April 24, 2008

Highlight Clip From Tuesday's Chicago Underground Comedy

Dan and I put together an audition showcase for the DC Comedy Fest, at the behest of festival producer and awesome chick Blaire Postman, and our show was Tuesday night. I assaulted our audience with extra candy (well, I mean, I didn't pelt them with it, I just distributed more than usual). Our audience's favorites: Nerds, Starburst, and Tootsie Pops.

Everyone was at the top of their game. Lots of nerves but lots of excitement, and lots of kick ass comedy from Adam Burke, Fay Canale, Brendan McGowan, Dan Telfer, Carrie Callahan, Chad Briggs, Steve O. Harvey, Team Submarine, Brady Novak, and Nick Vatterott. If you're a huge comedy nerd, you can watch each individual set on my YouTube account. Here's the highlight clip:




I talked a lot with Blaire, who's the festival's executive producer and also the manager for Kumail, Jared Logan, and lots of other comedians I admire and/or adore. "Is there anything you don't do in Chicago comedy?" she asked me. "I don't make any money," I laughed. She seems to have a genuine fondness and appreciation for the up and coming comedians and loves to spot the talented ones early. We chatted a lot about What's So Great About Chicago Stand-Up, a topic I have so much enthusiasm for that the conversation that could have extended well into the night.

Side note: I have an introverted nerd's fierce love for editing and I especially love taking the time to pick through the footage, grab the right jokes, and make tiny but important editing choices (smoothing out the sound in transitions, and so on) to make my comedians look their very best, but I am officially sick of my own music now. Damn that jangly banjo. I'm writing a new bit of bumper music right now just so I can hear something different next time around.

Now I have to finish writing a profile of an ob/gyn in Nebraska. Gotta pay the bills, ya know.

2 comments:

Dan Telfer said...

That song sound hauntingly similar to the Comedy Central half-hour stand-up theme.

Elizabeth McQuern said...

OMG, I had totally forgotten that I heard a snippet of that once, and they used a very similar sounding horn bit. Jerks must also be lazing out and using Garage Band.

I'm working on new stuff. Maybe a new little jingle with every batch of editing.

By the way, Dan, you are officially becoming a confident rock star stand-up these days. Just wanted to say that publicly.