The fourth annual New York Underground Comedy Festival was held this year from September 8^th to September 17^th , 2006. The festival showcases roughly 1,000 artist in comedy over a ten day period. Predominantly comprised of stand up comics, but not limited to, including sketch groups, improv troupes, musical comedy acts, celebrity impersonators, performance artist, ventriloquist, monologist, story tellers, etc...Any act that makes the rounds in the underground comedy scene in New York can almost guaranteed to be seen in one of the numerous NYUCF shows. There was almost 200 shows to choose from, we, here at Theater Scene wanted to see a few shows that have a little bit of everything, we wanted to see shows with the most variety. Once we received an invite from comedian/celebrity look-alike/producer/actor Bruce Christensen our minds were made up. He produced the Friday night variety show ‘Vaudeville On Broadway’ in the heart of the theater district, at Sams Cabaret Restaurant right up until Sams closed in April, after 79 years.

Bruce, who is a dead ringer for Conan O’Brien, created the character ‘CLONAN’ in 2003 and has fast become the most famous celebrity impersonator in the world. He has close to a dozen television appearances in the short three years he has been doing fame including Saturday Night Live three times last season, (twice as an extra and once in a featured scene with Natalie Portman, he is quick to point out), Americas Got Talent, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Live with Regis and Kelly, Maury Povich, Queen Latifah, Guest weatherman on the CW11 morning show, etc...

Shutters Café was the venue selected to hold the two shows Clonan was to host for the NYUCF ‘06. It is a very nice, intimate, cabaret restaurant complete with a baby grand piano. Shutters Café, we come to find out, was home to the world famous New York Improv Comedy Club from 1994-1999. The comedy show this night was entitled ‘The SNL Extra Show’ Every single act slated to appear had done extra work on SNL. The show was decently attended, a few open seats remained when the festivities did get started, but there were a couple of people at every table.

Bill Michaels was the first comic to kick off the evening. He did this ‘El Gringo Gordo’ (the big white guy) story about him being the first in the gentrification of Jackson Heights, that had the crowd roaring. Next up was the musical comedy act of the evening, Damon Katron. The audience laughed the whole entire time he was on stage. He played his guitar while he sang funny songs. He had a TV screen on his head during one of the numbers, very unique. Heidi Fang hit the stage next. She was so hilarious, really being able to connect with the audience with her relationship and family material. The next featured act of the evening was ‘The Jack Fitz Players’ one of the top ten improv troupes in NYC. Improv can go either way and these guys were on! They were able to grab everyones attention, with their inte ractive skills, and keep it. The headlining comic of the evening was Mike Cotayo who takes self-deprecating humor to the highest level ever. He has been able to take a tragic event in his life and present it so it is really one of the funniest things ever heard. His delivery is so smooth. He makes the audience feel comfortable about laughing. We had to check his website when we got back to the office, even his slogan is great. ‘Comedy at its crippling best.’

It was a great 90 minute show, a lot of variety, plenty of laughs. The audience loved it, no one had left during it and everyone was applauding. The buzz in the green room was about who was in the audience. There were three VIPs that night, Mickey Freeman, who played Private Zimmerman on the Sargent Bilko t.v. show was in attendance as was the on air talent casting director for E! Entertainment Network, plus famed celebrity photographer Seth Wenig was there.

The next night was the second of the two shows Clonan was to host. The title of this one was ‘Clonans’ Comedy/Variety Show’. The talent consisted of comedic acts Clonan has met and worked with at clubs throughout the year. First act up was the very talented Steve Rosso. Steve had the crowd in stitches, laughing after he made a real funny observation about shoplifters.

Andrew Torkleson followed Steve. Andrew was amazing. He left the audience with their jaws dropped open with a few true stories. The phrase ‘Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.’ rang true for Andrew and NBC’s Last Comic Standing. He wished to be on it, so he lined up like everyone else on the cold that winter day. After twelve hours, he gets in and finally gets his turn. He is cut-off ten seconds into his act. If that weren’t bad enough he then winds up on Last Comic Standing- Best of The Worst. He wished to be on LCS and he got on LCS, best of the worst. Andrew has a Norwegian-Jewish heritage. During his LCS audition he opened with the joke “I guess that makes me a Norwe-Jew”. Right then and there Priss and Prass cut him off. Thank you! Priss proclaimed. Thank you! Prass repeated. Thank you! Thank you! Priss and Prass kept saying. Priss and Prass were not going for any Norwe-Jew jokes.

Andrew followed that up with an outlandishly comical rant about working as a PA on the set of the now cancelled Ricky Lake show. That was a totally impromptu rant as there was an ex-producer of the Ricky Lake show, Wyatt Ben Bernstein, in the audience. Leanna Conley was the first female comedienne of the evening, she followed up Andrews rant with a rant of her own. She had the spectators cracking up hysterically when she let loose about her recent break up and pending divorce. She finished up her set with some classic ‘blackout’ material. Aaron Kominos-Smith was on deck. He began by explaining the difficulty it is having two last names sometimes when you are just trying to do something as simple as pick up a prescription at your local Duane Reade. He mimics counter girl, “Wha hoppened ??? Kominos-Smiff, what dat??? Is that spelled with a ‘C’??? No, a ‘K’, are you sure?? Why isn’t it under ‘S’ for Smiff?? Why you got two last names anyway??? Forget this, I’m going on my break.” The circle kept going. Everyone was laughing because they could all relate to something like that. The audience couldn’ t get enough of him. Side note, we here at Theater Scene just learned yesterday that Aaron made not one but two appearance on MTV last week. Kudos to Kominos-Smith.

Devanshi Patel was the second of the female comics performing that night. Devanshi is without a doubt one of the most intelligent comics out there today. She mixed up her routine with historical references and experiences that every family goes through when relocating to the States. Her take on the differences between the older generation and customers and the new generation was gut-busting funny. “Are you Indian?” “Are you Indian?” The last comic of the evening was the king, Jerry Kahn. He is the king of one-liners. He is featured in the Guinness Book of World Records for being able to deliver the most one-liners in a ten minute period, truly outstanding.