The Sacramento Comedy Spot will bring a new type of art festival to Sacramento this weekend, guaranteed to send attendees home with side splinters and sore cheekbones. The first Sacramento Comedy Festival, to be held at the Sacramento Comedy Spot in Midtown, will bring to the stage 170 comedians in 17 different shows from Thursday through Sunday. Brian Crall, owner of the Sacramento Comedy Spot and main coordinator for the festival, said that he and others at the club set a goal last year to host a comedy festival this year, and though they wanted to keep it relatively small, they wanted to bring a show that featured more than solely standup comedy. “Since the festival is all about incl

Less than a year after moving from his location on Broadway to 20th and J streets, Brian Crall said his Sacramento Comedy Spot business is booming. “We’re showing record numbers each month,” he said, adding that performances used to be three nights per week and have now increased to six nights per week. “We have tons of stuff going on,” Crall said. “There’s lots of comedy right now.” The comedy at the Sacramento Comedy Spot is largely improv, and Crall said he is scheduling new shows and continuing to produce the ones that have been popular. One of those shows is “In Your Facebook” – performed at 9 p.m. every Thursday – in which a volunteer audience member logs in to his or her Faceboo

Headling July 24th For One Night Only! "Lady Business," the name of the newest, and to our knowledge only, all-female improv troupe in the Sacramento area is quite the misnomer. These six very funny girls certainly aren't "ladies" in the conservative, Emily Post kind of way. We were able to meet up with this troupe of very sexy, very funny ladies as they were practicing together at the Sacramento Comedy Spot in mid-town in preparation for their fourth consecutive monthly appearance there on July 24th. Improv-ers all, Micaela Smith, Mel Gelbart, Becca Costello, Brittany Birrer Stacy Beckley and Lisa Spivak constitute this hilarious and ribald troupe that presents a point of view that wom

             When I was at school at the University of Oregon, I took a lot of classes.  There were history classes, journalism classes, english classes, a lot of political science classes, a few science classes, even an art history class (Chicks, man!).  To be honest, 10+ years removed from the experience, most of them have bled together in my memory.                A few stand out, however.  An astronomy course where in a friend of mine cheated off me on the final and got a better grade.  A sociology course where the professor offered extra credit to students who skipped class to join the WTO riots inSeattle.  A military science course that I took along with a future NFL 1,000-yard rush

A SacramentoComedy.Com Interview Jennifer Coolidge is beautiful. Whether you wish she was your best friend's mother, your manicurist/advocate, your messed-up friend or just your date for the evening depends not only your age, but what movie or TV show you saw her in last. Coolidge, who has been a leading character actress for more than 20, years is tackling a new segment of her creativity – that of a stand-up comedian. We met in the green room at Tommy T's Comedy Club in Rancho Cordova before her final show for the weekend. Looking just like I and a million other boys and men imagined her a decade ago when she played Stifler's mom in the ‘American Pie’ movies, Coolidge is a striking bea

Whenever I hear descriptive terms like "good clean fun" or "fun for the entire family", and the word "Disneyland" isn't included in the sentence, in my mind I think "boring!" Put the words "comedy" and "competition" in the same sentence and I just think of a "Yo Mamma so fat..." argument on the asphalt. But not anymore! Welcome to Sacramento Comedy Sportz, a very nice and intimate venue tucked away in an industrial area behind Arby's on Arden one driveway east of Howe. The sign, like the venue is small and tucked away, so if you weren't looking for it, you may only come across it when looking for carpet next door. So, what makes this comedy venue so different? It's not comedy about sport

A stroll past the corner of 22nd and L Streets on Mondays from 7- 9 p.m. might cause concern for those unfamiliar with the location. It's typical to hear people screaming out as they're being chased, fits of anger, uncontrollable laughter, heated arguments and even opera singing. The unassuming Geery Theatre is home to the Midtown Players on Monday nights for Carrie Bray's improv class. This weekend will kick off The Midtown Players' very first performance. Carrie Bray, who has taken classes from Viola Spolin, performed simultaneously at comedy clubs with Robin Williams as well as at Budd Friedman's Improv, only just recently moved to Sacramento. In the 50's, Bray actually spent one ye

Derek Byrne is a new student to the art of improv. Below he shares his experiences with acting, comedy and what it's like to learn improv from Brian Crall at The Comedy Spot. I've taken classes and workshops, but the bulk of what I've been doing recently is with Brian Crall at Sacramento Comedy Spot on Broadway. Most of my studying has been there. I just came to Sacramento go to college and ended up staying. I've been here for 18 years, since 1990. I've been doing acting for the past 8 eight years. Mostly dramatic stuff commercials, six or seven plays, a few local films, Elsa Letterseed, Bad Faith, Dreams Awake, Make it Happen, I do voice overs and industrials. I've always had an intere