Arts

Chewbacca, Classes and Cat Noises: Professional Comedians Star In Annual Comedy Night

“‘Welcome to the Apocalypse’ – that’s about the 2016 election, right? ‘Animal Behavior’ – also on the 2016 election!” joked Dave Lamb, a professional comedian, as he listed Andover courses from the course catalog. Lamb was one of the comedians who performed during Comedy Night last Friday evening.

Comedy Night took place in Susie’s, featuring three professional comedians from Boston: Lamb, Drew Dunn and Orlando Baxter. Drawing from personal stories, the comedians joked about the experiences of teachers and siblings and poked fun at Andover students.

Dunn said in an interview with The Phillipian, “There are a lot of challenges associated with doing stand-up. You want to make sure you are able to adjust to the audience that you are playing to and to both grab and maintain their attention throughout the show. Stand-up is a unique form of entertainment that we are judged constantly throughout our performance and it is very easy to tell how things are going based on the reaction of the audience every few seconds. A lot of stand-up comes from the preparation, practice and repetition that the audience does not see.”

Dunn opened the show with a joke about growing up in a big family. Utilizing his unique accents and personas, Dunn took on and parodied the personality of his mother and siblings.

“Give me a doctor or a lawyer…” said Dunn as he imitated his mother, “Oh no that’s another comedian!”

“I thought Drew Dunn was excellent. I loved his bit on growing up with six siblings and his accents were surprisingly good. I’ve seen a lot of people try to do accents and usually they’re not that good but his were pretty accurate,” said Tristan Latham ’19.

One of the highlights of the night included one of Baxter’s experiences as a teacher who deals with in-school suspensions.

“I’ve met a lot of weird students,” said Baxter. “This one kid got sent to me for making cat noises in class. He proceeded to continue the cat noises in my office and asked if he could go back. ‘Boy, you can’t go back to the general population after making cat noises for an hour and a half!’”

Baxter said, “A lot of my ideas for material comes directly from my life. As long as I think something is funny and I have a point of view about it, I usually try to take it to the stage. I tend to use a lot of my teaching experience as comedy material. I think for [the] most part a large majority of people can relate to it and I think it’s a great way to get things off my chest without going to a therapist.”

Later, Orlando joked with Latham about his mature appearance. “You’re a freshman?” said Baxter in disbelief when he asked for Latham’s year. “With that beard? You’re like Santa Claus! Are your parents Chewbacca?”
“My favorite part of the show was definitely Orlando Baxter’s set. I love performing, but Orlando is one of the best comedians in New England and one of my favorites to watch. He is very well-spoken and has great material,” said Dunn.