Monday, September 28, 2009

Seattle International Comedy Competition

In it’s 30th year the Seattle International Comedy Competition is a great venue for adding more comedy to your life. It starts this year on Nov 4 and ends on Nov 29th and runs at various locations around Seattle. Basically it’s a month of comedy performances, in the form of competitions, until one final winner is chosen.

I discovered it two years ago, attended the semi-finals at Edmonds Center for the Arts, laughed for about 2 – 3 hours, left with a sore mouth and a belly full of laughter. Plenty of crude stuff, but the whole range of humor too. Some were doing the ethnic routine. One older man was doing a “seniors” routine. Something about leaving a glass around and someone will plop their teeth into it. Lots of young guys were doing the dating routine. A couple of teachers were doing the classroom routine, informing us they were educators by day, comedians by night.

At our venue it was down to 16 performers, each doing 5 minutes. The whole show began with a scruffy warm-up comedian, a veteran in the culture of comedy, and ended with an over-the-top seasoned performer. This last guy had me on that dangerous just-couldn’t-stop roll of laughter. He was “in the zone”. He had us so hooked, he could say anything and we would laugh. All this, while the judges did their judging. The evening ended with five finalists.

My all time favorite made it to the finals. He was one of those who you could just look at and laugh. Laughter was all over his face. Not the intellectual type, like Jerry Seinfeld. But the ever-ready to laugh type. I caught the spirit and everything he said left me in stitches.

This year I’m off to the event at the Kirkland Performance Center the day after Thanksgiving. Burn off the holiday calories in grand style! Hope to see you there.

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