Emerging Talents Feel More Like Headliners at First Annual Second City Break Out Festival in Chicago
All Photos Courtesy of Second City, Credit: Angelica Diaz
This weekend NBC and Chicago’s Second City held the first ever “Break Out Comedy Festival” to give a showcase to diverse emerging comedic talents, or as host Ron Funches put it- not white people. The event included some panels and talks but the highlight was a two night comedy showcase held at Second City’s Up Comedy Club. Two nights of outstanding performances included stand up, sketch work, solo work, characters, and improv hosted by The Daily Show’s Al Madrigal on Friday night, and Ron Funches who you know from the hit NBC series Undateable on Saturday night.
The level of talent was incredible, a credit to the curators, the city of Chicago and Second City for nurturing and recognizing and showcasing such a talented group. Nobody would guess that they were seeing ’emerging’ talent if they hadn’t been told. The theater was packed, sold out for most of the shows and there truly wasn’t a bad performance among the 20 plus individual performances and groups. Racial issues were a theme throughout many of the performances, and there were truly some sparks of brilliance in the way race was addressed, particularly by soloist Chucho Perez who performed a thought provoking and bold solo performance reminiscent of a John Legiuzamo performance in tone and style and yet completely original, and sketch group 3Peat whose thoughtful sketches addressed issues of identity and race in the black community.
Dominizuela’s Wendy Mateo and Lorena Diaz; Photo Credit: Angelica Diaz
The stand out performance of the weekend undoubtably belonged to two woman Latina performance group Dominizuelan who brought the house down with their character performance of two women on the phone handling a Facebook crisis which was so well crafted, and dynamic, that they killed the room, starting quietly and building to a roar, bringing the audience along with them. We talked with Dominizuelan memebers Wendy Mateo and Lorena Diaz before the festival, and they talked about the importance of diversity festivals and representing their community. “It’s become more important to us as we have over the years discovered how underrepresented our voice is in mainstream entertainment,” Lorena told us. When they first came to Chicago, they said they had planned to try to assimilate into the local culture, but “we quickly learned that being yourself is the best way to create work and art. Being ourselves we’ve really cemented ourselves into the Latino community here and found a fantastic audience there as well and felt like they needed to have a voice represented them artistically.” Wendy and Lorena said they often face obstacles from critics who will come to their show expecting it to only be addressing Latino issues, but that’s not what they’re about. “We like to do mainstream topics with a wink to our culture.”
The stand up performances were also outstanding with stand out sets from Cleveland’s Ramon Rivas, the radiant Aisha Alfa, Dave Helem, Chris Bader who had a unique and hilarious take on a date that went badly, and Rebecca O’Neal who could easily do a one woman show with her original and personal material. Martin Morrow absolutely crushed the room on the first night of the festival with a performance was so polished and seasoned that he felt more like a headliner than an emerging talent, and on Saturday night, Calvin Evans kicked the night off with a flawless set and a confidence and swagger like he was born on stage.
Martin Morrow Stand Up; Photo Credit: Angelica Diaz
We had a chance to talk with Martin Morrow, who told us his inspirations are Baron Vaughn, Roy Wood Jr, and Patrice O’Neal. Morrow said he started off writing music and poetry, but transitioned into stand up and has been performing stand up since 2006. Morrow told us he’s very happy to be a representative for the black community through outreach and diversity programs. “I think I have a different and very unique voice from a lot of people who look like me who also do comedy,” he said, and believes that one of the best ways to represent is to show the world “that black individuals and all minorities all surface as different people through the artwork that we can produce and put out there.”
Other outstanding performances by Azhar Usman, Ali Barthwell, Kevin Vidal, Jasbir Vazquez, Nigel Downer, Azhar Usman, the Bob Curry Fellows, Bleep that Bleep and Danielle Pinnock.
The idea for the Break Out festival has been one that Second City’s director of Outreach and Diversity, Dionna Griffin-Irons says, has been in the works for some time. She told us that Second City approached NBC with the idea to “do this festival, curate the talent and feature some emerging diverse talent and stand up and solo and sketch comedy,” she said, “And they ‘yes and-ed’ our idea, which we totally loved.”
NBC’s Vice President of Programming, Talent Development and Inclusion, Karen Horne said NBC was thrilled to partner with Second City on the project. “Second City has historically been a great breeding ground for comedians that have gone on to work for NBC shows, like Saturday Night Live for instance, and we recognize them as being a great breeding ground for comical voices,” she said. “So to partner with them is an honor and I’m really happy that we were able to foster this relationship.” NBC representatives from casting and late night and alternative programming attended the festival to watch the talent.
Talent was selected primarily from Chicago, but there were some terrific performers who came in from Second City’s Toronto program as well. Griffin-Irons played a big role in selecting the performers for the festival. “JB who is he manager of our UP Comedy Club has a great handle on the stand ups around the city and beyond,” Griffin-Irons said adding, “Beth Kligerman, our Director of Talent also shared information on talent as well so we’re kind of like a mighty three.” UCB in New York also helped make some recommendations.
They plan to reach beyond Chicago for future festivals.
Photos: Calvin Evans performs stand up. Below, Chucho Perez performs solo. Credit: Angelica Diaz
