Posts Tagged “Karen Bergreen”

Dean Edwards Packs ‘Em In at Gotham Comedy Club

Dean Edwards is one of those rare guys who starts out strong and gets even stronger the longer he’s on stage. When most comics are winding down, he’s just getting started. Last night at Gotham, the room was so packed they almost had to put strangers at my table! (LOL) That’s packed!

Headliner Dean Edwards with Gotham owner Chris Mazzilli at the gorgeous Gotham Comedy Club!

And Dean greeted me warmly when I came in which made it even more special. Then he told me had had my book ” Make ‘Em Laugh” and that made it even better, and then he topped that by telling me he was in Barry Katz’s office out in LA and when he walked in Barry had my book on his desk!

Barry is one of the co-creators of Last Comic Standing and one of the top comedy managers in the biz. Last July in Montreal we did a “two-hug interview” for my Comedy Matters TV, which you can see right here. A “two-hug” interview by the way, is a very rare occurrence! (LOL) This may be the only one in existence!

Dean and I will always have a special moment that we shared because I was standing with him in Montreal during the Just for Laughs Festival when he found out he had gotten SNL. It was very exciting for me, so I can only imagine how HE felt! (LOL)

Dean Edwards and Jeffrey Gurian from Comedy Matters TV outside the showroom at Gotham Comedy Club!

Karen Bergreen was the MC and Karen is always funny, and really knows how to warm up an audience! She mines her relationship with her two little boys for material, and she imitates them perfectly! Not that I know them, but for all intents and purposes, it sounds like she imitates them perfectly!

MC/comic Karen Bergreen onstage at Gotham Comedy Club!

Like when they were riding in a cab where the driver was wearing a turban, and her little six year old son asked, ” Mommy, why is a genie driving our taxi?” That is hysterical! I’m sure the driver had no idea what that meant either! (LOL)

And when her older 8 year old son told her something he liked about her that was kind of a backhanded compliment she answered with, “And the only think I like about you more than your little brother is that your school day is longer!”

Harris Stanton came up next and he too is always a crowd pleaser. He was also very close to Patrice Oneal and was on Patrice’s last big show when he taped “Elephant in the Room” down at the Skirball Theatre. I used to see him a lot when I was hanging out at CB’s Comedy Club down on Macdougal Street!

Anyway he totally brought his A-game to the stage, and talked about how New York has changed him since he was a polite young man who came here from down South. Now he raced a woman to a seat on the subway!

Harris Stanton onstage, opening for Dean Edwards at Gotham Comedy Club!

And I like when he does a bit about how people shouldn’t complain if they get hurt being someplace they’re not supposed to be, and he directed this remark mostly to white people. Like if a guy gets bit by a shark. Harris is like, “Where were you when it happened? In the ocean? Well you see that’s the problem. You were in the shark’s home. If you got bit by a shark in the supermarket, I’d feel bad for you, but if you go into the ocean where you don’t belong, you gotta expect that to happen.

Or when guys get lost climbing a mountain. Another white guy thing! You don’t read about Black guys getting lost in an avalanche, or being attacked by a shark while surfing. Only white guys do stuff like that!

Rich Francese always has great lines and he was up next. He said he thought his wife was cheating on him, because the other day he caught her belittling another man! That’s really funny!

Rich “The Bouncer” Francese killing it onstage at Gotham Comedy Club!

He also said he didn’t get the concept of an ‘intervention”. At an intervention the alcoholic or drug addict is surrounded by his parents, relatives and loved ones. Aren’t those the people who made you drink and take drugs in the first place?”

Dean’s audience was waiting for him, and he hit the stage to resounding applause. He talked about lots of different things. Like people who read the NY Times always want you to know they read the NY Times! “Like, … I saw this article in the NY Times, …”

Personally the NY Times makes me nervous. Especially the Sunday edition. I always feel like I’m gonna have to cut out articles and summarize them for the next day as “Current Events” homework! I still hate Sundays because of that memory!

If you take a moment to watch this you’ll see a little film I made some years ago as part of The “Men Who” Series, about men who do very unusual things. It’s called “Men Who Dance In Traffic With The Sunday Edition of the NY Times.” That’s about all it’s good for! (LOL)

In talking about women, Dean says he wants a woman so fine that when she enters a room, she has her own theme music, and it plays automatically!

He did a masterful piece which got an applause break about being the only Black guy on a flight to Russia, where they thought he was Kobe Bryant, and he imitated the Russian accent like it was a Grinch song backwards.

