Need something fun to do on NYE? Check out the B52s cover band Private Idaho in Brisbane!
A writer mentioned me in an article about the local Scranton comedy scene after I performed at an open mike at a bar called "Bar" in Plains, PA.
Jed Haywood delivered his jokes in a deadpan style, accompanied by his own glockenspiel playing and Greg Gover’s strummed acoustic guitar. A few yards away from the stage, Sheldon Parker sat at a bar table, scribbling notes. He noticed some familiar faces in the crowd at The Bar’s weekly comedy night, so he wanted to add some new jokes to his headlining act.
“You mess with the bull, you get the horns,” Haywood said. “I wonder how many other animals they tried that out with first? You mess with the turtle, you get the shell. You mess with the hamster, you get the whiskers. You mess with Greg Gover … you get herpes.”
The audience, seated at tables in the performance room away from the bar, erupted with laughther, as did Grover, still strumming.
That closed the set for Haywood — one of five comedians to perform last Thursday — and Gover, the evening’s host, asks for another round of applause for Haywood before he brings Parker, the emcee, back on stage.
Every week, comics sign up to test their material on attentive crowds, hoping to work on their delivery, timing and content. Some are first-timers. Others have developed a following in the year that The Bar has been hosting comedy, and others still do gigs on the professional circuit, like the Wisecrackers clubs in the area and in Allentown and State College. Most are from Northeastern Pa., and performers at the Plains Twp. bar the past few Thursdays have included Candy Churilla, a Scranton native now based in California who appeared on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” and Jerry “The Nasty Pollock” Gabriel, another California resident who is from Wilkes-Barre and is a regular on the comedy club circuit.
NEPA might not be known as a hotbed of comedy, but there are many talented, up-and-coming performers, more established comics and stages of different sizes all over the region where fans can go to get in on the laughs.
“The local scene, I think, is just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger,” said Scott Bruce, a veteran comedian who runs the Wisecrackers clubs.
The goal for many of the rising comics is to play clubs like Wisecrackers, which might seem like an overnight process to some fans and comedians. But, as a rule, it takes almost 15 years to make it to headliner status, Bruce said. That, everyone interviewed for this story said, can only come from performing, performing and performing some more.
“I’ve done the Kirby and played Lackawanna County Stadium opening for Beatlemania, but I’ve also played a corner-bar-slash-pig roast in Falls and a sportsmen convention in Long Island in this rundown place,” said Joe Ohrin, a Wilkes-Barre comedian with more than 15 years of professional experience. “I’ve played in people’s garages. There’s not a 5-star comedy club in every town, and if there is, you’re probably not going to be in those.”
TAKING LAUGHS SERIOUSLY
The comedy nights at The Bar are an extension of a similar weekly series previously held at Donahue’s Hourglass bar in Wilkes-Barre which was started by local comedian Mike Grady. Gover, who is not a comedian but has been to comedy clubs all over the country as a fan, was impressed with the level of talent he first witnessed at Donahue’s and now The Bar.
“Wilkes-Barre blows people away, as far as comedy is concerned,” Gover said. “There are just such creative people here; it’s a really cool sort of subculture.”
As comedians made their way to Gover’s sign-up sheet last Thursday, Parker explained that they make everyone, even the more established performers, take the early slot “every couple of months, because no one really wants to do that.” Each comedian, he said, gets about five to seven minutes on stage, but “If you’re rollin’, you don’t want to stop them.”
Parker, who also goes by Lamonze Parker and often performs paid gigs around the area and in bigger markets, echoed Bruce and Ohrin’s sentiments that the only way to get noticed — and get better — is to perform in front of crowds as much as humanly possible. He sees that drive in some of the comedians that keep coming back to The Bar.
“A lot of the comedians are getting better in the sense that they want to get better,” said Parker.
Another way comedians can hone their skills is by attending classes or workshops. Bruce teaches one at Wisecrackers.
“It’s hard to teach people to be funny,” said Parker, who has taken workshops. “You’re funny or you’re not funny. You learn structure and how to get up there and perform.”
