NEW YORK STYLE COMEDY RIGHT AT HOME
By Steve Siegel | ||
It's about 9 p.m. on a Tuesday and things are buzzing at the downtown club. Its soft lighting and exposed brick walls provide a cozy atmosphere as drinks and half-price burgers are served to folks at tables surrounding a low stage. The lights dim, conversations die down, and the host of the evening's comedy show takes the microphone to warm up the crowd. The roomful of 50 or so -- not bad for a Tuesday night -- chuckles politely at Ryan Hill's jokes involving TurboTax and e-filing (It's April 15 -- Tax Day). Another line goes over much better: ''If you can say the alphabet backwards as a child you're called gifted; if you can do that as an adult you're called sober.'' His Lehigh Valley traffic report routine gets big laughs. Yes, this is the Lehigh Valley, more specifically the High Gravity Lounge at the Allentown Brew Works. They may have closed the factories down in Allentown, but stand-up comedy is alive and well here. Hill began Tickle Me Tuesdays earlier this year. At the Blue Monkey club in North Catasauqua, Marc Juretus has had a monthly third Friday comedy night for about two years. The Brew Works and the Blue Monkey have the only regularly running comedy shows in the Lehigh Valley. Wisecrackers, a comedy chain owned by central Pennsylvanian comedian Scott Bruce, left the Ramada Inn in Whitehall a couple of years ago, but has several other venues, including one in Palmerton. Tickle Me Tuesdays consists of a 15-minute opener by Hill, a series of newer comics who get about 5 minutes each, a 20-minute guest act, and a 30-minute headliner. ''I aim for 8 to 10 comics, and try to put a few first-timers in each show. The audience has been cool with that,'' Hill says. On this particular Tuesday, eight other acts follow Hill. They range from first-time performer Jay Epstein of Allentown to pros like Marc Juretus, special guest Alex House of Easton and headliner Steve Bix, a 30-year comedy veteran and head of the Valley-based Comedy Blast agency. ''It's been working out great for both the comedians and ourselves,'' says Michael Fegley, a co-owner of the Brew Works. ''The reason it's on Tuesdays is that comedians typically work Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at clubs in New York and Philadelphia. This gives them the opportunity to work out new material here. And it's great for us since we can get some great names.'' Hill, who grew up in Jim Thorpe and now lives in Bethlehem, was once the morning show producer for Ken and Kitty in the Morning on CAT Country 96FM radio. He worked open-mike nights as a comedian at places like the Funhouse in Bethlehem and the Tally Ho in Allentown while working as a traffic reporter for Metro Networks. ''It was very hard -- most of the people wanted to just sit back and hear music, not a comedian,'' says Hill. ''It wasn't, after all, like George Carlin was stopping in to tell a couple of jokes.'' Hill got the idea for the comedy show in 2006. Laid off from his radio job, he started to pick up part-time gigs, one of them as a waiter at the Bethlehem Brew Works, owned by the Fegley brothers, Michael and Jeff. ''The first time I was at the Allentown Brew Works and saw the room upstairs, I was amazed. It was the best room possible for a comedy club without building something myself. I just had to do something there,'' Hill says. ''So I took the initiative and made a proposal to the Fegleys. I would do all the bookings, and make it easy for them to accept the risk.'' Hill was not without experience as a stand-up. He did about six months straight as the regular comic at the Blue Monkey in Catasauqua, and spent summers performing at New York clubs on ''Industry Nights.'' ''They're basically an excuse to have an amateur comic on the stage -- basically a step above an open mike,'' he says. ''We really lucked out,'' says Fegley. ''We had the venue here -- actually comedians always refer to it as a room -- and then a guy like Ryan comes up to us saying, 'Hey, how would you like to do comedy nights?' I said to him, that sounds great. Write me a proposal and we'll talk about it.'' Hill came back a couple of days later with a detailed, five-page plan. Says Fegley, ''I looked at it and thought, 'My god, this can really work out.''' One of the Tax Day performers was New Yorker Adam Yenser, originally from Macungie, who has appeared on NBC's ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien.'' I never understood the deal with Ethiopian restaurants,'' Yenser quipped on stage. ''I thought the whole thing about Ethiopian cuisine was that there isn't any.'' Easton-based comedian Alex House was the evening's special guest. House has been an East Coast semifinalist on NBC's ''Last Comic Standing,'' and is currently a finalist in Purina's national comedy competition ''Pet Comedy Challenge.'' House, a Kutztown University grad, headlined the Feb. 19 Tickle Me Tuesdays show. ''I was shocked to see there was a local place here that was packed on a Tuesday night -- I couldn't have been happier,'' she says. ''Now I don't have to truck into New York to work out my material. It's been doing really well, and to me that says they want comedy here.'' House says Valley audiences are no different from any others, and does the same act here she'd do in, say, the Stress Factory in New Brunswick or Helium in Philadelphia. Her Tuesday night act was an hysterical mix of jokes on motherhood, drinking during pregnancy and mechanical breast pumps. The Blue Monkey, with a format similar to Tickle Me Tuesdays, brings in some big-name comedians from the New York clubs, as well as allowing local wanabes to take a shot. ''I'll let them go up and do their 5 minutes. I'll flash them with my cell phone when it's time to get off,'' says Juretus. This month the Blue Monkey featured Kevin Bartini, who's played the Improv and Governors, as well as ''Saturday Night Live.'' In May, the headliner will be Otto and George, an outrageous ventriloquist act that's been on The Playboy Channel and in the film ''The Aristocrats.'' Juretus has been a regular opening act for Raymond the Amish Comic, and is a regular on WZZO's Bearman and Keith show. ''I love opening for Raymond,'' says Juretus. ''It's cool except when people ask me questions about the Amish, like I got a freakin' clue -- do I look Amish? Could you picture a brother driving one of those buggies? We'd throw a set of rims on it, tint the windows and give the horse some gold teeth just to keep it real.'' Juretus cautions not to take Valley audiences lightly. ''There's a lot of comics with egos who come to the Monkey thinking it's going to be an easier crowd for whatever reason. But I've seen some good comics -- and I know they've got good stuff -- come off stage and say man, those guys are tough,'' he says. I try to provide the best comedy experience I can. It's a nice, safe area and a good room. The best thing for me is when I hear people talk about some funny joke at my show weeks later and still get a laugh out of it -- you know you made a mark on their life.'' Hill shares that same pride. ''Allentown is a great place to tap into an industry I always knew was here, and it's great to be at least a small part in the downtown's changeover.'' |
