A Quote by Brian Regan
Even though I have fond feelings for comedy clubs, I enjoy the focus you get in a theater. Comedy clubs are a different animal. People are being served nachos and there's a blender going off in the background.
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What they call 'alt-comedy' now is basically what comedy was like in the '80s. People tried different things, and everybody went to the clubs; there was no other place. Then somehow, the clubs became infiltrated by Dice Clay and Carrot Top types.
Horror is like comedy. Woody Allen's comedy is going to be very different from Ben Stiller's comedy which is going to be different from Adam Sandler's comedy which is going to be different from Judd Apatow's comedy. They're all comedy, but they're all very different types and you can enjoy all of them. Horror is the same way.
The problem with a lot of comedy clubs is not that they are a comedy club; it's just the cheesy way they're presenting themselves. That's why a lot of people have a problem with them. If you're a relatively unknown comedian, you can play at a comedy club, you might play to hundreds of people every night. But if you try to make a concert event out of it, and try to play a rock club or something, where you might play to 10 people or no people. And the flipside of that is, that's also a great thing, to play to people who are your fans. Some people are too hard on the comedy clubs.
I'd say a lot of black comics were forced to do the black comedy circuit. I'd go into black comedy clubs and see what they're going through, which is different because they're almost made to be in another world.
My intent when I moved to L.A. was to get in good with the comedy clubs and, eventually, try to break into Comedy Central and have my half hour special.
I would love to be able to play anywhere, but to me the sweet spot is clubs and theaters, just because I feel like you lean in to tell a joke. You don't back up. Comedy lives in that area. I've played amphitheaters, big clubs, and pool halls, and the most fun rooms hold anywhere from 500 to 2,000 people. That intimacy is where comedy really lives.
Over the years, I managed to develop this comedy career, went from opening act to headliner at comedy clubs, to playing concert halls, and had an off-Broadway show with 'Sleepwalk With Me.'
You start in bars and then restaurants, then you want to get into comedy clubs where you feature, then you headline, and once you sell out clubs you're into theaters. I've been able to get there, and it's cool to do that.
Being in a smaller environment - sometimes I like that. As a comic, we start off in comedy clubs, and there are people right at your feet, right on top of you. And I realize, as I get older, I miss that sometimes.
The way I view comedy clubs is, people are drinking, they're ordering food, they're out for the night, and there's also a person onstage talking. And with the theater, they came to the theater, and they're waiting to hear what you say. So you'd better have something to say.
Comedy clubs were something that came to pass in the '80s, but toward the end of that, in the early '90s, people started doing comedy again in alternative spaces.
From 1987 to 1992, I was on the road for 40 weeks a year playing comedy clubs, and that was during the 'comedy boom.'
As the weeks went on, I realized there was an important role comedy would play in healing the tragedies of September 11. Comedy can help people cope, and many people were coming to the clubs to laugh out the stress.
At first, there was a separation of clubs and sketch comedy. Now there's all kinds of comedy, making us one big happy family.
On a practical level, I'm uncomfortable at comedy clubs because there are so many shitty dude comics who have made my life miserable. If I go to a comedy club and I look around, I don't know which of the dudes lining the wall told me that I was too fat to get raped. It makes me nauseous. But that was a couple years ago, and meanwhile, comedy has changed a lot.
It used to be that in comedy you had to play the clubs and work your way up, but now, before you do the clubs, you can put something up on the Internet. It's public access times a million.
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