AGGIELIFE
by, April 12,2000
THE BATTALION
Page 3
The art of laughter
exas A&M students talk about professional comedy outlets available in College Station
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GABRIEL RUENES/The Battalion
BY JUAN LOYA
The Battalion
F or all would-be stand-up comedi
ans, here’s a free joke to get start
ed: Cover half of face with sheet of
paper, open mouth wide as if exclaiming, “Are
you ready for some football?” and remain still
in that position. Instant Pat Green impression.
Of course, jokes are just the first step on
the road to professional comedy. As some Ag
gies have discovered, finding an audience to
view the slapstick spectacle of stand-up is
more than half the effort involved.
Lance Lunsford, a junior political sci
ence major, has been doing stand-up come
dy for a year and a half, and has found his
own ways to perform in a community where
stand-up is scarce.
“I had a friend in the band Kid Fantastic,
and I asked them iff could kill time for them
before their set,” Lunsford said. “So a lot of
my first opportunities were just telling jokes
before the band went on to get the crowd
warmed up.
“I just read that the best way to get started
is to get as much stage time as possible. You
have to make your own opportunities.”
The outlets for comedy in Bryan-College
Station are few, and potential comedians do
not have the old starting ground most profes
sionals have used to perfect their craft: the
open mike.
“Austin has a multitude of places to do
open mikes,” Lunsford said. Indeed, most of
the metropolitan areas in Texas have places to
showcase amateur comedy; the Laff Stop in
Houston, for instance, offers an open mike
every Monday night, where any brave soul
can approach the microphone and attempt to
make the crowd laugh.
MSC Town Hall offers its Coffeehouse
open mike in Rumours deli, where musicians,
poets and comedians have an opportunity to
display their talent. Lunsford said that he has
attended Coffeehouse only once and had a less
than receptive audience.
“The people there were ready for poetry, with
their berets and laptop computers,”- Lunsford
said. “And here I am. Joke Boy, trying to get my
comedy going. It wasn’t a good mix.”
Faced with comedy prospects numbering nil,
Lunsford decided to organize his own comedy
showcase for College Station. Lunsford has start
ed accumulating comics to participate in what he
plans to possibly be a six-person comedy troupe
and the beginning of a continuing scene in the lo
cal nightlife.
“My plan is to get this kicked off and start this
as an alternative to the usual things to do in this
town,” Lunsford said. “1 know a lot of people are
getting sick of seeing Pat Green eveiy weekend,
and I’d like to bring something else to College
Station. Something people can bring a date to and
just have a good time.”
Lunsford has approached members of Freudi
an Slip, Texas A&M’s improvisational comedy
group, and hopes more comedians will answer
the call to arms.
N ick Cemoch, director of Freudian Slip and a
junior theater arts major, said that while improv
and stand-up are different forms of comedy, both
have a potential audience in the community.
“If it’s good, yeah, either kind can find an audi
ence,” Cemoch said. “Improv adds a theatrical el
ement to comedy, and that’s
what I like most about it.”
Both forms also have
different methods of deal
ing with the heckler, a com
mon comedy nemesis.
Since the majority of
Freudian Slip’s show en
courages audience partici
pation, hecklers do not usu
ally pose too much of a
problem, Cemoch said.
Lunsford, on the other
hand, has sometimes used
the heckler to his advantage,
even to the point of supply
ing the jeerer himself.
“Sometimes I tell my
friends to heckle,” Lunsford
said. “It just makes the crowd
go nuts when somebody’s
out there yelling ‘you suck.’”
Perhaps a more common problem for begin
ning comedians is not getting the audience to stop
heckling, but to listen in the first place.
“The plus side of doing comedy here is that
it’s probably easier to get a small following than
it would be in a larger city,” Cemoch said, “but ‘
it’s also harder if you have mostly people who are
just coming to the club and not necessarily to see .
you perform.”
“It’s good to be at a party and be recognized
and complimented,” Lunsford said.
“One night after my act this huge guy stopped •
me like he wanted to kick my ass or something.
But instead he just looked at me and said, ‘That
right there, man. You were real good.’ And that’s ,
a really good feeling, to hear that people enjoyed
your comedy.”
Both Lunsford and Freudian Slip will be par
ticipating in Town Hall’s Variety Show program,
Lunsford as a performer and the troupe as hosts.
The program is on Friday, as part of Parent’s .
Weekend activities.
“I knew some people who went to it last year
and I had done some comedy before,” Lunsford
said. “It seemed like a good outlet to perform and
find a bigger audience.”
Lunsford said that he will probably gear his
material toward parents and going away to
school, but finding material for comedy is some-
g
SUSAN REDDING/Tm: Battalion
Members of Freudian Slip (Lto R) Doug Newell, Casey Wilson,
Julia Smith, Nick Cernoch and Dominic Nuosce.
thing he never has a problem doing.
“There’s a lot of funny things that we forget
about when we’re walking around all pissed off
at the world,” Lunsford said. “Sometimes we just
need to chill out and appreciate the humor.”
Tuesday
:iety: There will be a
speaker from a surrcrtl
le time and location at
ters: Learn public spei
Will be in Rudder at
an for location. For
intact Laura at 695-28331
ts Association: There
in Rudder 707 at 7
te Students’ Associ#
be a reception andbooki
o Portalison hisbookl
p.m. at Barnes and
i/ednesday
e Students’ Association’
i and book reading hi
his book “CrowdingOut
?s and Noble.
Association Student! 1
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iter rm 204.
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Come learn what your government does
not want you to know about UFOs. . .
Using the Freedom ot Information Act, several UFO research organizations
have recently obtained once-secret government documents concerning
“flying saucers". These, and other newly-declassified documents reveal that
UFOs do exist and, further, indicate that the U.S. Government has been
engaged in a massive cover-up designed to keep the tacts from the public.
UFOs - THE HIDDEN HISTORY”
A slide-tape program and lecture by Robert Hastings
April 13,2000
Rudder Theater
7 pm
Presented by MSC Current Issues
Awareness