Bruce reiterated that even the more talented comedians have to work through the ranks, from smaller rooms to larger comedy clubs. And if they make it to the clubs, they’re greeted with another ladder to climb — and most never make it to the top.
“We’re obviously the professional level, so the comedians that we use basically fall into three categories,” Bruce said. “There are the emcee/hosts, the features and the headliners. To jump from a newbie to a headliner is nearly impossible; you’d have to be one hell of a talent.”
That said, Bruce is happy to see local comedians, may of whom took his classes, rising through the ranks.
“This kind of sounds a bit full of myself, so I apologize for that, but some of the kids that have taken my classes are moving right along,” said Bruce. “I have some very solid features and emcees that have all come out of my classes.” Some of these include Grady, who started the comedy nights at Donahue’s, C.J. Hood, who performs frequently at The Bar, including last Thursday’s comedy night, and Brad Todd.
‘THE ONLY PLACE TO PRACTICE’
There are some natural similarities between the musician and comedian vocations. Both attempt to work their way up from smaller shows to larger rooms, maybe opening for some bigger names along the way.
But there are some important differences. Ohrin, who also performs as a singer/songwriter and as a John Lennon tribute act, noted that music, especially in bars and clubs, is often treated as background entertainment, with patrons more focused on drinking and conversing.
“What I like about comedy is that the audience is there, and 90 to 95 percent of the time they’re watching and looking and listening; they’re there to enjoy the show,” he said. “They came to look at you and laugh. Music is a little trickier.”
Another distinction between the two is the style of preparation.
“You can go to your basement and learn to paint, you can become a drummer in your garage,” Bruce noted. “You can only learn stand-up comedy on stage. It’s literally the only place to practice. So the most important thing for these guys is to find stag time, no matter how they find it and where they find it. During the comedy boom, which was in the ’80s, I had moved to New York City, and I would average 15 to 20 shows a week. Believe me, you learn something.”
NEPA’S FUNNY FUTURE
Ohrin, who has voiced Lennon and Willie Nelson on the popular former MTV Claymation series “Celebrity Death Match,” continues to perform whenever he can, including Wednesday, Nov. 25 at Bentley’s in Ashley. So does Bruce, who will take the stage long with locals and fellow show headliners Pat Godwin and Mike Stankiewicz at Genetti’s in Hazleton on Friday, Nov. 27 and at Wisecrackers in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday, Nov. 28.
Wisecrackers, which will enjoy its 10th anniversary next year, has its local clubs at the Clarion Hotel in Scranton and next to Genetti’s in Wilkes-Barre; it will also regularly host shows at the Hazleton Genetti’s in the winter. The Wilkes-Barre location, which has been open sporadically, will have shows every weekend from January 8 through the end of March.
The Bar will celebrate the first anniversary of its comedy nights next week, and a new club, Clam Diggers, recently opened inside the Days Inn in Dickson City.
In Northeastern Pa., the comedy scene is flourishing.
“The club business is going to be around, I think, forever,” Bruce said. “The one thing I’ve learned over the years is people will always need comedy. It’s just one of those things — you can go out for a night and feel good.
“Like any business, it’s cyclical. We have our busy season, which is winter, and our slow season, which is summer. … We went through a couple lean years, and oddly enough, as the economy is getting bad, the comedy business goes up. It was the same way during the ’30s; the three big things were movies, vaudeville and radio comedy.”
Parker, who in 2006 took a one-week class at the American Comedy Institute in New York, is committed to making it to the next level and also developing The Bar into a stronger room for comedy. He has an apartment in New York, but he doesn’t plan on moving there — the idea is to establish himself there and come back to Wilkes-Barre. Again, the idea is to perform as much as possible, and there’s no better proving ground than New York.
“You’re gonna struggle, because there are a million people out there that think they can do what you do better than you,” he said.
During a week spent in the city in September, Parker did a string of shows. He worked on his act. And he also saw a lot of other comedians. And he learned something that more laughing fans in NEPA might agree with very soon.
“They are no better than anybody in Wilkes-Barre,” he said of the New York performers.
Comedy nights at The Bar (279 S. River St., Plains Twp.),
every Thursday, 10 p.m. No cover. Info: 570.825.3255.
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