COMEDY TONIGHTHOW THE ATL’S IMPROV & STANDUP SCENES ARE PUTTING ATLANTA ON THE COMEDY MAP By Brad Binkley Atlanta’s collective laugh is starting to get a little louder, because the city’s comedy scene is growing like it never has before. There was a time when local comedic talents could only perform sporadically due to a lack of quality venues, but lately an influx of comedy clubs, open mic nights, improv troupes and sketch shows have turned Atlanta into a city that can tickle your funny bone seven nights a week. Where once The Punchline was the only reputable comedy club on the scene, these days the city’s standup comics are roaming around like a pack of funny wolves from an old Tex Avery cartoon. While The Punchline still draws top nationally-known talent, comedy clubs such as the Funny Farm, Laughing Skull Lounge and Uptown Comedy Corner are also bringing in big names who have performed on Comedy Central, HBO, and all the late-night talk shows. After serving as opening acts at those clubs for years, local comedians are now building their own buzz, bringing their hilarious talent to unexpected venues such as the Star Bar (which hosts a regular Open Mic Night), Smith’s Olde Bar (the Seriously Funny show), Relapse Theatre, Apache Café and, starting in September, even the Cheyenne Grill sports bar. To put some icing on this comedy cake, the Laughing Skull Lounge recently hosted the first annual Laughing Skull Festival. The man behind this festival, Marshall Chiles (owner of the Laughing Skull Lounge as well as the Funny Farm), sees Atlanta gradually gaining national respect in the industry. “The industry sees Atlanta as one of the emerging comedy markets, and I’ve received great interest from managers and agents interested in coming to the next Laughing Skull Festival in hopes of finding the next breakout star.” If you’ve seen any comedy shows around town lately, you know it won’t be hard to find potential stars in Atlanta, with local comedians already popping up on radio, TV and film. And when you have a local pool of talent richer than the pitching in the Atlanta Braves farm system, why not showcase it? “Some of our best-selling shows are the Marshall Chiles & Friends shows. I polled the audience and found that they loved the idea of seeing ten local comedians on each show,” Chiles adds. But the standup scene isn’t the only area in which ATL comedy is starting to get some national love. The improv comedy scene here has spread like wildfire over the years since Laughing Matters, Dad’s Garage and Whole World Theatre helped introduce the city to the form. Atlanta audiences have totally embraced the spontaneous style based on audience suggestions, and now new theatres, troupes and talents are sprouting up like kudzu in the summertime. Relapse Theatre, located on 14th St by Georgia Tech, has emerged as a major player on the scene, housing JaCKPie Theatre (which is rooted n Chicago-style long-form improv), 2 Girls 3 Eyes, Automatic Improv, Cineprov and other teams. PushPush Theatre, the Village Theatre and the Basement Theatre are all steadily building local followings, while The EARL’s monthly Catch 23 shows bring together the best local improvisers for a friendly competition. Annual festivals such as Georgia Tech’s Black Box Comedy Festival and Dad’s Garage’s World Domination Improv Tournament (both in September) even bring major players from the U.S., Canada and even Europe to Hotlanta for some seriously funny spontaneous silliness. A lot of people in the local community think this is just a drop in the bucket of Atlanta’s potential as a major improv city. Josh Warren, co-founder of the Village Theatre and star of Atom.com’s cop show parody M’larky, says, “Atlanta resembles Chicago in the ‘60s, right before it became the improv beacon we know today. The more we all work together, the more successful the improv community as a whole will be. Join us or be destroyed!” Warren adds with a laugh. Atlanta’s growth has not gone unnoticed: Chicago’s powerhouse Second City– the improv and sketch comedy mecca that has produced myriad Saturday Night Live alumni– is entering its third year of joining with the Alliance Theatre to cast local improvisers in an Atlanta-based revue. Second City cast member and JaCKPie Theatre improviser Amy Roeder also sees parallels between the Atlanta and Chicago scenes.