Dean Edwards showing lots of expression during his sold out headlining gig at Gotham!

Accents and impressions are a real strongpoint for Dean, and his Eddie Murphy is only surpassed by his Denzel Washington which he used to close the show the night I saw him.

In talking about Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney Kardashian he said that never in this country have Black men been so supportive of the KKK! And that Kim Kardashian has taken out more Black men than Sickle Cell Anemia! That is HYSTERICAL!

On comparing his Associates Degree education to that of his wife who is a professional, with a Post-Graduate degree, he said an associates degree is like a receipt that you were in the building, … nothing more! Nothing to brag about!

He even does impressions of animals! When he described Beyonce as being so fine she was like a stallion, he pranced around the stage clip-clopping like a horse.

But ending on introducing his wife to Denzel Washington was the piece-de-resistance, that proves what an “artiste” Dean Edwards is! Plus he’s the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet!

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Andy Engel Offers Free Comedy Workshops at Gotham

Every so often Andy Engel, the Director of New Talent at Gotham Comedy Club and the founder of Manhattan Comedy School holds a free comedy workshop, and gets industry people and well known comics to come out and address the crowd of potential comics and comedy writers. It’s always a very informative day.

A rare photo of Andy Engel onstage addressing the crowd at Gotham Comedy Club, for his complimentary comedy workshop!.

This one was on a Sunday afternoon at 12:30 and Ben Rosen from Gawker, was the host. He was very funny.

Wali Collins was up first. Wali is great, and always reliably funny, and it was kind of like family day at Gotham because several comics brought family members with them. I had the pleasure of meeting Wali’s beautiful wife Iralma, who was really sweet. It’s nice when people can share things like that together.

He introduced me to her by telling her how I supported him with an article about his clothing line Ya Nevano, when it first came out. It’s also nice when people remember things like that!

Wali had some great advice for the aspiring comics in the crowd. One thing that stuck with me was that an old rule said that your closing joke should be a strong joke. Wali made the point that every one of your jokes should be able to be a closing joke, and to try and think of them that way. When you don’t, you’re not doing justice to your other jokes. Very interesting point of view.

Ha also advised not to engage hecklers! Especially new comics who don’t have the stage time or experience to know how to handle that! Ignoring them is always the best way to go, otherwise you can lose control of your show. Just point them out so the rest of the audience can hate them, and go on doing what you do!

Jimmy Faiila tried out a new prop during his set, his 3 year old son Lincoln, named after the 16th President I’m sure, because Jimmy is very patriotic, and would definitely do something like that! (LOL)

It was funny because Jimmy couldn’t get a babysitter so he brought his son with him, and when they introduced Jimmy and brought him to the stage, he left his son with one of the women to hold, and Lincoln started crying so loud that Jimmy came and took him on stage with him, and did his act with Lincoln holding on to him. It was very cute, but I don’t think he’d want to do that on a regular basis.

Although I thought I heard him say maybe he should have another child so he could see how it felt doing his act holding a newborn infant! (JK!)

Jimmy Failla onstage holding his new prop, 3 year old son Lincoln, making his stage debut at Gotham! It was hysterical, and may set a new precedent!

What was funny, (besides Jimmy’s jokes! LOL) was that he didn’t alter any of the language in his act because he was holding his young son, so if Lincoln grows up saying words he shouldn’t be saying, we all know where he got it from! That fateful day on stage at Gotham!

The comics performed first, and then addressed the audience and shared some nuggets of wisdom. Jimmy said something interesting that I never really thought about before. He said that many times the MC’s of shows are less experienced, because they are needed to stay for the entire show, which means they don’t have other spots scheduled anywhere else.

I always thought the other way, that MC’s had to be very experienced, since I think it’s hard to keep a show going, and you have to have more material than the average comic who just comes up and does his regular length set. I found that interesting.

Another rare photo of Karen Bergreen, Harrison Greenbaum, and Ben Rosen at Andy Engel’s comedy workshop at Gotham! Look closely! You may never see these three people together again!

The last two performers were also very good, Harrison Greenbaum, and Karen Bergreen who often hosts shows at Gotham, and Harrison geared his remarks to jokewriting. All in all it was a very informative day, and I bet that Andy got some new students for his classes!

I also got to meet a new young comic named Wednesday Suarez, and I’m hoping she’s funny because it’s one of the best stage names for comedy I ever heard! How could you not like a girl named Wednesday Suarez???

You can see an earlier post on Andy Engel’s industry comedy workshops at http://wp.me/p1pHIm-IQ

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