By Wade Coggeshall
DANVILLE — Mark Klein got his start in the stand-up comedy business before there were club circuits and an influx of full-time comedy venues nationwide.
Besides getting a jump on the competition, it also forced the Louisville, Ky., resident to hone his skills in less-than-ideal locales.
Klein, who’s headlining 8 p.m. Feb. 24 at the Royal Theater, 59 S. Washington St., Danville, as part of a benefit show for U.S. servicemen and women stationed overseas, got his start telling jokes in between the featured entertainment at strip clubs.
“You learn to grab their attention,” he says of such a crowd during a recent phone interview. “You learn how to handle people who are disruptive. You learn how to coax an audience into going with the flow of what you’re doing. You learn how to make an audience change gears back and forth. It’s excellent training, and it makes you bulletproof on stage, believe me. You do a couple weeks of that kind of stuff, and there’s not a comedy club audience in the world that’s going to scare you after that.”
Those days were a far cry from when Klein was majoring in English at Colgate University, with the idea of practicing law.
“I decided there were more than enough lawyers in the world,” he said.
And comedy was almost second nature to Klein.
“I grew up in a very funny family,” he said. “My mother and father both had terrific senses of humor. We always told jokes and stories at the supper table every night. We didn’t have dinner table conversation, we had comedy routines. That’s the kind of atmosphere I grew up in, where using humor to express yourself was really part of daily life.”
In order to survive the early days of his chosen career, Klein says he started as an “X-rated, very blue, aggressive nightclub act.” But as his life has changed, so has his comedy.
“I’ve evolved,” Klein said. “My material has changed. I’ve got a wife and 11-year-old kid. I do a show now I want my 11-year-old to come see without my having to worry about what he’s going to see or hear.”
That metamorphosis also has included where he performs. No longer strictly a club act, Klein also can be found jesting on college campuses and cruise ships. In fact, corporate events are one of his more popular forums now.
“As I got more mature in my life, I wanted to be in front of people who were more my peers,” Klein said. “And increasingly they were more in boardrooms, not saloons. Plus I have a message-driven show that I do for business audiences that resonates very well, involving issues of living in a free and capitalist society, and people in business are the good guys, not the bad guys. Stuff you don’t hear from Hollywood very often. My naturally conservative politics dovetail very well with business groups.”
Klein may not earn as much as he would’ve being a lawyer, but he’s never regretted his decision to do comedy.
“It’s extremely gratifying work,” he said. “Even when you’re not making a lot of money, the work itself is gratifying — that notion of making a roomful of strangers laugh. And presumably, if you’ve done your job correctly, they’ve left happier than when they got there.”
It’s even more satisfying when you can entertain people for a worthy cause, as Klein is doing Saturday night with fellow Louisville-based comics Will Hardesty and Dario. Admission to the show is donated goods that will be shipped to troops serving overseas. Cash donations will also be accepted. A list of needed items can be found on the Any Soldier website at www.anysoldier.com. More information on the show is available online at www.elitecomedy.com.
The work of our U.S. military is something close to Klein’s heart. He’s performed at other benefits like this one, as well as entertained on military bases.
“I absolutely support not only the people in the military but their mission,” Klein said. “I think we’re doing difficult but good work with our military in all the areas we’re involved in — not just Iraq and Afghanistan, but Korea and Germany and all kinds of places that people don’t give a second thought to — because we so take for granted the life that they make possible.”
For more information on Klein, visit his website www.corpjester.com.
wade.coggeshall@flyergroup.com
