from the Back of the Room

Sorry, I shouldn’t yell, but you’re missing all the action over at my new digs!

This blog has moved to http://www.third-beat.com — and you’ve already missed out on my early review of the new Ricky Gervais film The Invention Of Lying, plus info on the NY Comedy Festival panels at the Paley Centre (they have Colbert Report and Jimmy Fallon writers this year!).

So vamoose, go, get outta here! You have catching up to do!

Edit your feeds n’ bookmarks, because Back of the Room has moved!

Visit www.third-beat.com for details.

In a lot of Canadian cities, this is the biggest comedy event of the year. Just For Laughs rarely disappoints with their annual fall tour, putting headlining comics into a “gala” type setting in large theatres across the country. As has come to be the standard, the lineup is solid:

Sugar Sammy (host)
Pete Correale
Godfrey
Steve Patterson (Maritimes only)
Danny Bhoy (Maritimes only)
Tommy Tiernan (Ontario & west only)

Pretty great when you consider, for instance, under what other circumstances Godfrey would ever play Saskatoon.

I saw Tiernan on the Tour a few years ago, and wished for a longer set from him (he did about 20-25 minutes, if I recall correctly). It sounds like that wish will come true, as all dates from Hamilton onward feature just 4 names on the bill. Giving him 40+ minutes would be the best decision the JFL folks could make. The man can certainly sprint, but he’s a hundred times better in a marathon.

Tickets (except Toronto) are under $50, available from Ticketmaster. Presales are on now (sorry, I don’t have the password!).

The dates:

Mon-19-Oct
St. John’s, NL
Arts & Culture Centre

Tues-20-Oct
Glace Bay, NS
Savoy Theatre

Thurs-22-Oct
Moncton, NB
Capitol Theatre

Fri-23-Oct
Charlottetown, PEI
Confederation Centre for the Arts

Sat-24-Oct
Halifax, NS
Rebecca Cohn Auditorium – Dalhousie Arts Centre

Sun-25-Oct
Saint John, NB
Imperial Theatre

Wed-28-Oct
Hamilton, ON
Hamilton Place

Thurs-29-Oct
Toronto, ON
Massey Hall

Fri-30-Oct
Ottawa, ON
National Arts Centre

Sun-01-Nov
London, ON
Centennial Hall

Tues-03-Nov
Winnipeg, MB
Centennial Concert Hall

Wed-04-Nov
Regina, SK
Conexus Arts Centre

Thu-05-Nov
Saskatoon, SK
TCU Place

Fri-06-Nov
Calgary, AB
Stampede Corral

Sun-08-Nov
Edmonton, AB
Winspear Centre

Tues-10-Nov
Red Deer, AB
Memorial Centre

Thurs-12-Nov
Surrey, BC
Bell Performing Arts Centre

Fri-13-Nov
Victoria, BC
McPherson Theatre

Sat-14-Nov
Vancouver, BC
The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts

Sun-15-Nov
Kelowna, BC
Kelowna Community Theatre

The New Yorker Festival is culture for cool people (according to those of us who think our new Banana Republic v-neck sweater is “cool”). In the past, it has served up some mouth-watering comedy content. I was prepared to cringe while looking over the newly released schedule – via an email to their “exclusive” mailing list full of people who are just going to turn around and blog it) since I’m unable to attend this year.

How will the New Yorker Festival top itself from last year’s offering of the amazing Political Humor panel with Jim Downey, Allison Silverman, and Todd Hanson (which I wrote about here on The Apiary, and Stephen Colbert interviewed by Ariel Levy (which I wrote about here on this very blog)? The short answer, at least in comedy-nerd terms, is that it isn’t.

While I’d kill to see Rachael Maddow interviewed by Levy this year, and would jump at the chance to see a couple of Wainrights Wainwrights (Rufus and Loudon III), most of the purely comedic discussions are likely to be lost within talks about film and acting.

Of note:

-Tyler Perry interviewed by Henry Finder

-Character Actors
With Christine Baranski, Joan Cusack, Luis Guzmán, Richard Kind, and John Turturro.
Moderated by Nancy Franklin.

-Jason Schwartzman talks with Richard Brody

-Shouts & Murmurs Live
With Jenny Allen, Woody Allen, Noah Baumbach, Yoni Brenner, Ian Frazier,
Patricia Marx, David Owen, Amy Ozols, Simon Rich, Paul Rudnick, George Saunders, Paul Simms, and Calvin Trillin. Hosted by David Remnick.

If you live in New York, by all means jump at these and the Festival’s other offerings. Everything the New Yorker puts on is top-notch. But as someone who is forced to miss it, for my particular tastes, there is thankfully no dagger currently piercing my heart.

