Late last night we received another mysterious message that we feel must get out to the public. If asked, don’t say that you saw it here.

STAND-UP: PATRICK ARGIRO. BRIAN MERUSI. DOOGIE HORNER. KENT HAINES. AARON HERTZOG. CHIP CHANTRY. CHRIS SCHLOTTERER. JOHN KENSIL.

OMNIANA BATTLE: STEVE “PREPOSTEROUS” GERBEN VS. PAT “THE PRICE IS RIGHT” BARKER.

HACK! GAMESHOW: CHIP CHANTRY. STEVE GERBEN. JEN THWING.

JAZZ ORGAN MUSIC: JIMMY “SAUSAGE FINGERS” SMITH.

ALERT: DANCING BEAR SICK WITH FLU. WON’T MAKE SHOW. CANCEL DANCE-OFF.

MINISTRYOFSECRETJOKES.COM

It was a rare night in the suburban Philadelphia town of Glenside. It’s not every day that they get to see two of the country’s best touring stand-up comics, Todd Barry and Louis CK.

The Keswick Theatre is a 1300-seat theater that without a balcony looks sort of like an auditorium. Alcohol was served in the lobby beforehand and the lines were long and lively.

After the opener, Todd Barry took the stage. As someone that records his albums in comedy clubs- his new one, From Heaven took place above a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge, Mass.- it was interesting to see him perform in a theater setting. And although the crowd was there for Louis C.K., Barry did well with his jokes about New York, Mick Jagger’s email address and performing in Alabama, amongst many others.

He seemed to enjoy combating with hecklers. Perhaps calling them “hecklers” isn’t fair, they were more like guys in the audience yelling out stuff. As he went into a joke about giving food to the homeless, someone in the crowd yelled out “fuck that!” Barry gleefully made fun of the guy, which shut him up for a while. At some points there were multiple people yelling out, probably due to the alcohol served in the lobby before the show, but Barry coolly took care of them.

Last was, of course, the headliner Louis CK. Louis had been announcing the other acts from behind the curtain, so when it came time for him to perform he just walked out cold to loud applause. He had shaved off his beard for his work on Ricky Gervais’ ‘This Side of Truth’and right as he took the mic, the “fuck that!” guy yelled out asking why he cut it off. Because your mother asked me to, Louis replied, for when I am eating her out. Ok, good, he got that out of the way. There was more yelling out from the crowd later, but Louis easily shot down anything that came up. Witty remarks from the crowd included “you’re lucky!” (yes, that was the name of his show, sir) and questions about why HBO cancelled the show (these people must not have known that that he’s working on a new show for CBS). Someone yelled out “Billy Burr” at one point and Louis laughed. “You guys have such an institutional memory,” he said. “Ben Franklin bombed here in 1762!”

Louis filmed a new HBO special, “Chewed Up”, last month and its safe to assume that he performed some of that material Saturday night. His act mostly concerns his family but it is not “family-friendly”. Instead, he’s talks with piercing honesty about his relationship with his wife after two childbirths and the stress and struggle that come with those offspring. The anger and occasional resentment for his children that brews up has hit a nerve with audiences first with his HBO show “Lucky Louie” and then in his last stand-up special “Shameless” and there’s more of that here. The difference now is that the extraneous topics have been cut out- nothing similar to his duck vaginas, Awesome Possum t-shirts or waiting in line material from the past. Instead he talks about mostly himself: how’s he’s getting fatter, how he doesn’t really care about young women anymore as he gets older and his take on The N Word. The later is a far different viewpoint than fellow stand-up Chris Rock in his new act, who will also have a HBO stand-up special airing in the near future.

It all falls under the umbrella of a middle-aged guy that is really aware of where he is in his life, which seems to resonate with his audience. And while the way that he speaks of his daughters (aged 2 and 6) may be shocking to some, it rang true for that mostly middle-aged crowd at the Keswick Theater, when they weren’t yelling anything out, that is.

- Open mic Sour Grapes was recently profiled in the South Philly Review.

