L&M Publications
Merrick Life • Bellmore Life • Freeport-Baldwin Leader • Wantagh-Seaford Citizen

“My son’s school called me in to tell me they think he has ADD...They said, ‘Mrs. Amore, sit down, we think your son has ADD’...I was like, wow...I love what you’ve done with this room!  

They didn’t have ADD when I was growing up....they would just say, ‘Hey Cara, get the heck off the refrigerator!”

– Cara Amore

Does it help to be a popular blonde and overimbibe in libations to be a comedian? In Baldwin native Cara Amore’s case, it has worked.

This 40-something writer of jokes (see above) who headlined the Recovery To Go comedy show at New Year’s Eve at the Bellmore Movies, loves living in Bellmore. “It’s a great town. I love to give back and support the town where I can.” 

Originally from Baldwin, and going through the public school system there,  her son now attends North Bellmore’s Saw Mill Road School as a sixth-grader, and she is keenly involved in the Boy Scouts and other Bellmore adventures.

But how did she become a comedienne, The Leader wanted to know – and what does drinking have to do with it?

“I used to run an advertising business with a great friend of my father’s who always gave me great advice,” she said of her humble beginnings in comedy. He got sick, she said, and died. But it was during the funeral she heard all his friends saying that “he had no regrets about the life he had lived.” Sooooo...

“I was always told that I was the funniest girl at the party, that I made people laugh, I was the class clown, the whole bit, so I wanted to listen one last time to my friend and do something I always wanted to do, and have no regrets doing it,” she told The Leader.

She took an eight-week comedy class with John Truesen at Governor’s Comedy Shop in Levittown to become a comedienne based on all the comments she’d heard about her abilities to make people laugh,  and “do it all for Dave.”

After the class was finished she “did my seven minutes on stage at the final show and thought it would be over after that,” just to say she had done it and have no regrets. 

But, it didn’t quite turn out that way.

Instead, over 300 people came to see the graduating comedy class, of which over 80 people, including friends and family, came to see her specifically do her comedy routine.

“There was laughter all over the place,” she remembers of that night, where she came to realize that she played a large part in making all that laughter possible. “If you know me, this quickly became my newest addiction,” she said. 

Addiction? The Leader wanted to know more.

“Early in my career [which spans eight years] I used to open up my set with “I’m Cara Amore and I’m a recovering alcoholic.” Oh...

Ms. Amore had spent some time in rehabilitation centers “drying out” from her earlier experiences imbibing in alcohol.  Still, she was infected with the comedy bug, and learned her craft everywhere she could, from Starbucks to open mics, to contests just to get stage time.

Eventually, she  ran into Keith Godwin, a comedian she had known earlier who had also taken a comedy class at Governor’s with Cary Kravitz. “I often wondered if Keith was in rehab himself” because of certain mannerisms he displayed, she said. Sure enough, Keith works as a daytime substance abuse counselor at a veterans’ hospital.

“He got me a gig at C.K. Post in Suffolk,” she said, and from that one night at the rehab center, she knew she had found her “calling.” 

That night she worked with Keith and a Wantagh comic named Rob Cividanes, also with a similar background and who appeared on the same New Year’s Eve headline bill with Ms. Amore.  “Comedy is a great thing to do for those in rehabilitation,” she said.

Why? The Leader asked next.

“To show to these people who have had a tough life, who have looked at things negatively or suffer from depression, that life isn't all sad and hard, that there is another side to life that has humor in it, and that they will come out of this crisis,” she said.

Through hearing of these comedians’ trials and tribulations battling the same demons, but presented with humor and humanity, those in rehab will have a chance at success one day, too, she added. 

And so was founded the comedy group Recovery To Go, with these three comedians visiting rehabilitation centers to try to bring some comic relief to those in programs, while aiming at giving them new hope in their lives without the use of addictive substances.  

The group looks for comedians regularly to help fill the demand for comics at rehab clinics. “I think we’ve created a distinctive niche,” she remarked. 

But they are not just any comics, she said. “My comics have to be in recovery” for it to work.

As for the changing comedy business on Long Island, she is aware that certain clubs may not book her comics if they have worked with her first. Do restrictive clauses concern her in the type of comedian she can book, and what could happen to them if they booked with her? 

“No,” she said. “I have worked those clubs and have never had a restrictive clause presented to me.” Nor does she worry about her comics being lost to restrictive clauses, because of the distinctive nature of her comedy and her comedians.  

“We offer private gigs for comics,” she concluded, of her Recovery To Go comedy business. 

“Besides,” she concluded, “I would not work for anyone who would make me sign a restrictive clause.” 

Apparently, there are some great up-and-coming comedians on Long Island and everyone should be able to see them.

By Doug Finlay

Doug Finlay is the assistant editor for Bellmore Life newspaper. He is also an award-winning writer for L&M Publications.