The Improv

Yvonne and I attended a comedy show at San Jose's The Improv theatre. It was the first comedy show that both of us have been to. The star of the show was Steve Byrne, an Irish-Korean comedian.


As we were one of the first to arrive at the theatre, we were ushered to a very good table near the front of the stage. We started off the evening with dinner which was mediocre but we weren't there for the dinner. An hour later, the show started with a couple of warm up acts which were pretty good. Steve Byrne came on for the last hour of the show and he was quite funny.

The trouble started near the end of his show. Steve decided to call for "volunteers" to join him on stage for an act. Being seated near the front of the stage, I was the first "volunteer" he picked on and summoned on the stage. Luckily for me, there were another five or six guys that he picked. Whew !!


But just as I thought my worst fears were over, I found out what he wanted us to do on stage. Dance. Steve's idea was that he wanted to start a boy band and wanted to train us up with some moves. So we have to follow along and needless to say we generally made fools of ourselves.

But he had more in store for us than dancing as a group. Once that was over, he decided that he wanted each of us to do a solo dance. I nearly fainted at this stage. I was the second last person in line to do this. But as luck would have it, the guy in front of me was a accomplished dancer and he had a pretty amazing set of moves which he confidently displayed on stage. How do I follow up with that performance ?

When it came to my turn to do the solo, I scampered forward, did my jig as quickly as I could and dashed back in line. Steve was apparently unsatisfied with my meagre performance and demanded that I re-do it. As if I wasn't embarassed enough as it was, I had to go out and do it again !!

This entire time, Yvonne was sitting in the front row enjoying my obvious embarassment on stage. Not only that, she even broke the rules of the theatre and filmed the entire segment.


I have to say it was a memorable evening but one important lesson learned is to never sit in the front row when it comes to comedy shows. Best to hide somewhere dark near the back.