Broadway Business

Not all comedy clubs do business on a Sunday night but when I stopped by Broadway Comedy Club the place was busy on a Sunday night and had shows in three different rooms. Unable to spread myself that thin, I chose the main room where I got to see Backstage competition winner Giulio Gallarotti, (who despite his name insists he’s Italian!), host the show.

Backstage comedy competition winner Giulio Gallarotti hosting the show at Broadway Comedy Club!

Giulio won the “Young Guns of Comedy” competition during the Stand-Up 360 Comedy Festival that is held at Broadway Comedy annually, usually in June, which means there’s another one coming up soon! I performed in a show on the last one that was produced by John Femia, and it was a great show.

Brian Scott McFadden is a guy I could listen to all night. He’s such a wordsmith, and as a writer I really admire that. And his character work is superb. He should really be a regular on TV.

Brian Scott McFadden onstage at Broadway Comedy doing one of his many great characters!

Out of the many characters he does, one of the stand-outs is an old guy who works in a boxing gym, who repeats what he says over and over again, but it’s so well planned out that he claims to stay in the character too long, due to the the audience’s supposed “lack of response”. Its hard to even explain what he does with the bit, but it’s genius, as is his ” What Women Want” which I believe is the name of his new DVD.

He also wonders about things like why there’s no mouse-flavored cat food, and why there are no “B” batteries which is one of the greatest questions I ever heard. There are A, double A, even Triple A, and then it goes right to C. What happened to “B” batteries?

That’s what good comedians do. They take something you’ve been seeing and taking for granted all your life, and they show you how obvious, and yet how ridiculous it is, and YOU respond with laughter!

Joe DeVito is always funny and one of my favorites, and I’m not just mentioning this to mention it, I’m mentioning it because he was on next! (LOL) Well, that and the fact that mentioning things is a hobby of mine!

A newly thin Joe Devito onstage at Broadway Comedy. I would have said “svelte” but I once swore to myself I would never use that word!(LOL)

Joe claims that a medical condition kept him out of the service. He was diagnosed as a pussy! And the doctor wrote it into the chart, which was so embarrassing for Joe.

Joe lost 30 pounds and looks really great. He claims he was bullied as a kid cause he was fat, and he wonders if that kind of stuff still happens these days cause now ALL kids are fat! (LOL) He says that kids are so fat, abductions are down. They can’t get the kids in the van!

I was glad to see Harris Stanton on the show. Harris was close to my good friend Patrice Oneal who we lost so prematurely this past year. Harris is a real crowd-pleaser and talked about how technology has made some people into assholes. They demand to know where you are at all times. And they expect you to get right back to them, and if you don’t they complain, ” Hey, I sent you three text messages, an e-mail and a photo! Where are you?”

Harris Stanton, Jeffrey Gurian, and the late, great Patrice Oneal bacjstage at the Comedy Central taping of “Elephant In The Room”, Patrice’s last special!

He also doesn’t feel sorry for people who get hurt mountain climbing, cause people don’t belong way up in the mountains. That’s where G-d lives! And he also doesn’t feel bad for people who get bit by sharks. Where did it happen? In the ocean! That’s where sharks live. If you got bit by a shark in the supermarket, like in aisle 8, he’d feel bad for you, cause sharks don’t belong in the supermarket, but if you’re stupid enough to go where they live, you have to expect to get bit!

Harris Stanton “doing it” onstage at Broadway Comedy Club!

On my way out, I ran into Martin O’Keefe. Martin runs the New Faces stand-up show called “Poster Dog Comedy Show” which he does every Sunday, in the upstairs Chicago City Limits room. At certain times during the week you can go to that room and see a great improv show. Check the schedule at www.broadwaycomedyclub.com for details!

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