mother’s Day show to Ryan, who was on board to making it happen.

The two Ryman performers often find themselves performing in very different venues — with Tommy in comedy clubs and Barb doing house concerts and coffee shops — but that makes him even more happy to be able to share the stage with his mother for local audiences.

“It’s always been fun to perform together, and this is going to be a really fun, good time,” he said. “We’ve got professional comedians and a musician. So it’ll be the best thing to do on Mother’s Day at four o’clock.

“There’s really nothing that’s going to compete with it.”