DCH kicks off 5th annual Dallas Comedy Fest
JOKER’S WILD | Dallas Comedy Festival booked up-and-coming standup Rory Scovel, before he got so famous they couldn’t afford him, jokes founder Amanda Austin.
After seven award-winning seasons, 30 Rock ended its run early last year. But Tina Fey’s influence on the next generation of comedians took root over that span and is starting to bud.
Amanda Austin opened the Dallas Comedy House in 2009, but after reading Fey’s 2011 autobiography, Bossypants, she put an excerpt from the book on the wall of the Deep Ellum club as a mantra for what she was doing: Studying improvisation literally changed my life … It changed the way I look at the world … What has your cult done for you lately?
The club has recently hosted several queer comics (Kevin Allison last month; the gay Throwing Shade podcast team performs March 14), but for the fifth annual Dallas Comedy Festival, which runs March 18–22, Austin has lined up a several workshops to help cult members hone their craft. She envisions DCH not only as a venue to see great local comedy, but as a training ground for the uninitiated and a platform for working comedians.
Terry Catlett, an instructor at DCH, used to be terrified at the unknown elements of improv. That same fear now excites him and keeps him coming back for more.
He will take the stage with three separate troupes during the final night of the festival.
“Improv is everywhere, but what makes DCH special is the people managing, teaching and performing there,” Catlett says. “These people have the talent and drive to perform anywhere in the country, and they choose to be here, building something from the ground up. I want to be a part of something special.”
This year’s workshops are being led by improv instructor Susan Messing, who helped found Chicago’s Annoyance Theater after stints at Second City and iO Theatre; and Kate Duffy, who also hails from those well-known training grounds. The two will close the DCF. Messing’s Friday workshop sold out quickly, which is a testament to her teaching aptitude and the abundance of Dallas improvisers.
Rory Scovel gets things started on Tuesday as the headliner for the stand-up portion of the festival. With a Comedy Central special already in the can and numerous late-night appearances, he seems primed for the leap to the upper echelon of stand-up gigs in venues much larger than the DCH, according to Austin. “We’re lucky to get him while we can still afford him,” she jokes.
No fewer than 19 comedians, including Dallas’ Aaron Aryanpur, Paul Varghese and Dave Little, will ply their trade Wednesday night and early Thursday before improv troupes and sketch acts from all over the country take over. About 25 acts will perform, with many DCH cultists — er, graduates — putting into practice lessons learned from their five levels of training.
Nikki Gasparo, an instructor at DCH who will be performing at the fest, loves the sense of community the club fosters and the fun and freedom improv provides.
“As a suburban wife and mother, I am expected to play a certain role, to set a good example for my child and the children of others. This requires me to often bite my tongue and say and do things that I necessarily would not, if I didn’t have impressionable ears around. That completely goes out the window when I perform. Improv gives me the freedom to be characters who do and say awful things. The response is not outrage, but laughter,” she says.
Recent graduate Ashley Bright, who performs Saturday with her troupe F.A.C.E., says she found a home in comedy at DCH.
“Improv will be a lifelong hobby that has lit the fuse on other creative endeavors,” she says. “In the 14 months that DCH has been in my life, I’ve quit a job I felt stuck at, moved to the big city and met so many wonderful humans that I’m lucky to now call friends.”
“It’s a place of support and encouragement. A place where I learned to stop talking about the things I wanted to do and just do them. Since I’ve been at DCH, I feel like I’m speeding toward a happier me,” Bright says.
“We all have our issues with our humanity and how we come to terms with it, and improv helps me hash out all of mine,” Gasparo says. “It’s the best therapy in the world.”
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition March 14, 2014.
