Eugene Mirman At The columbus

Dan Martin 

Last week on a rainy Friday night in December, in Providence, Rhode Island, people were lined up outside of the Columbus Theatre on Broadway. It wasn't for a film or a band and they haven't shown porno here since the late nineties. This time it was for something new to the venue, Stand-up Comedy! It was the first comedy show at the Theater, ever! I know I just delivered the news like an over excited sixteen year old girl furiously texting gossip, like, OMG, no way? But YES WAY, indeed. And who else to bring his DIY comedy revolution to our state of Oceans but none other thanEugene Mirman?

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Poster for the North East Excursion, taken from the website.

The Columbus Theatre in Providence on Broadway was established in 1926. The first film showed there was "La Boheme (1926)" The building changed hands quite a bit and even suffered a one time name change to, The Uptown Theatre. It continued through to the sixties and was host to various Italian Stage Plays, Musical Events and Italian movies, due to it's Federal Hill location. The Columbus took it's rightful name back in 1962 and started showing films again. In 1965 the Theatre was split into two levels and was the first "Twin Cinema" in Providence, RI. It was also around that time that the management noticed that Adult Fair was bringing in the most money and the the Theatre showed Adult Sex Movies for the next thirty years or so. In 2001 it returned with first run Art-House cinema but again closed due to insufficient funding. 

The Columbus Theatre is back and just as great as ever! They seemed to have returned to their Art-House roots. 2013 has seen the re-re-re-reopening of this Theatre. They have hosted live bands like "Boo City" and even a live Q and A with actor Crispin Glover. All in the up stairs theatre. The last show on the Main Stage was in January 2013 for The Revival of the space. I got to see myself on their "big screen" in 2009 during the 48 Hour Film Festival. In a seven minute short called "Sex Addicts: A Comedy." So I appeared almost nude in an old seedy theatre. Add that to this show and the bucket list just gets shorter! I owe it all to this historic building. 

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2013 has been a great year for comedy in our little state. If only for two shows. Doug Benson of "Super High Me" fame, did a show at Fete Music Hall in May, 2013. A lot of comedians have opened for bands in their careers and many still do. So it would make sense to have straight up comedy shows in musical spaces. I wrote of my dreams of comedy coming to the Columbus in my Blog from the Benson show in early June. After it has come true is such a big way, it is not odd for me to think I have some sort of super power. And this show of course being the other big alternative show for the year. The show was sold out, approximately Three Hundred plus. I feel as though I have used my powers for good. 

Talk about the show? I thought you'd never ask. Eugene Mirman brought a very entertaining and varied live show to the upstairs theatre. It is a mid-sized room with about 300 or so seats. The stage is set in front of a 60 or so foot video screen and the audience is looking down into the black box type scene. The three acts on the show, Opener Derrick Brown, Middle Kurt Braunohler and Closer Eugene Mirman came out together on stage. Each with their own microphone. They had come out to introduce themselves and the show. There was this special moment at the beginning of the show when they realized the lighting in the theatre was mostly yellow. Which begged the question, Do you have any white lights? From the comics, among other questions like, "Or any other colors?" "Well white is really the absence of color right?" These questions lead to funny moments when the light guy figured it out and joined in the fun. He turned the light a deep blue at one point and even a bright red. Then he found the white and focused the spot. Boring. The whole time the comics were cracking jokes in the moment and our live theatre experience had begun. 

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They introduced the show and then themselves. Eugene announced the the show would begin and introduced us to Poet Derrick Brown. Derrick read some poems from his 2009 book Scandalabra and a few others. His set was an enthralling twenty minutes. He stitched words and phrases together to tell stories of life on the road, love, loss of love and even sex. 

Besides looking like the man in black [Lost] in the photo I chose. You should click it and head over to Derrick's poetry sight. 

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After a brilliant set of poetry, Brown reset the mic stand and introduced our middle act pass the torch style. The room was electric. The crowd hung on every word of the the entire show thus far and Kurt was coming out to a hot crowd that seemed eager to this type of show. 

Kurt Braunohler was so sharp and engaging. His opener was a crisp mislead and there were a few one liners mixed in with great stories and hyperbole. I enjoyed Kurt very much. Click his picture to check out his website and as a bonus click, I included the Youtube video of his Conan Appearance here.  After Kurt's twenty-five ish minutes he then reset the mic and introduced the main attraction. Though it never really felt like that. Each act was a headliner and gave us their all. I enjoyed the sense of equality in the performers and the focus on the show itself. Every act was on top of their game. 

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Eugene was affable and told stories from the road as well as his life in New York. He also shares his internet life with us by bringing print outs of his twitter pranks and other social media interactions. As well as a letter to a state office about a ridiculous parking law. Mirman also brought along a video of a pilot he had filmed for Comedy Central called, "Eugene." He assured us not to worry because it would never be a show. It was a sketch show and as if the network you were watching was called, Eugene. There were many programming parodies and guest appearances from some of Eugene's funny friends. I would watch that! At the end of his set Eugene announced his priest hood from an online site and unofficially married a young couple in the audience with some joke vows.  

This was a great show. I can't say it enough. It was refreshing to see such a historic building returned to it's roots. The show captured the spirit of the art scene and the minds of the audience. I hope you enjoyed all of the links and information, click around and keep an eye out for these guys in your town and on TV. And try to catch a show at the Columbus this time around. You never know how many comebacks a place may have.