Schtickin
To Corned

What's so funny about quitting
your day job?
Many Jewish comics are
getting the last laugh.

JULIE YOLLES ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

DANIEL UPPITY PHOTOGRAPHER

T

t's 8:03 p.m. Tuesday, Open
Mic Night at Mark Ridley's
Comedy Castle in Royal
Oak. Mark Ridley himself
is at the door collecting the cov-
er. Five bucks. Can't beat that for
a fun, cheap date.
The crowd filters in — more
than 250 by the time the first
comic goes on at 8:35 p.m. Some
saunter to the lobby bar, deco-
rated with huge caricatures of
Lucille Ball and the Blues Broth-
ers, for a preshow drink. The reg-
ulars make a beeline to the stage
for the coveted front-row cabaret-
style tables. Smokers on the left.
Non-smokers on the right.
The fledgling comics du jour—
usually six for the Tuesday night
line-up — nervously pace back-
stage, while applying the Evelyn
Wood speed-talking technique to
their monologues for a last-
minute run-through.
Tonight's M.C. is Elie Morris,
a life insurance salesman by day
who "got the bug" after he took a
comedy improv class at Mark Ri-
dley's.
Likewise for Ben Konstantin,
who's introduced by Morris as the
first comic of the evening.
"I was always a quiet, shy kid.
But I was always a funny guy
with my group of friends," recalls
Konstantin, 31, an art director at
Young & Rubicam in Detroit. "I'd
watch Bob Hope when I was in
third grade and Jack Benny and

Carol Burnett. I always wanted
to try it, but had other things go-
ing on, so I kept putting it off."
Two years ago, Konstantin, of
Oak Park, heard about the com-
edy workshop offered at Mark Ri-
dley's. Taught by Gilda Hauser,
a stockbroker who chucked her
day job for a full-time career as a
stand-up, the six-week class got
Konstantin hooked.
He started doing open mic
nights at bars, restaurants, fra-
ternity houses and weddings.
Now, he performs locally about
once a week, with his first feature
gig just booked by Mark Ridley
for a Comedy Castle appearance
July 16-20, 1997.
"I keep a journal every day and
write into it for half an hour,"
Konstantin says about develop-
ing the autobiographical mater-
ial for his act. "I then go back and
read it and ask, 'What if?' I try to
do something that's honest, in a
clean and funny way. You sort of
develop a knack for it. I'm just
trying to say, 'This is what hap-
pened to me,' and I hope it's fun-
ny.
"[With comedy], you're the
writer, the director, the choreog-
rapher and the actor," says Kon-
stantin. "If you're terrible, you
take the blame. I try to look at
it as an art form ... I just try to
work hard and learn from my
own mistakes and other people."
Claps all around. Konstantin

bows and exits stage right. Elie
Morris returns to the stage.
"Next up, from L.A., appear-
ing this weekend at the Comedy
Castle, give it up for Sheila Kay."

ifferent schticks for
different chicks.
When former De-
troiter Sheila Kay
(Weinberg) comes home every
Thanksgiving to visit family and
friends and perform for four
nights at the Comedy Castle,
Mark Ridley has to label her act

][..)

as "adult theme" in the
divorce left her a single
promotional material. "You know, I'm not mom. Since that day
"We have a ratings very good at cleaning when she did "five min-
my own house. I
system that we use. We
utes of probably very
only book comics that should fire me, but I unfunny material" at
might steal
are mostly between something," jokes the Delta Lady's open
PG-13 and R, the same
mic night in Ferndale,
former Oak Park
as in the movies, except resident Sheila Kay. Kay has built up a full-
the only thing we don't
time career based on hu-
have is bloodshed," jokes Ridley, morous self-deprecation. She
who was the class clown at chats freely, and in far-from-pris-
Walled Lake High School.
tine detail, about dieting, work-
"My act is blue humor, kind of ing out, dating, bikini waxes and
racy," says Kay, who got into gynecological visits.
comedy in 1980 after her second
"You know what I'm talking