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What is High Contrast Comedy?
High Contrast Comedy is a show format that i have been producing since February 2004. High Contrast is a comedy/variety show with an emphasis on political and socially oriented material.The shows include stand-up comics, improvisors, musicians, authors, poets, civil activists and the occaisional politician. The shows are often themed ("Racism and Comedy", for example), often silly but never ordinary. For more, see the history on High Contrast Comedy. History
I started High Contrast Comedy in Seattle at The Seattle Comedy Underground in Jan 2002. Not long after I appeared in the Seattle
Comedy Competition. I have also be invitied to the Boston Comedy Festival and the San Francisco International Comedy Competition.
In Nov 2005, Ron Reid was very cool in giving Tuesday nights for me to do my show, High Contrast Comedy. Initially the show was nothing more than what was a typical night at the Underground —12-15 comics going up for five minutes or so. Not really booking the show, just a kinda of locals walk in and then i create a list. This was, of course, nothing new or different. Slowly I started finding a direction for High Contrast. I started selecting 10 comics in advance and added a "soundtrack": I did a mix of audio samples which led into a turntables-ist version of The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again". I was also not bringing the comics to the stage from being an onstage emcee. After a comic performed, the stage lights would dim and then a 20 sec Democracy Now news clip with an audio mix dropped in behind it. After the sound clip i would bring the next comic to the stage from an off stage mic. The summer months were always a struggle to get an audience to the Underground. Along with the Seattle Mariners ballpark two blocks away from the club, so many nights people would be discouraged from dealing with downtown traffic —but the summer of 2005 was gonna be a little different. That September i was going to be going to Boston for the Boston Comedy Festival, so i wanted to have to remove the stress of staging the show so i can relax and focus on Boston. After Boston I came back with a certain vision of how i wanted to take the show. I guess i didn't have the confidence before to want to try some other things on the High Contrast Stage. I removed the audio clips but replaced them with video. A video opening sequence and several other video sequences that would be played during the show. The Underground had a larger tv that i had to ask someone help me schlep it onstage and off. I would hook my old iBook to it and run the videos right into the tv. It was pretty sweet and made for some great shows. I spent a great deal of time collecting and mashing the videos together. LET IT BE KNOWN that i always made it clear, every show, that i did not make any of the videos (with a few exceptions) but that i downloaded them from online sites and then would re-edit them all together as one. They were a ton of work but the videos were a blast and i think the audiences dug them. I know the comics were almost only intersted in the videos. They really helped set High Contrast apart from anything i knew of that was going on —certainly at a comedy club! Moving to The Bay Area of California in April 2006, High Contrast closed shop at the end of February. Pretty much a two year run. December 6 2006 High Contrast resurfaced at the now defuncy The San Francisco Comedy Lounge at 50 Mason.
The show ran there until June 2007. High Contrast has been resting since.
Alumni
Some of the greatest artists that have ever lived, noone will ever have heard of. Standup is no different.
Being involved with stand-up since 1986, I have been fortunate to meet and get to know some great stand-up talent. Many of these fantastic and unique talent have taken the High Contrast Stage. These include, in no particular order:
Mission
To bring to the stage a comedy themed show that supports daring, political, inventive and other alternative voices that need to be heard –– that the mainstream comedy clubs would prefer they not.
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