On Saturday night at The Working Class, an amateur comedy show will take place, but event organizer and comedian Richard Steudle hopes it becomes the spark for locals to get up on stage.
The show is called Richard Steudle's Circus and will feature five amateur comedians competing for a $200 prize. The audience will decide the winner.
"Basically what I'm trying to do is an open mic kind of deal in Timmins, for people who want to work on material and stuff like that. So I'm making it a comedy competition essentially to bring out a crowd, and I'll be doing a one-man circus in between. So that's kind of the fun part for me," he said.
Steudle will be doing stand-up as well, but he will be trying his hand at such festive disciplines as juggling, magic, and clowning.
"I'm going to do some weird stuff in between as well."
He called the lineup of performers 'an eclectic group'.
Robert Simoneau, Joanne Lachance, Pat Limlaw, Adam McKay, and James Lavictoire will be in the mix for the prize and bragging rights, while the evening's headliner is Cochrane's Jean-Francois Brisson.
"Everyone is trying new stuff, 10 to 15 minutes of newish stuff. I bet you they're all going to come in with their best, but really its just for fun," said Steudle.
He has been performing stand-up for approximately 12 years. His last seven years have been spent predominantly in Toronto. His comedy debut was in 2003 at an event with comedic cop Rick Lemieux.
"Well when I started, to be honest, I was doing 'dead baby' jokes, and recycled jokes. It's just a learning process. Now I'm a full blown stand-up, but I like to experiment and do weird stuff. Stuff I never would have done 10 years ago. The biggest thing you learn, I find, is comfort. You can't really teach someone how to be funny. It's all about getting on stage and just doing it, so you learn how to use your funny without being uncomfortable about it. The biggest thing I've learned over the years is how to work a crowd, and just have fun with it instead of just being a bag of nerves the entire time," said Steudle.
He said the inspiration for adding the circus element to the show was from an unexceptional travelling circus he saw two towns over..
"They (Great Benjamins) came to town in May, or something like that, they set up a tent in a parking lot in Iroquois Falls. It was brutal. It was the worst thing ever. I thought, 'I could do a better circus than this' just for a joke. So I decided that day I was going to make it a circus and do it all myself. I'm probably getting ahead of myself saying I'm better than them, but it was funny at the time, and I've just gone with it."
Richard Steudle on stage at The Working ClassSteudle is aiming to have a comedy show at The Working Class once a month.
"It's probably going to be open mic every second month, and every other month will be a show with a professional comedian. There are some people that I can bring in from all over Canada. Eventually that is my plan. To use these competitions to save money to pay notable comedians. There's going to be lots of gigs coming up."
With that said, he has no intentions of stepping on the figurative toes of other local event promoters and intends to work with them to ensure shows are spread out, and not landing on the same weekends, so locals can always have live entertainment options.
"The goal is just to get people on stage. I want new people. I want people who are interested. I want people who do weird stuff, like balancing stuff on their nose. I want people to come out and perform. If someone messages me and they go 'I'm a mime, could I take 10 minutes?', sure you can. 'I shoot cannon balls at my gut, can I do that for 10 minutes?, yes you can. I want to see different stuff, and I want people to showcase themselves."
Speaking of cannon balls to the gut, Steudle promises 'something similar' to that will happen on Saturday night.
Tickets are $10 in advance and are available at Jump City on Pine Street South, as well as The Working Class on Second Avenue. Tickets will be $15 at the door on Saturday.
