Saturday, September 19, 2026, at 4:45 PM in Theatre Two at the Palm Springs Cultural Center. The documentary runs 72 minutes, and Karen Williams and filmmaker Andrea Meyerson are scheduled for a Q&A afterward.
September 19, 4:45 PM: Cinema Diverse Film Festival in Palm Springs
🎟️ Tickets: Buy tickets for Karen Williams: I Had to Laugh
Palm Springs Cultural Center
2300 E. Baristo Road, Palm Springs.
Palm Springs, CA (The Hollywood Times) 8/28/26 – Filmmaker Andrea Meyerson has spent much of her career preserving LGBTQ+ stories, celebrating queer trailblazers and giving visibility to people whose contributions deserve a permanent place in cultural history.
Her newest documentary, Karen Williams: I Had to Laugh, may be one of her most personal projects yet.
The film will have its world premiere September 19 at Cinema Diverse in Palm Springs, with both Meyerson and Williams scheduled to attend the screening and participate in a talkback afterward.
Meyerson joined The Hollywood Times for a Zoom conversation ahead of the premiere to discuss the four-year journey of making the documentary, the importance of Williams’ legacy and the personal circumstances that temporarily brought production to a halt.
Because I have not yet seen the completed film, this is not a review. Instead, it is a look behind the scenes at the story Meyerson set out to preserve and the extraordinary woman at its center.
For Meyerson, the reason for making the documentary was straightforward.
“One of my missions in my life and my purpose is to give a voice to our community, to our sheroes especially,” Meyerson said.
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She has known and worked with Williams for roughly 25 years, including on Meyerson’s first film, Laughing Matters. But Williams’ place in LGBTQ+ comedy history goes back much further.
Meyerson describes Williams as the first out Black lesbian comic to perform lesbian-specific material onstage, beginning more than four decades ago.
“She stepped on out on the stage and she did it,” Meyerson said. “That was courageous. That gave an opportunity to, it opened doors. She was a trailblazer, and such an important part of our community’s culture and history.”
After spending years filming and shaping Williams’ story, Meyerson said the significance of the project became even clearer.
“I’m so glad I did this,” she said. “Somebody needed to do it. This is worthy of sharing and preserving.”
One of Meyerson’s biggest discoveries during production came through archival material.
The documentary contains vintage footage of Williams early in her comedy career, material Meyerson believes very few people have ever seen.
“What surprised me the most is watching this very early footage,” she said. “We have some extraordinary vintage footage that I don’t know if anybody’s ever seen, except for maybe the person that filmed it, or the people that were there live.”
Meyerson described the young Williams captured in that footage as vulnerable, impressionable, adorable, and already very funny.
She has watched portions of the documentary dozens of times during the editing process yet says some of Williams’ early comedy still makes her laugh every time.
“I know exactly what’s gonna happen,” Meyerson said, “I just crack up.”
For Meyerson, who met Williams after she had already become an established performer, seeing those earliest years proved especially meaningful.
“This early stuff, priceless,” she said.
The documentary’s unusually long production history cannot be separated from one of the most painful periods in Meyerson’s life.
Production originally began in September 2022. Meyerson was unable to attend the first filming weekend because her wife became seriously ill.
Meyerson went to New York to be with her and remained there through her passing.
Although Meyerson sent a crew to complete that initial shoot, she soon realized she could not simply return to work as usual.
“I lost my wife and I was grieving for two years,” she said.
Meyerson said she reduced her professional responsibilities to the minimum she could manage.
“I had to take care of myself,” she explained. “If you can’t do it, you just can’t do it.”
Williams remained patient throughout the hiatus.
The production finally reconvened for a major shoot at Williams’ Cleveland home in January 2024, more than a year after the project’s first day of filming. Additional interviews and material were later filmed in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
San Francisco, Meyerson noted, represented an especially important part of Williams’ career and provided the documentary with valuable lesbian archival history.
After production was completed, the film entered an intensive editing process.
“I’m glad it’s done. I’m glad I did it,” Meyerson said. “I’m proud of this.”
And then came perhaps her most concise assessment of the documentary’s subject:
“Karen is a (comedy) rock star.”
Meyerson has screened numerous films at festivals over the years, but she said giving I Had to Laugh its world premiere at Cinema Diverse carries special meaning.
She has a long history with the Palm Springs LGBTQ+ festival and praised its executive director, Michael Green, noting that Cinema Diverse has screened many of her previous films.
There was interest from another upcoming Los Angeles screening in securing the world-premiere designation, Meyerson said, but she had already made her decision.
“I already promised it to Cinema Diverse,” she said.
For Meyerson, the first public screening always comes with nerves. She typically sits in the back of the theater while watching an audience encounter a finished film for the first time.
“Nobody has seen it, really,” she said. “There’s some nerves that go along with it.”
But after everything it took to bring this particular documentary to the screen, the Palm Springs premiere represents much more than another festival date.
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Williams and Meyerson will both attend the screening, and the two are scheduled to participate in a post-film discussion.
Asked whether Williams might bring some comedy into the talkback, Meyerson laughed.
“We are,” she said, “and she’s probably going to be funny at it.”
Completing one documentary has not slowed Meyerson down.
Even as Karen Williams: I Had to Laugh reaches audiences, she is deep into post-production on another project, this one taking her filmmaking in an entirely different direction.
Meyerson spent June in the United Kingdom filming a documentary about Gay Kelleway, whom she identifies as the first female jockey to win at Royal Ascot.
The upcoming anniversary will mark 40 years since Kelleway’s historic victory, Meyerson said, adding that another woman did not accomplish the feat for 32 years.
The production also represents Meyerson’s first international documentary shoot.
Horse racing offered her an entirely new world to explore.
Meyerson was particularly struck by the fact that male and female jockeys compete directly against one another rather than in separate men’s and women’s divisions.
“You call yourself a jockey, get out there and ride,” she said.
But as in so many professions and sports, she noted, women historically were not given equal opportunities.
“Gay was a trailblazer,” Meyerson said.
The film is being made with Meyerson’s longtime film partner and executive producer Marsha Naify, whose background as a horse owner and breeder made the subject an especially natural fit for the team.
For Meyerson, the project also represents another creative departure from the comedy-centered documentaries for which many audiences know her.
“It’s so different for me,” she said. “I’m learning a lot.”
There is a clear thread connecting Meyerson’s films about Karen Williams and Gay Calloway.
Both center women who entered spaces where women, particularly queer women, had not traditionally been given equal visibility or opportunity.
Both became trailblazers.
And both fit Meyerson’s larger filmmaking mission: making sure the people who opened doors are not forgotten after others have walked through them.
With Karen Williams: I Had to Laugh, Meyerson has spent four difficult, deeply personal years documenting not simply the career of a beloved comedian, but a piece of LGBTQ+ history.
Now, at last, she gets to sit in the back of a Palm Springs theater and watch an audience discover it.
Karen Williams: I Had to Laugh
World Premiere: September 19, 2026
Festival: Cinema Diverse
Location: Palm Springs Cultural Center, Palm Springs, California
Filmmaker: Andrea Meyerson
Featured Subject: Karen Williams
Andrea Meyerson and Karen Williams are scheduled to attend the screening and participate in a talkback following the film.
By Valerie Milano
