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The 3rd Annual Hampton Comedy Festival By Sandra Owens The waves of laughter felt through Sag Harbor last weekend had nothing to do with the tides, and everything to do with the exceptional comedians at Rocco’s A La Playa for The 3rd Annual Hampton Comedy Festival. And all the laughs were for a good cause. Abby Russell, television producer and President of Nuforms Media, Ltd. founded The Hamptons Comedy Festival three years ago. It has provided nights of laughter in the past and this year was no exception. Portions of the proceeds are split between the Prostate Cancer Research Fund and the Breast and Ovarian Cancer Research Fund at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Abby has managed to promote laughter as a path to healing and she had many people volunteer their time to support this cause, including Victoria Blau and Kang. Opening MC Laura Slutsky, who, by the way, did change her name, began by passing around clown noses to loosen up the audience. "When a man leaves my life, Sara Lee moves in," she said. She was just one of the high-profile comediennes in attendance over the three day festival. Joy Behar, co-host of The View, made her third appearance at the festival and she had people rolling in the aisles. Along with Angela LaGreca, a comedienne, singer, popular entertainer and a regular warm up personality for The View, the ladies kept the laughs coming all night. Angela should be swept up for her own show. She sang a song called "In Denial" to which even a person in Egypt could relate (get it? De Nile). It had the audience rolling. She told me "The best part about performing in the Hamptons is if a comic steals your joke it gets printed in the ‘Police Blotter.’" Angela also wasn’t afraid to poke fun at her audience. "You could sense the crowd wanted to have fun, but with all that Botox in the room, out-loud laughing just wasn’t an option," she joked. "Let’s face it, this crowd took the ‘sag’ out of Sag Harbor." Fortunately, the audience had no problem laughing at itself. "The Hamptons audience had by far the highest rate of plastic surgery and implants I’d ever seen," she said to peals of laughter. "At this point, Nick & Toni’s should be renamed Nip & Tuck. The Hamptons is not the most ethnically diverse crowd… with the exception of Puff Daddy, and B. Smith, the only other ‘person of color’ I spotted was George Hamilton." Even the venue was susceptible to a joke or two. "Rocco’s A La Playa? Where did they come up with that? I’m sure the Sag Harbor Town Board misunderstood: ‘Rococo A La Playa?’ Hmmm… Art on the Beach… we love it!" Angela LaGreca is definitely someone to watch and it doesn’t seem like it will be too long before she’s a household name. With continuous tough acts to follow, I don’t know how these comediennes stayed so cool. It’s truly a gift to be able to get up there in front of millions of people, oh, I mean millions of dollars and 200 people to perform. Another exceptional comedian was Eric Richman, a New Jersey entertainment lawyer who discovered through careful cross examination that his other passion was telling jokes. Now that’s funny. It makes me think of Matlock breaking into a Rodney Dangerfield routine. He floored the audience with this edgy political commentary. Eric described the crowd at the festival as, "Beer drinking, blue collar, callused fingered teamsters who were ready to rumble." Eric performs at major clubs including Gotham Comedy Club, Stand-up NY, Comic Strip Live and the Boston Comedy Club. The big event of the weekend was on Saturday night when Mickey Freeman from Sergeant Bilko and the Friars club presented the inaugural Friars Club Award for Special Achievement in Comedy Arts to Soupy Sales. Soupy Sales, for the younger crowd, was known for throwing pies in people’s faces on his show. It was only fitting that during his acceptance of the award, Soupy slung one at Slutsky on stage. When I asked Laura what it was like getting a pie in the face by Soupy, she replied, "When the Kingpin of Comedy landed that pie in my face it was like winning the Academy Award. Soupy, I’ll never wash this face again." Speaking with legends like Mickey Freeman and Soupy made me feel like nobody has it better than I do. Referring to the comedians, Soupy said, "I think they’re great. They have more and more opportunities to be bad." They made me see that at forty I have at least another fifty years ahead of me. And it was doubly nice to know that the money raised during the event is to insure that people with cancer get the same chance. Without the research there can be no cure. Without the funds there could be no research. So thank you everyone who attended and contributed to this fundraiser and hopefully next year, everyone will be there laughing again! For more information please visit : www.mskcc.org Copyright © 2000 Dans Papers, Inc. All rights reserved. |