The Charleston Comedy Festival returns in its seventh year next Wednesday through Saturday, when comedians from across the southeast and beyond pour into the city for four nights with one purpose - to make you laugh.
The inaugural event is a double header of improv featuring Charleston’s own Shattering Pearls and Moral Fixation for only $5 at Theatre 99.
It’s an appropriate place to get things started considering that the folks at Theatre 99 have been organizing the festival since 2003. Apparently they’re doing something right. This year will feature 38 shows across nine venues, on and off the peninsula, and while there are some associated growing pains it all comes out in the wash.
“I call it the comedy tsunami,” says Brandy Sullivan, a veteran of the The Have Nots!, who can be seen performing with Annie Boxwell and Renee Fincke in Shattering Pearls and during the All Star Improv Jam on Friday, Jan. 22. “Every year there are new fires to put out and new challenges because we’re trying to grow, but in the end we laugh about it.”
The festival’s greatest strength might be its variety. Stand-up, improv and sketch shows offer enough diversity so everyone can get into it.
“A lot of festivals focus only on one thing, just stand-up or just improv or just sketch. We call it a comedy festival because it encompasses everything,” says Sullivan.
Take advantage of the festival’s affordable ticket prices, anywhere from $5 to $20 per show, and become part of Charleston’s growing comedy scene.
“We’ll continue to bring in improv from around the country because the Charleston community has developed a taste for improv, an understanding of it,” says Sullivan, but that’s not to pigeon hole the city’s comedic forms.
“Stand-up has seen a resurgence of interest from the public so we’re all about bringing in top-notch talent and the same goes for sketch. It’s some of the best writing going on; great sketch writers end up working for shows like 30 Rock. They’re all different but all very exciting,” says Sullivan.
The aim isn’t only to grow bigger but better too. This year’s stand-up competition actually started two months ago with preliminary rounds open to any and all interested.
The action continues on Wednesday at the Music Farm, where 16 local finalists must win the audience’s hearts and funny bones to win the competition. It’s part of the festival’s goal to showcase local talent with that from abroad.
“The first two nights we really like to showcase homegrown talent that’s here year-round but people may not necessarily know until they see them in the festival.But it’s always special to bring in acts from out of town. There’s a group called Switchboard that we’ve tried for a few years to get them to come down and this year was the first they could make it, so we’re pretty excited,” says Sullivan.
“Charleston is a great backdrop for this sort of thing, the city is just so much fun.”
Tickets are available at Theatre 99 at 280 Meeting St. (above The Bicycle Shoppe).