More info will be posted on newyorker.com/festival. The schedule gets “released” (ha) September 14, and tickets go on sale September 18. I can’t help with tickets, but my wicked copy & paste skills have taken care of the former, after the jump.

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Jason Mewes (he’d be the “Jay” in Jay & Silent Bob) passed through Toronto last night for An Intimate Evening with Jason Mewes at the Bloor Cinema. It was a smaller than expected crowd – likely not more than 250 – and Toronto, you missed a good time.

He had no prepared material, doing straight q&a for 90 minutes, with a quick break to watch trailers for his upcoming films Shoot the Hero and Repo. But the questions posed by the mix of comic book geeks and stoners provided more than enough of a springboard for Mewes to pontificate on everything from marriage (he hates being away from his wife), to Kevin Smith, (“I’m always going to be in that fat fuck’s shadow, no matter what I do!”), to his rock bottom drug abuse (pot, crack, and snorting up to 8×80mgs of Oxycontin a day).

But the man who slept with Kimberly Stewart and Nicole Richie, proudly recounted laying his balls in his sleeping friend’s eye sockets, and had no trouble answering the question of which superhero he’d rather of sex with (Superman over Batman, definitely) proved to be a supremely classy guy, hanging out and doing the photo/autograph thing with anyone who wanted it (which was pretty much everyone).

Mewes heads to Edmonton this weekend to host the Sonic Boom Festival, and also hinted that he may have reason to visit Canada again soon for periods of 2-3 months. Mysterious!

As a Torontonian, my only complaint about what’s being offered up to me comedy-wise in the coming month is how to schedule in minor annoyances like keeping up with laundry, doing dishes, and sleep.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), while not being heavy on the comedy fare, does allow us a few delicious morsels by way of the world premiere of the Ricky Gervais film The Invention of Lying on September 14 (he’ll be present for it), as well as An Afternoon With Chris Rock that same day.

The schedule for the Toronto Improv Festival is now live, so that takes care of my life from Sept 17-27.

And those who couldn’t score great tickets for Louis CK in October? He’s just added a third show, September 24 (which is more of a first show, as he correctly points out on his blog). For the record: Louis has sold about 3,000 seats so far for his Toronto shows so far, and will hit 4,500 if (when) this last one sells out. 9 months ago, he did 4 shows here, selling a total of 1,600 tickets. So yeah, things are going quite nicely for him.

Within driving distance of the city you’ve got your Joan Rivers and your Russell Peters.

And there’s all the regular happenings at Comedy Bar (I highly recommend Sunday Night Live), Absolute, Yuk’s, and the brand new Second City mainstage show Shut Up And Show Us Your Tweets (I would pay to sit in on the show-naming brainstorming sessions).

I can’t even begin to think about October, with David Cross, the JFL Comedy Tour, and a ton more.

I’m exhausted just thinking about it all. Happy, but exhaused.

The crowds at this year’s DCM seemed larger than ever before, and it was never so obvious as when I arrived at the UCBT on Sunday afternoon. 3 years ago, I arrived at 2pm and easily got a seat in the front row. This year? I arrived at 2pm and it was already standing-room only.

The second thing that hit me was the smell of… fermentation? It had only been 12 hours since I’d last experienced it, but how quickly we forget. I took a stroll through the backstage, which was free of all the insanity I’d fought my way through for a free beer the night (er… morning?) before. The theme of the day: standing water! There was lots of it back there, even though the concrete maze had been well-cleaned by the volunteers.

Unfortunately, the stage hadn’t been cleaned quite as well from the previous night’s Match Game watermelon fiasco, which is where I ended up having to sit for over. five. hours. with. no. back. support. in order to get good photos. I could stretch during that precious moment of blackout time between shows, and peel myself off the watermellon-y floor for a few seconds, but holy hell, I’m OLD. I felt this for a solid 48 hours afterwards.

Sticky buttcheeks aside, Sunday afternoon always presents my favourite shows of Marathon.

Scheer-McBrayer was genius as always. I can’t get enough of Paul and Jack, and could have watched this for another hour easily. Those who got to see the extended show at FIT were very fortunate.

Let’s Have a Ball is, in my opinion, the best regular show at UCBT. I was glad to see Becky Drysdale in this edition, but Laura Krafft and Christina Gausas were very missed.

