A new group in the area is looking to bring on the laughs while empowering audience members at the same time. Powell River Comedy Community wants to make standup comedy a feasible, enjoyable option for residents.
“We’re just trying to reach out to people and show them that comedy isn’t impossible, that everyone can do it,” said founder Ionatan Waisgluss.
The community put on its first show last month at The HUB 101. In Waisgluss’s words, it was a raging success. Around 50 people attended and the crowd, said Waisgluss, was super receptive. “We had their attention the whole night.”
The second show took place on the last day of Sea Fair weekend and was just as successful as the first.
Besides formal comedy nights, the group integrates informal practice. In the days before a show, would-be comedians meet to throw around ideas. Waisgluss calls it a “joke jam.”
“You start with a rough joke and then you start sculpting it down based on how people react to it,” he explained.
All participation is encouraged however, no matter how unpracticed. At the last event, one participant froze on stage because he didn’t have any material. “People still clapped for him,” said Waisgluss. “We told him he did better than anyone who didn’t go on stage.”
For a lot of performers, the two July shows were their first time doing standup. One was Dan Adaszynski, who said his act went well. “I knew I would be nervous, so I made it part of my act,” he said. “I actually structured the set around pretending I was talking to [Waisgluss] so that I wouldn’t feel alone on stage.”
Others find different ways to deal with stage fright. Many go through the process of writing out their script word-for-word and then trashing it. “But at least it’s there,” said Adaszynski, laughing.
Kevin Cook, who has been doing standup since he was 19 and headlined the group’s first show, uses mental techniques to calm himself. “It’s just a feeling in the body,” he explained. “You can call it fear, you can call it enthusiasm: it’s your choice.”
Waisgluss said performing in a smaller city is harder and easier at the same time. “It’s harder because there’s less anonymity,” he said, “but it’s easier because the community is more supportive.”
Members of the group see comedy as more than just a way to get laughs.
“I find it’s quite an exposé,” said Adaszynski. “If you say something and everyone laughs at it, they suddenly realize that they feel pretty similarly about this topic.” Sometimes, he continued, moments like this can be surprising for people who didn’t realize they would laugh at subjects so on the edge.
Waisgluss believes comedy opens the discussion for serious topics. “You open up people’s defenses, more so than debate,” he said. “When people are expecting to open up, you can get into some pretty serious topics.”
Toeing the line, however, is always a risk. For most, it’s about reading the audience.
“If they’re offended and looking at you in shock, than it’s time to stop,” Adaszynski laughed. A quick recovery is essential. “You just keep moving on like it was all planned.”
Inspiration for jokes comes from a variety of places. Mostly, it’s personal stories, said Cook. “You take inspiration from the crazy things that happen around you, or the experiences you have. You take a kind-of comical story, and then extrapolate and embellish.”
The best part of the comedy community for Waisgluss is how it affects others. After the first show, people commented on the group’s Facebook page saying it had inspired them to try.
“That’s the biggest compliment that can be made, that something is inspiring to people, that it makes them want to try something they otherwise wouldn’t have considered,” said Waisgluss.
For more information, interested readers can reach the group through Facebook, or at [email protected].
