Hit The Lights: Stand Up Labs Dark Comedy Show
Thursday marked the second edition of Stand Up Labs Dark Comedy Show (or as it’s known to blind people: The Comedy Show). The Dark Show takes your traditional comedy showcase and places it in a pitch black room, eliminating one of the key senses that you thought was vital to enjoying a stand-up show.
The shows host, Luis J. Gomez, is in charge of making the audience transition between comfortable and uncomfortable as they sit blindfolded in a hot, pitch black room. It’s true that when you’re listening to a comedy album or podcast, you’re also essentially listening “in the dark”, but putting the performers in the same situation adds a whole new component to their set. They can’t rely on any crowd work or visual bits.
It takes some time for the audiences and performers to adjust to the scene, which makes the job of the first few performers even more difficult. So the evening can start somewhat slowly. The third act for the night, Dan Soder completely changed the energy when he came to the stage doing some impressions that made it almost impossible to tell how many comedians were on the stage. Amazingly, Mark Normand figured out a way to do some crowd work by judging which jokes were working and which fell flat. Big Jay Oakerson closed out the show, and handled the dark by doing some pseudo-crowd work– mocking imaginary fat people in different parts of the room as he unleashed a series of jokes too crude to put in print. And sex story involving Gomez and fellow comic Kurt Metzger brought the house down as Oakerson dominated the room.
Putting stand-up in the dark turned out to be an interesting comedy experience and it should only get better as new performers figure out how to use the dark to their advantage. The Luis J Gomez led show happens one a month. Let’s just hope they don’t turn on the lights to find Gomez facing the wall in the corner as the Blair Witch kills everyone in the room.
Follow @StandUpNYLabs and @luisjgomez for more info on the monthly Dark Show and how to get tickets
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