The Orpheum Theatre is bringing stand-up comedy back to Estevan on Oct. 4, with a lineup of funny people coming to tickle the funny bones of the audience.
Brittany Lyseng and Marito Lopez will be joined by MC Malik Elassal for the performance that will begin at 9 p.m.
Lyseng, who resides in Calgary, is looking forward to the performance. She has been in Estevan once before, for a stand-up comedy fundraiser a couple of years.
“It was in a community hall, there were a lot of hats on stage and a lot of fun people in the audience,” she recalled.
Lyseng entered the world of stand-up six years ago at a relatively late stage, when she was 28. She was working as an elevator mechanic when she decided to shift from the standard job and transition into stand-up.
“I just started at an open mic, because that’s the first place to go, and tested it out to see how you sound. There was lots of practice … to try to get to where I was today.”
It was a dream of hers when she was a child, and now that she is a full-time stand-up comedian, she appreciates it even more, because she grasps what it’s like to be on the road and to follow her dreams, while getting paid for it.
“I enjoy being on stage the most, and love to see people laugh, so the experience as a whole is just something that I love and is quite close to my heart,” she said.
Lyseng said all members of her family are funny, and she is probably the least funny person of them all.
“I have lots of family in Saskatchewan and in Alberta as well, and everybody’s pretty down to earth and really funny to be around, so I come by it naturally,” Lyseng said.
As a full-time stand-up comedian, she is constantly on the stage. She recently had a tour in northern Alberta, and will be in Edmonton before coming to Estevan Oct. 5.
It’s a lot of work being in stand-up comedy, tweaking her routine and practising so that it’s just right. When she’s not on stage on the weekend, she’s on smaller stages during the week, trying out new jokes.
“What people are paying for is usually a hard week of work trying to figure out what the best material is, and sitting down and writing. For me, it’s my full-time job. I put a lot of effort and a lot of time into it.”
She will likely be on stage five to seven days a week.
Lyseng won a Plaza Award in Calgary, and has performed through Just for Laughs across the country. And she finished sixth out of about 300 comics at a Sirius/XM competition last year.
There is one other reason that she is looking forward to the performance in Estevan: she will get to be on stage with two of her favourite fellow comedians.
“Marito and I have done quite a bit at Just for Laughs together, and we recorded Kevin Hart specials a couple of years ago together, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time with these guys.”
Each is a different comedian, so Lyseng hopes they can have a little bit of everything.
“I’m a little bit more of a storyteller, and Malik is very observational and Marito is just a bundle of joy. He’s incredibly funny, and I like to watch him,” she said. “Hopefully everyone will get a little bit of what they want, and it should be a barrel of laughs.”