“Atlanta hosts festivals, just like Chicago. Atlanta has audiences that support improvisation, just like Chicago. Atlanta has talented performers, just like Chicago. What we don’t have is the wind chill factor, and I think we’re all just fine with that,” Roeder says with a smile. The Atlanta comedy scene has come an awfully long way in the last 10 years, and the relentless momentum and bumper crop of rising talent should only serve to ensure that it keeps growing. As the city’s collective laugh continues getting louder, more and more comedians, improvisers and audience members are being drawn in the scene’s whirlwind of activity. So get out and see a show tonight, so you can say you saw these Steve Carells, Tina Feys and Dane Cooks-in-the-making before they’re Gone With The Wind. COMEDY LINKS
SOUTHERN MAN
JEFF FOXWORTHY ON THE INSPIRATION & EVOLUTION OF HIS BLUE COLLAR COMEDY STYLE
by Brad Binkley Jeff Foxworthy first became a household name when his wildly popular “You Might Be A Redneck If” series sold more than 4 million copies in the early ‘90s. Known for his Southern humor and his affiliation with highly successful Blue Collar Comedy tour, Foxworthy is now also a best-selling author, game show host, radio personality, and family man whose insightful writing style has drawn comparison to Mark Twain. Foxworthy masterfully explores the humor in everyday situations, human nature and family interactions with a brilliant simplicity that has made him the best selling comedy-recording artist of all time. His ability to get inside people’s heads keeps audiences laughing and saying, “Oh my God, I’ve done that.” The laid-back Foxworthy hasn’t slowed down one bit. He is set to release his new Children’s book, HIDE!!!, this Fall. He just finished filming 170 episodes for the fifth season of Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? And he will be teaming up once again with pals Bill Engvail and Larry the Cable Guy to go on tour with fresh standup comedy material, bringing the laughs to Phillips Arena on January 29th. We recently caught up with Foxworthy as he geared up for the release of HIDE!!! I hear you’ve written a new children’s book. Yeah, it’s called HIDE!!!, with three exclamation points. Why? I don’t know. That’s just the way in my mind it was supposed to look. What is the book about? A neighborhood game of hide and go seek. All these kids in the neighborhood are playing. There is a little poem about everything. And you have to find them on the page (hidden kids) You also have to find like 15 more things on the page. It doesn’t matter if it was my generation or yours, every kid loves to play hide and go seek. What is it like writing for kids? I try to always make myself be like five or six years old because the things that entertain teenagers or adults aren’t necessarily the things little kids find fascinating. I really thought it would be easy but it ended up being one of the hardest things I’ve ever written. I ended up throwing away a lot more than I kept. I tried to think, “What did I like when I was that age?” What is your joke writing process? I always just kind of assume that if I think it, or if my wife says it, or if my kids do it, then surely we are not the only ones. And I kind of trust that. I remember one time, 25 years ago, I was writing a set for Johnny Carson and I said to my wife, “Is this funny?” I said, “I don’t know how women can lie down on the couch and take a nap without sticking their hand in the front of their pants.” And she says, “Well, you may be the only person that does that.” And I thought surely I’m not the only one who takes a nap and sticks his hand in the top of his pants. I went on the Tonight Show and told that joke and everyone laughed. And every woman elbowed the guy next to her. My theory was that men have a sleep button located just below our naval. We can’t really take a nap unless we have our hand on that button. Did you try that joke for the first time on the Tonight Show? You always have to write new stuff for that show and I had timed the set at a couple of clubs. When you’re doing it on that format, you’re like, “Oh God, this better be funny.” You couldn’t really afford to have one that died out there and thankfully it didn’t. What is your pre-show ritual like? What do you do to get ready to get on stage? The guy you see on stage is pretty much the guy I am in real life. So it’s not like I have to get into a character. I’m usually thinking about how am I going to start off and then I’m trying to figure out what kind of audience it is. Is it single people? Married people? People with kids? What kind of stuff do they want to talk about? You go through and kind of try to figure out who you are talking to. The audience you have at a six o clock show may be totally different than the one at the nine o’clock show. Who were your comedic inspirations as a kid? When I was a kid I would save my money and buy comedy records. Back then it was Bill Cosby and Flip Wilson. Then later on Richard Pryor and George Carlin. I would memorize them and I would go to school and do them. I was always getting in trouble for it. I remember my principal just sitting there staring at me going “What do you think you are, a comedian? The first time I ever played the Fox Theatre someone brought me a note backstage. It was from my high school principal and in the note it said, “I cannot believe I am shelling out money to listen to the same kind of junk I use to try to put a stop to.” You’ve done a lot of TV over the years. Which TV projects have you enjoyed the most? Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader has been fun. If you’d asked me 15 years ago if I would ever host a game show, I would’ve laughed. The only thing I’ve ever done that I didn’t enjoy doing very much was the sitcom in the mid ‘90s. They didn’t really let me have a hand in it. Seven or eight years ago we did Blue Collar TV, which was a sketch show, and I loved that. It was one of those things you could walk in and say, “Hey, I got an idea: I want to be a truck driver that weighs 300 pounds and has big Elvis sideburns.” And they were like, “Ok, let’s do it.” That was fun. I think the thing that made the Blue Collar Comedy thing work was that we were always having fun together. I think people saw that. How did you and the other Blue Collar Comedy guys get together? Ten or 11 years ago I was reading an article describing the Kings of Comedy and how it was a show for the urban hip audience. I called Engvall and said, “That leaves a lot of people out! There are a lot of people that either aren’t urban or aren’t hip. We ought to do one for everyone else!” He laughed and said, “What would you call it?” I said, “We’ll call it the Blue Collar tour.” We got Larry and Ron, and we went on the road. The response was so big and we were having so much fun that we ended up doing that first tour for three years. What was it like when you started doing comedy? When I first started Leno was the king of the road comics and he was generous enough that he would sit around at the Waffle House at night and give advice. I remember him saying your goal should be to write 45 minutes a year. You won’t be able to do it but that should be your goal. I was a road warrior, for the first 8 years. I did over 500 shows a year. So I was doing it every night and some times multiple times a night. Where does the core of your material come from? I have a theory that I think everyone thinks the thoughts comics have. I think comics grab them and polish them, then show them to people. And that’s that laugh you hear when people go, “Oh my god, I’ve done that, I’ve thought that.” How did you come up with your style? I remember thinking, “What kind of style do I want to have?” Seinfeld said to me one night, “You just do it for ten years and then one day you have a style and you don’t even know you’ve got it.” And he was right. I went up there, was a workhorse at it and now I can go back and be like, “I do have a particular cadence. It’s not a planned thing. It’s kind of how it comes out of my mouth now.” Do you have anything in the works? Bill and Larry and I are doing a show. Ron didn’t want to do it. We’re calling it, “Them Idiots Whirled Tour.” We all sat down and said, we are going to do this. It’s a great show. I was kind of thinking that maybe people have kind of moved on and maybe they don’t want to see it anymore, but we’re doing 15,000 people a night. We’re doing Phillips Arena in January. What advice would you give up and coming comics? Write everything down. Write every day. To this day I have a pad and a pen next to my bed because I’ll turn the lights off and start thinking about stuff. And I think of a lot of stuff in the shower, so I’ve got a pad and a pen on my bathroom counter. And just do it every chance you get. That is really the way you get good at it.
