Super Dork

Working in hospice care convinced Nancy Norton that life was too brief to stay in medicine instead of trying stand-up. On stage, she treats bodily decline and family oddities with the relaxed cheer of someone who spent years on hospital night shifts.

She jokes about her strabismus, labeling it an “easy bake eye” that frightens shallow people, and suggests her mother programmed her into nursing by giving her a CPR training doll to resuscitate beneath the Christmas tree. Other stories touch on being raised in an Ozark trailer park as the fourth of three children, and later traveling solo to Kathmandu to adopt her son.

Filmed at the Dry Bar Comedy club in Provo, Utah, the 35-minute set caught Norton during a period of late-career competition wins. After decades in club comedy and healthcare, she won the Boston Comedy Festival in 2018 and followed it with first place at the Seattle International Comedy Competition in 2019.