-There’s a new storytelling open mic at the Friendly Grounds Coffee House in Flemington, New Jersey called Louder Than Words which promises to be a place where “stand-up comedians have the opportunity to exercise a new ‘creative muscle’ beyond your current stand-up comedy act.”

- From May 7th-10th and 14th-18th, the Walking Fish Theatre will present FRESH FISH, a 10-minute play festival. “The Affair”, one of the six plays, is written by Meg Favreau of Meg & Rob and directed by Kristen Schier (The N Crowd, PHIT improv instructor).

- Speaking of Meg & Rob, in June they’ll be performing at Snubfest in Chicago.

- Stand-up comic Brendan Kennedy has an hour-long webcast show on BlogTV tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9PM EST. Chris Harrje is his guest.

- Sketch group Secret Pants have a neat new website at SecretPants.net

Bill Cosby helps up a Penn Relays runner

On April 18th, the stand-up group PEOPLE WERE OUTRAGED (Benny Michaels, Mike Rainey and Brenday Kennedy) had their first show at the Walking Fish Theatre and comedian Kevin Quigg files this report:

The Biggest Problem with PWO

The biggest problem with the Friday, April 18th, 2008 PWO show was that they were all likable. People Were Outraged certainly, but not enough.

The Walking Fish Theatre is a small, buried deep in Philly venue, but it was worth the drive. Despite the inner city address, parking was plentiful, and most of our cars were still there when we came out after the show.

The show started a bit late, but with Doogie Horner begging for us to wait one more minute for ten minutes, we were off.

First up, the host with the TV teen doctor’s first name, Doogie Horner. With a wide smile, the laid back, beatnik-poet-comedian kept things comfortable. Stories, jokes and poetry about long haul truckers presented a nice mix.

Then Brendan Kennedy took the stage. Young and sweaty and funny. With an ability to tell personal true life stories in a funny manner (a roast beef sandwich as a perfect consolation prize and unwilling room mates), he has a lot of potential that can’t be displayed in a five minute guest spot.

Talking to Brendan after the show he said that while his “style” does not work for him in real life, on stage it somehow translates into an act.

Jason Mackhouse was the bomb. He’s Jewish, you know. Elmo made a guest spot on Jason’s guest spot and the two red faces worked in harmony to create a wonderful puppet act. But Jason’s ventriloquism skills are like a woman with a bad queef—you can see the lips moving.

With touching stories about his mother and father (and I mean “touching”), Mike Rainey’s shotgun approach to comedy works well. Scattershot and deadly, he hits his targets and keeps moving. A small smile or laugh occasionally cracks the tough veneer, though, giving away his true nature and humor.

Benny Michaels is oddly charismatic. Even while thanking the hot women for their hotness (brunette in the front row in a nice dress, a short blonde in ripped jeans) he wasn’t creepy. OK, he was, but it worked. Telling stories from his life that I suspect aren’t really true (working with Muslims) and hitting the political commentary of the Bush family genitals, he scored big.

The comedians were able to perform without restrictions, or worry about a room manager chewing them out. They had the time on stage to allow the audience to get to know them, like them, and “get” the jokes.

Great venue, great show, great price.

FRIDAY

Jimmy Shubert is at Helium (2031 Sansom St.) with Mike Stankiewicz and Pat House. 8 & 10:30PM, $20-$25.

The N Crowd celebrate their three year anniversary with two hours of improv at The Actors Center (257 N. 3rd Street ). 8PM, $15.

Impressionist Frank Caliendo is at The Borgata Music Box. Local stand-up Steve Gerben opens. 8 (sold out) & 11PM, $39.50.

Or, you can put a piece of your tax rebate towards seeing Billy Crystal at The Borgata. 8PM, $225-$325.

Lester Bibbs is at the Laff House (221 South St.). 8:30 & 10:45PM, $15.

Chip Chantry and others are at Chuckles Comedy in Conshohocken. 9PM, $13.