Jason Mantzoukas filled in for Rob Riggle alongside Rob Huebel in Delta Force 2: Operation Stranglehold. Which makes perfect sense, since Huebel filled in for Riggle alongside Mantzoukas in Friday night’s Mantziggle (you follow?). The two ended up spitting some water at each other, which the improv-savvy audience heightened by instantly providing dozens more bottles of water. I obviously lack photos of this, as camera gear and litres of water do not mix. But what DOES mix is water and stage filth. While Huebel ran in place for about 3 minutes post-waterfight, he worked up what I can only describe as a “murky froth” on the surface of the stage. Yum!

Although a note to future volunteers: mopping the puddles of stage filth away from the middle of the stage doesn’t mean mopping it towards those of us sitting on the floor. Thanks.

Mantzoukas did apologize for the “wet t-shirt contest” when he returned for First Date, sans Jessica St. Clair. He had an audience volunteer be his “date”, and Pam Victor did a fantastic job of keeping things just awkward enough, while being open to whatever direction Manzoukas nudged her in. She blogged about the experience here.

Can anyone get enough Baby Wants Candy? Featuring 2 of my all-time favourite improvisors, Peter Gwinn and Becky Drysdale (the rest are no slouches either — Jack McBrayer, Thomas Middleditch, etc) BWC continually stands up as the best musical improv show I’ve ever seen. Try as I might to catch their semi-regular performances at the Barrow Street Theatre while I’m in town, I failed through the previous 52 weeks, so this was a very welcome fix. This particular story took place on a submarine, and almost immediately one of Gwinn’s castmates bestowed the profession of “ballet dancer” upon him. He replied pointedly that there would be no dancing, because “the floors of this submarine are very wet!” Loved it all. Was it as memorable as last year’s adventure at the Kit Kat Kaboodle? Not quite, but I don’t think anything could be!

Mmmmm… fooood! Walsh & Roberts actually cooked something appetizing this year! Matt and Ian put together what was essentially an elaborate quesadilla, complete with chicken and roasted veggies, and had no trouble finding audience volunteers to sample it. Maybe the biggest selling point was their admission that they couldn’t find soap backstage, and instead washed their hands with Comet. Owen Burke stole the show, as always, by playing the perfect lowbrow idiot stage manager while Matt and Ian berated him from the Moe/Larry perspectives.

Last year, I skipped the Sunday night Asssscat to catch a flight that never got off the ground (the first of three, thanks Air Canada). I did attend this year, but frankly I was burned out and not engaged by improv happening 50 feet away from me in a giant space at FIT. I can’t remember much other than the audience interactions, including a monologue from one girl who got fired from her temp job for opening a secret file and painting a unicorn and falling asleep (I’m not sure we ever got to the bottom of what that meant, to be honest). I do wish I’d taken advantage of a “free” evening in NYC to do something a little more productive (like nap, before my friend convinced me to go for Korean food after midnight when I had a 5:30am wake-up call) and will likely skip Asssscat next year.

Assorted additional thoughts from DCMXI:

-I had the privilege of attending special DCM workshops with Joe Wengert, Anthony King, and Chris Gethard. All I can say is that these guys confirmed to me why UCB’s training program is so highly regarded (in case I was in danger of forgetting?). I was initially intimidated to be in classes alongside a bunch of 501 grads (I only have my 201 from UCB) but it’s amazing how comfortable you can get in a class led by someone really passionate about what they’re teaching. Simply awesome.

-The crowds in past years were getting out of control, but now just are out of control. I read one report that someone waited 3 hours to get into the theatre in time for Lazy Man on Saturday evening, and didn’t make it in. My opinion: they should consider moving the theatre cleanings to prime times (seriously, like 11pm on Saturday). It may not be popular, but it would be fair to people waiting in line all evening.

-In a related issue, I mentioned this elsewhere, but I think it’s poor form for the lineup changes to not be reflected on the website. Riggle dropped out, Ed Helms missed the Friday show, Jessica St. Clair wasn’t in First Date… yet all their names still appeared on the schedule. And it wasn’t because of an inability to change it, because Mailer-Daemon was added just a few days before DCM. When audiences are forced to make difficult scheduling choices, doesn’t it seem fair to give them accurate information?

And since I’m on a complaining streak, this would be a good time for you to bring up photography.

“Hey Shar, where can I find all these photos you keep yakking about?”

Why thanks for asking. Here’s the situation:

Sample photos & lengthy explanation after the jump.

Make no mistake: sitting in the UCB Theatre for 7.5 hours straight on the Saturday night of the Del Close Marathon is a physical effort, especially for someone who normally has to be talked into leaving her apartment on a Saturday night. How those people who stayed through the entire Marathon did it, I have no idea.

