No parents, no rules.

Byron and Friends Christmas Spectacular

Hey everyone. I want to tell you about a comedy project that I’ve been working on with a handful of people that I’m really pumped about. It’s called Byron and Friends Christmas Spectacular.

Before I tell you exactly what the project is, I’ll tell you who Byron is in case anybody doesn’t know. Byron is a character I made up under which I do stand-up comedy. He’s not good at it at all, but he tries really hard and he likes being in the spotlight. He’s very controlling and shallow, but he’s also sweet and well-meaning. In addition to stand-up comedy, he also has a Youtube channel for his vlogs. Here’s his first vlog. If you haven’t seen the stand-up, this video will give you a pretty good idea who he is.

Anywho, the premise behind Byron and Friends Christmas Spectacular is that Byron, through the love of Christmas and enjoying being in a spotlight, wrote and designed a 60-minute Christmas variety show. Like his stand-up, it will be really awkward and uncomfortable, but wholesome and friendly. The intended result will be like if you let someone with no show-business instinct write and host an hour-long Lawrence Welk Christmas special. The content of the show will be vocalists singing Christmas carols, and also some Christmas-themed comedy sketched penned by Byron. 

As for the performance side of the show, there are two aspects. One is the DVD taping. There will be a two-performance, all-day DVD taping at Greenview Assisted Living Center in front of an audience of senior citizens. This is partly for their enjoyment, but also partly because it will be funny to do this show in front of a crowd of senior citizens. We’ll edit the two performances into one 60-minute Christmas special to be released on DVD by springtime.

The other performance, which is the main reason I’m writing this post, is a live performance at Gorilla Tango Theatre that everyone can come to. I wanted to do it at Gorilla Tango Theatre firstly because it’s an awesome space. I didn’t want to have to battle noise or the casual vibe at a bar or another free place. Also, Gorilla Tango lets you run a show once, in an awesome space, for a relatively small amount of money. 

However, because it’s in a nice space, they set a ticket price at $10. I’ve never asked anyone to spend that much money to come see something that I’ve made, so to make up for this, if you buy a ticket, I’ll give you a copy of the DVD from the Greenview Assisted Living Center performance when it’s done in the spring. While I’ll be posting the Christmas show on the internet so people can watch it for free at their leisure, the DVD will have all kinds of extra funny parts that will not be on the internet.

Also, I’ve said “we” a few times because this is far from a one-person project. Drew Blomquist and I are writing the show and all of the comedy parts. Janet Ault is doing the set design and props and costume ideas. Graham MacDonald and Chris Le are hooking it up on the technical production side of the show. I feel embarrassingly lucky that they want to help and are so talented and cool. 

In all honesty, I am very confident that this will be a funny show and that you will have a really good time if you come. If you want to buy a ticket, clickhere and find the show title on the left-hand side. If not, do not click there, click here.

Also, this is only the first of potentially millions of reminders about this show, as I will be shamelessly and obnoxiously plugging it until it happens. Thank you for being my friend and reading this (or if we are not friends, I would like to become friends with you. Please find me on www.facebook.com).