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A Laughing Matter
My son’s debut as a comic
Last year, my friend El came by for a walk. As we walked along the river near our homes, she said, “Oh, you have to come to my show!”
I said, “What?”
It did not compute.
El is a creative director for Wells Fargo, or was then. I’d never known her to act at all.
“Yes, I’m doing a solo show in six weeks! You gotta come!”
Mystified and confused, I said sure.
Sure enough, roughly six weeks later, El pinged me.
“You’re coming to my show, right? It’s this weekend!” and she gave me the details.
I still had no idea what she was talking about.
But, go I did.
I drove to the address she sent me at the time she appointed and found myself in a little theater in the middle of a tony residential district in Oakland.
There were about 40 people in attendance.
And I proceeded to watch the show.
It turned out this was Alicia Dattner’s Solo Comedy Showdown — a six-week program to guide people to delivering a solo show of their own to a selected audience.
Introducing the show, Alicia said, “You can go to a place like Berkeley Rep and see…