I was drenched in sweat almost immediately. I drank 2 bottles of fruit smoothies and lots of water, and was still horribly dehydrated by the end of it. Holding a 2-pound weight infront of my face the entire time didn’t help the comfort level. At 30, I certainly felt I was at the older end of the late-night audience spectrum, I imagine because most people older than me have died in similar conditions at past Marathons, their corpses hidden behind the drywall (which would explain the smell).

One of my highlights Saturday night was seeing Improvised Shakespeare for the first time. I’d been meaning to for ages, and it never seemed to work out for me. Their following is totally justified.

Ian Roberts didn’t disappoint with Lazy Man. The hour flew by. The highlight was him reluctantly telling a story that had been an in-joke between he and his brother since they were kids, about Ian getting away with swearing during a family road trip, and his brother trying failing to get him in trouble. The story was told reluctantly because Mr. and Mrs. Roberts were sitting just feet away from their son, and Ian worried that the story won’t be special anymore now that they know about it. It was an oddly personal moment, something I didn’t expect to see during the Saturday night of DCM.

I was pleased to see Ed Helms perform in what would be his only show of Marathon, Seth & Ed’s Puppet Talk Show. Having left their “puppet theatre” back in LA, Helms and Seth Morris came out on stage with what appeared to be paper tablecloths covering their heads. Damn them, thought I with the camera. At this point, it would have been about 95 degrees in the theatre, plus the lights shining on them, so it only took about a minute before Helms commented on the heat and the fact that the makeshift human backdrops may have been a bad idea. I’d often wanted to yell “take it off!” at Helms, so I gave into that impulse and they subsequently removed their little paper barriers. Gentlemen, my camera thanks you.

Their celebrity guest, Sarah Silverman, also returned to the stage for the Benson Interruption (along with Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer). I sure have been getting my fill of Sarah lately, between this and Toronto in July! I definitely am not complaining. She was hilarious and interesting and WOW is that girl photogenic. The Comic’s Comic has video of her appearance with Seth & Ed, which is worth the watch.

After Doug Benson & friends, the true late-night insanity started. Smartest Panel of Experts (hilarious), Cracked Out (was NOT expecting this to turn into a bad rave!), Psychic Improv (strange change of pace), and then the coup de grasse…

In prior years, I had not stayed late enough for Match Game ‘76. It’s been described to me as “epic”, and I missed out on last year’s Brooke Shields appearance and subsequent bullshit retelling of it in the NY Daily News. I was determined and committed to seeing it this year, and I suppose it was worth sticking around about an hour past my “fed up” point.

I was in the absolute wrong place for viewing much of the Match Game insanity, but it was crazy and enjoyable and fun to catch glimpses of Jack McBrayer getting shit upon. But it’s definitely a frat-boy thing. Yes, let’s smash a watermelon on the stage… not caring that the girls sitting on the stage infront of you may have a differing opinion on how much fun that is. (Having photographed a lot of variety/sketch shows, this a bit of a sore point for me, as I’ve actually had asshole performers purposely try to get prop food/beverage on my camera gear. So this whole disregard-for-comfort-and-property thing gets me kinda pissy.)

I must admit I don’t remember half of what I witnessed during Match Game ‘76 — I couldn’t even properly answer my friend who asked me who all was in it — so I pray video surfaces at some point. Though I’m sure many of the performs pray that it doesn’t.

It was 2:30 am. I had made it as far as I had promised myself I would. After a run backstage to chug a Miller Lite (I was that desperate for liquids) I went back to the hotel and showered with my clothes on, as they had been rendered too disgusting to even contaminate my luggage with. And it was off to sleep and get ready to do it again the following afternoon.

1 photo from each show included after the jump.

View more photos

To tide you all over while I continue editing my Del Close Marathon photos (why does Lightroom arbitrarily stop creating XMP files halfway through a batch?!?!), take a listen to this fantastic interview with Stephen Colbert on the Sirius radio show Stand Up with Pete Dominick. Pete is the warm-up guy for the Colbert Report, and I always enjoy his crowd work when I go to tapings (I also saw him work a very tired, fed up, and very distracted crowd at a Last Comic Standing taping, and successfully holding onto that group was quite an impressive feat).

Colbert has often talked about the improv-inspired “yes and” theory of life, most famously in his speech at Knox College. It turns out, it’s the same agreement instinct that made him accept the offer to do the show in Iraq for a week (“an improvisor would say yes”).

Right-click and save-as

OR

Listen on Pete’s website

This is the second time he’s appeared on Pete’s radio show, and easily the better of the two (he kept slipping into character the first time around). He hasn’t done a lengthy interview since returning, and you really get a sense of what an impact performing for the troops had on him personally.

So enjoy this, while I spend another evening cursing out Adobe.