Penn grad Aaron Karo is at The Trodadero (1003 Arch St.) 8PM, $30.

SATURDAY

Jimmy Shubert finishes his run at Helium (2031 Sansom St.) with Mike Stankiewicz and Pat House. 8 & 10:30PM, $25-$30.

ComedySportz short-form improv comedy at the Playground (2030 Sansom St.). 7:30 & 10PM, $15 ($12 for students and seniors with valid ID).

Corey Alexander and others will be at the Chuckles Comedy Club in Audubon. 9PM, $13.

Louis C.K. and Todd Barry are at the Keswick Theatre and its sold out so if you didn’t know about it already, no need to think about it now. Also, congrats to Louis on his new CBS comedy.

Impressionist Frank Caliendo ends his run at The Borgata Music Box. Local stand-up Steve Gerben opens. 7 & 10PM, $39.50, both shows sold out so pretend that we never mentioned it.

Billy Crystal again at The Borgata. 8PM, $225-$325.

Sketch group Comic Energy perform at Doc Watson’s Pub (216 S. 11th Street). 7PM, $10.

Lester Bibbs is at the Laff House (221 South St.) for three more shows, 8, 10 & 11:55PM, $15.

SUNDAY

A comedy-free day? Are we missing anything? Email us at comicvsaudience@gmail.com

When Greg Maughan moved to Philadelphia from Detroit in 2001, he figured there would an improv theater already in place. “I assumed that I was a total jerk kid that didn’t know anything and I would very shortly see great improv all over the place.” But this didn’t turn out to be case, so in 2005 he started the Philly Improv Theater (PHIT) with the help of some other Philly long-form improv instructors (Bobbi Block, Alexis Simpson and Matt Holmes). Now, PHIT organizes a monthly show run by The Ninjas at Fergie’s Pub, one week of comedy shows every month at the Shubin Theatre and will present over two weeks of improv at The Adrienne main stage during the Fringe Fest this year. And most recently, the theater is holding auditions for PHIT house teams Monday April 28 at the Arden Theatre (40 N. 2nd St.) from 5-10PM (with callbacks Monday May 5th).

How many active improv groups do you think there are in the city now?

Well, if you consider side projects and people doing random collaborations, it would probably be 25-30. But the total number of performers between improv and sketch would be just a little under 100 people. So it’s not an insignificant group.

So at this point does Philly need more shows or more talent?

I think actually at this point it’s neither; we’ve got great talent and always more showing up all the time in classes so talent isn’t a problem. Shows aren’t so much a problem, I think you see less shows just scattered around, you see more people just booking in here when they get offered slots, so the big thing we need is audience. And that’s been happening over the last couple of months too. This space [the Shubin] when it’s packed accommodates 60 people and we want to be in a space that’s bigger than that, probably between 80 and 100. And if we move into a space permanently with about four times as many shows, you’re going to need a lot more audience to support that. The biggest thing we need is a growing audience.

So why are you holding auditions for house teams now?

The reason why we’re doing auditions now is because we have this good talent base but actually a lot of them we are not seeing do much at the moment. There are a lot of really talented people, if I didn’t even put out an open casting call, I could probably get 8-10 great improvisers that aren’t doing anything at the moment. And really one of the big parts of the auditions is that we know we have those people, so we’ll hold auditions to see who comes out of the woodwork, to see who walks in that is amazing that we’ve never heard of. And the response for the auditions so far has been pretty good, we’ve been talking about maybe having to add a day or extending the hours of the auditions. And the auditions are just as much a tool for finding new talent as they are a tool for getting the word out.

Where will these house teams perform?

They’ll rehearse for a few months and we’ll see how the casts gel, but the plan is to have all of the groups have a premiere here at the Shubin before the end of the year and they’ll probably play the Fringe Festival. For the Fringe, the PHIT has booked out the main stage at the Adrienne which is this beautiful space. Every single show there is going to be improv for the two and a half weeks of Fringe. Then if someone wants to do a show in Northern Liberties then we can do a show there. And they’ll also tour, we’ll submit them to festivals. Miami, Charleston, Gainesville, I’m thinking of all of the sunny places because the weather is getting nice. Chicago, Toronto, obviously Del Close in New York. Anyone that wants us can have us; we want them to spread the word about the theater across the country.

