BOSTON COMEDY FESTIVAL

Plague of mirth grips Puritan stronghold yet again

By LUKE O'NEIL

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Scrape the rust off your atrophied laughing holes, Bostonians, because the biggest comedy event of the year is about to land in your backyard. And this time, it has nothing to do with gorilla assault trials.

Now in its eighth year, the Boston Comedy Festival (or, if you want to get technical, the "Boston International Comedy and Movie Festival") is bigger than ever. Throughout the week, in venues throughout the city, comedians from all over will descend upon our fair burgh and conspire to make you soil your knickers with improv, sketches, films, showcase acts and a 94-person-strong comedy competition with over $10,000 in prizes.

For performers slaving away in underground comedy sweatshops, the festival can be an important step on the way to the big(ish) time. Cambridge-based funnyman Shane Mauss, who performed in last year's festival and will compete again this year, has already reaped many of the benefits. "It's kind of a big deal around here in the comedy community," he explains. "I went to the festival as a spectator the two years before last. I submitted the year before last and didn't get accepted." But in 2006, that changed, and he went on to become a finalist in the competition.

"A comic in the contest saw me and recommended me to the people that book the HBO US Comedy Festival in Aspen," Mauss reports. One thing led to another, and he received an award for Best Stand Up Comic at Aspen. And now he sleeps on a bed of $100 bills and pisses champagne. (More or less.)

Norwood's Dan Boulger is currently enjoying a national profile after a similar experience. "The first year I applied for it, I didn't get in because I had a really bad tape, and, for the most part, bad jokes," he admits. "The next year, I won it."

The festival's ability to turn nobodies into headliners, suggests Tom Gribbin, a veteran comedy promoter and club owner who is set to release the 2-CD set 10,000 Laughs: Best of The Boston Comedy Festival on Koch Records, is one of the things that makes it "different than the other great comedy festivals."

"I liken it to the US Open of comedy," Gibbin says. "It's open to all comedians around the country. It is not dominated by the industry, nor are the contestants chosen by industry people interested in fulfilling their own agendas. Each comic chosen was selected totally on their merits. That's how an up-and-coming comedian like Dan Boulger, then just 20 years old, could ultimately challenge and win over very funny veteran comedians."

The CD, made up of the "best of the best" of the past few years, Gribbin says, "captures the varying and sometimes wholly different material, deliveries, outlooks on life, etc., offered by the differing personalities of the comics themselves." Which is about as succinct an explanation there is for the appeal of attending this year's festival in the first place. Boston comedian Micah Sherman says it translates into a tangible energy in the air. "I'm especially fond of the buzz that floats through Boston during the week of the festival," he explains. "It's very electric. Like something big is about to happen at any moment." Then again, he says, "maybe it's the fall air that makes me feel that way. Or the whiskey."

It could be the strangely contradictory spirit of clowns at war he senses. Sherman isn't competing this year (he'll perform Thursday night at the "Alternative" show at the Comedy Vault), but he sees the upside of it. "Is competition natural? Yes it is. Is it the best recipe for comedy? Probably not. But doing well in the competition does seem to provide one with more opportunities to perform in situations where the ingredients are better suited for comedy: Think packed performance halls versus the empty bars comedians start out in."

Mauss, who appeared on Conan O'Brien twice since last year, approaches things a bit more matter-of-factly. "Typically, you try to tighten all of your jokes and just do the very best parts of your act that you can squeeze into five minutes," he says. "There is pressure on the comics trying to do their best to win, but there are also industry people in the audience (like Comedy Central people) that are watching and could possibly help your career. It's not really that natural of a thing to compete in comedy. It's not as pure as the art form should be. You can't really judge comedy on a point system, which is what they attempt to do. But it is a lot of fun for people, and you get to do a lot of networking."

Boulger, who's appeared on Comedy Central since his big finish at last year's festival, says those types of opportunities that come out of the festival can change an entire outlook on a career. "I basically went from a glorified open-miker to being overrated," he says. "It's been great."

BOSTON COMEDY FESTIVAL
SATURDAY 10.6.07-SATURDAY 10.13.07. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON VENUES AND SHOWTIMES VISIT BOSTONCOMEDYFESTIVAL.COM