Movie Reviews
MAO’S LAST DANCER (PG)
2/5 Stars
Release Date: Aug. 20
Ballet is not for everyone. Unfortunately, the true story behind Mao’s Last Dancer will probably only win over ballet lovers, who will appreciate the impressive dance sequences. The film follows Li Cunxin (played by Chi Cao) as he dances his way from poverty in Communist China to the limelight in the capitalistic United States. Throughout the film, Li battles his own physical strength and the Chinese government while shouldering the burden of worrying whether his family has been harmed because of his decision to stay in America. The problem with the Bruce Beresford-directed film (which also stars Bruce Greenwood, Kyle MacLachlan and Joan Chen) is not Li’s personal journey, which, in itself, is inspiring. The problem is that it rarely delves deeper into the relationships and circumstances surrounding Li’s journey away from communism to the top of the American ballet world. The film plays out almost like a Power Point outline: We’re given an overview of the major plot points, and then we move on. The director uses obvious misdirection in an attempt to heighten the emotion of later reveals, but in the end it all feels contrived and confusing. The dancing in the film is beautiful, and it does have rare moments that do this true story justice. But unfortunately the film overall just seemed disconnected.
–Brad Binkley
THE CONCERT
Like Andrei Filipov and his ragtag Orchestra, this film is a perfect blend of fun, intrigue, and passion that in the end, achieves perfect harmony. The film follows former prodigy and conductor Filipov (Aleksei Guskov), who was humiliated and fired 30 years ago in the middle of conducting Technokovsky during the Communist Era for refusing to fire his Jewish musicians. Now working as a janitor, he comes up with a plan to put together his old team of musicians to go to Paris and impersonate the Bolshoi Orchestra, regain his glory and finish the concert he started 30 years ago. In order to do this, Filipov must mysteriously enlist a striking, young, solo violin player, Anne-Marie Jacqut (Melanie Laurent) and stave off his own personal demons. The films funniest moments come when Filipov and his band of wild, drunken, money obsessed, musicians are making their way to Paris despite no ride to the airport, no passports, and no money. Once in Paris this comedic adventure takes an intriguing turn as we discover why Filipov must have the beautiful Anne Marie as the Soloist. It is then that we see that the film is more than just a comedic farce when we discover the deeper motivations of the characters that keep getting deeper until the film’s dramatic finish that just might take your breathe away. (B)
–Brad Binkley
THE TILLMAN STORY
This thought-provoking documentary explores the Tillman family’s relentless quest to expose the shocking facts surrounding their son’s death and the high level cover up afterwards. Pat Tillman left the NFL and millions of dollars to fight (and ultimately die) for his country. The initial story of his death was one of a fearless hero charging towards enemy combatant to save the lives of his fellow man. His name and image was used in a sickening manner as propaganda for people on both sides of the war argument. Soon after his death, facts emerged that he was killed by friendly fire and his mother, Dannie Tillman, led the charge in the quest for answers. With the help of retired military specialist, Stan Goff, she went through over 3,000 pages of redacted documents that covered the investigation of Tillman’s death. Together they solved the redacted portions like it was a horrifying crossword puzzle whose answers only angered them further. Among the shocking facts discovered were that Pat’s body army, diary, and uniform were burned after his death. The documentary is full of powerful moments like a congressional hearing where military generals are fumbling and refusing to give definite answers, interviews from fellow soldiers who were told to keep their mouths shut, and first hand accounts of the events leading up to and right after Tillman’s death. Tillman is shown as a thoughtful, honorable, and dedicated man who turned down an opportunity to be honorable discharged after his first tour because he committed to three years in the military and that is what he was going to do. In the end, the story of Pat’s death is tragic and the cover up leaves you wonder why. But amongst the tragedy, The Tillmans are shown to be an inspiring example of a family who stands up for what they believe in and love, their son. (B+)
–Brad Binkley
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