You’re talking about different cities, on the PHIT website you talk about teaching a “Philly-style” of improv. What would that be?

Well that’s what we’re working on. Alexis Simpson [interim artistic director] and I talk about that a lot because there are things that are unique about the way improv is done in each city. In New York, the Upright Citizens Brigade grows out of Del Close and “The Game” of the scene which is this concept that the UCB teaches almost exclusively. “The Game” is basically that in the first interactions of the scene you can find a pattern established between the two actors that you can explore and heighten to crazy, ridiculous absurdity. Someone might trip and fall coming on stage and that can be the game of the scene because now for the rest of that scene the dynamic is that the person that didn’t fall sets the other person up so that they can fall down and do physical comedy.

So like callbacks?

Yeah, sort of like mini-callbacks that are happening constantly. If the idea is that one character is swindling the other character, you will just keep allowing yourself to be swindled and the person will just keep swindling more and more ridiculously and outlandishly. That’s “The Game”.

So what is Philly’s style like?

We’re not sure yet, it kind of just emerges. I think Philly is really obsessed with formats: the styles, the setups, the behind-the-scenes stuff, how the performance rolls out. So the classic structure for a performance is called “The Harold”. It’s basically a behind-the-scenes thing that let’s all of the improvisers know that “oh, we’re going to do ‘The Harold’,” they have a sense of what the flow of the show is going to be. They don’t know how it’s going to go, but they know how many characters are going to different scenes and when scenes will come back and will try to tie together. Philly groups are really obsessed with creating their own format and playing it here in Philly, which I find really interesting.

The format for the house team that you will be directing is “The Scramble.” Some people may not know what these formats mean, so can you explain “The Scramble”?

“The Scramble” is a form that Joe Bill, one of the best improv teachers in the world, came up with. It’s different because it’s kind of like watching a couple of shows at once. You’ll see one scene come out and start on stage and then you might see two other people come out and start a completely different scene but in the same stage space. You might have people talking over each other and you might have two actors on the sides of the stage playing different scenes and one actor in the middle of the stage who is in both scenes but is switching between the two scenes. So the thing about it that’s cool is that one of the things about improv is “don’t think” and you can’t when you do this form because often you are stepping into a scene that is already in progress but you have no idea what it is about. Similarly, for the audience they can pick and choose what they want to focus in on. And the third thing that I really like about it is that when there are all of these things happening on stage at once, you get weird callbacks that are totally subconscious from the actors. So the actors are involved in their own scenes and something they overhear peripherally comes into their scene. And the actors have no idea and the audience sees it, and that’s really cool.

Can you explain the improv-to-script production for the Fringe Fest?

Mike Connor and Brandon Libby developed these two characters called The Hopper Brothers that they decided to do a Fringe musical around. The two characters are sort of these lovable morons who are home-schooled by their grandmother and are now a folk rock duo for kids. So they came up with an outline for a show and we cast a bunch of improvisers and we went off to this huge 40-bunk cabin in the woods for a weekend. We hung out non-stop the whole time and just over and over again ran through the scenarios and improvised the characters and did all kinds of acting exercises. Basically we ran the scenario 6-7 times with everyone doing different takes on the characters each time and then Brandon and Mike picked out the best parts and transcribed it into a script. So it was literally improve into a script. It’s going to be this hour and a half show called “The Hoppers Hit The Road” that travels with The Hopper Brothers as they go from Glenside, Pennsylvania to the Ocean City Music Pier in search of love and a record contract. There’s a bunch of characters and crazy music that will hopefully be a big hit at the Fringe.

You also perform in a few groups: Industrial and Holmes/Maughan (with Matt Holmes of Rare Bird Show). Which do you like more: organizing shows or performing in them?

Well, when the shows go well you always enjoy performing in them. I will admit I’m my worst critic so that doesn’t happen very much. I think I go 7-8 months between what I would call good shows and part of that is that I’m not the funniest person I know and I’m not the best or one of the best improvisers that I know. But I’m ok and I can get away with it, but I can’t always have a good show. In the day-to-day there’s a lot of joy that comes with running a theater though. I’m able to get a group of people that had a really cool thing going but not a lot of direction towards really getting momentum behind the effort to build the scene, to have a theater, to be here [at the Shubin] one week a month has been really awesome. And it’s getting to the point where it’s getting to be too much for me to handle and a lot of people are stepping in to take it over. It’s my hope that in a couple of years the theater will be able to run without me being involved all that much. Instead of being some crazy pet project that I’m doing a million hours a week, it’ll be a real thing that stands on its own and has a community of people around it. So that part of it is really exciting.

All across the country, comedy shows are rising out of the concrete:

Shecky Magazine writes about a Denver reporter who is putting together a book about “indie comedy”. The reporter, John Wenzel, recently wrote about the Denver collective Wrist Deep Productions who are seeing some great results:

…rowdy crowds have always been part of Tuesdays at the Squire. The open-mic contest typically draws 100 people to the cramped space, making it the bar’s busiest night.

And it doesn’t even start until 11:15 p.m.

but Wenzel makes sure to note that it didn’t happen overnight:

They paid their dues at nearly every comedy club, bar and music venue in town. After nine months of poor turnout, the Squire open-mic nights finally clicked and began drawing large crowds. That was almost four years ago.

In the District of Columbia (a.k.a. “D.C.”), the folks over at DCcomedy4now.com put on a bi-weekly stand-up show, “Top Shelf”.

Meanwhile, the Village Voice profiles Klaus Kinski and BrooklynVegan.com’s new comedy show “Rock and ROFL” that combines sorta-under-the-radar NYC comics (Reggie Watts, Kumail Nanjiani, Sean O’Connor, etc.) with music (John Vanderslice, etc.).

And finally, in San Francisco, SFStandup.com presents a bunch of shows along with a new weekly show “Something People Like” with Chad Lehrman and Justin Lamb.

We’ll keep you updated on what Philadelphia does next…

Want more of The Banana (aka Brody Stevens)? Here’s Zach on his show, Brody Stevens Interview Challenge:

DIE ACTOR DIE – It’s a comedy show!

Hosted by Don Montrey

Featuring:
Danny Ozark
Brendan Kennedy
Animosity Pierre
The Rickety Stares
Pat House

The Khyber (56 S. 2nd Street), 8PM, 5

RELATED:
An interview with Brendan Kennedy
Video of past Animosity Pierre live performances here and here.

- Producer Bob Sumner is auditioning comedians for the next season of “Def Comedy Jam” and they’ll be in Philadelphia at the Laff House on May 28th and June 4th. Curious comics should contact the Laff House for more details.

- Levy’s Comedy Club in Levittown will begin hosting an weekly open mic on Wednesdays starting April 30th. Not much in the way of details yet, maybe you should give them a call?

- In February, Helium hosted the Purina Pet Comedy Challenge. Entrants had to do “pet-inspired” comedy. Cheesy, yes, but the winners received cash prizes and a chance to compete in the finals in St. Louis in May. From the Philadelphia competition, Chris Coccia took first and Steve Gerben (recent stand-up winner of Helium’s college competition) took second. They are on their way to St. Louis (not currently, we’d imagine they will leave a little before the competition date of May 3rd, but that isn’t confirmed). There are two more additional slots in the finals that are left up to the public to vote for at the website above. From Philadelphia, Alex House (currently ranked #1) and Laurence Mullaney (ranked #8) are eligible.

- On April 28th from 5-10PM, the Philly Improv Theater will hold open auditions for PHIT improv house teams. They’ll take place at the Arden Theatre and is open to anyone no matter what your level of experience. More details at the website above.