The Collegio Pittsburg's student voice since 1916
Related Articles
Dusty Slay, comedian from Nashville, Tennessee, traveled to Pittsburg for the Basement Comedy Series at Memorial Auditorium. Slay, who has appeared on several network shows, performed in Pittsburg Thursday, Sept. 6, from 8 to 9:30 p.m.
“We did a six-week run during the spring kind of as a test run to find out if the community would be receptive to comedy and we found out that people really enjoyed it,” said Chris Patterson, Memorial Auditorium general manager. “And each week each sentences grew larger and larger and during the final week we did a survey to find out what people liked and what they didn’t like about comedy and they told us that they prefer Thursday over Wednesday, so when we relapse comedy tonight we moved it to Thursday nights and moved it to 8 p.m.”
Attendants must be age 18 or older to attend the Basement Comedy Series and tickets are $10.
“We’ll be doing 15 weeks between now and the end of December, so we’ll be doing almost every Thursday,” Patterson said. “People liked the $10 ticket price and liked that it’s 18 and over, so students that might not be able to get into the casino and certain other places they can attend these events here and it’s about the same cost as going to see a movie or bowling a couple games or something like that. So there’s something to reach out to the community and hopefully engage the student population.”
Memorial Auditorium also has a partnership with the Blue Room Comedy Club in Springfield, Missouri.
“The comedians that are going to play at the Blue Room on the weekend are stopping here on Thursdays first, so it’s kind of like a stop before they go to bigger cities,” said Jenna Spencer, Memorial Auditorium office manager. “So we’ve got a really good chance in bringing them here for the Pittsburg community.”
Chris Ray, Blue Room owner, originally did not want to help with Pittsburg’s comedy series, but after some time his opinion changed.
“Chris Patterson contacted me a year ago and he said he wanted to bring comedy where they wanted to help elevate the Memorial Auditorium, so he wanted to start doing comedy series and I told him I don’t want to be anything part of it,” Ray said. “But last spring it was a successful start for this comedy series show and we wanted to help bring comedy to this town because the community here really deserves it and we can bring great comedy here from talented and popular comedians from all across the country and give the people here just as quality, just as high as caliber, of entertainment.”
Attendants ranged from PSU students to community members. Audience members could purchase concessions along with mixed drinks and other alcoholic beverages from the available bar.
“Well they did a wonderful job starting with the first and then they work their way up to the more season will experience comedian and we really enjoyed the show and we’ll definitely come here next Thursday,” said Teresa Mince, attendant.
Many audience members enjoyed Slay’s performance, as Mary Fitzwater, attendant, said the show got better as the evening went on.
“It started off a little bit of the opening and then Dusty came in and the show started to get funnier and interesting,” Fitzwater said.
The audience members were not the only ones having fun, as Slay enjoyed putting together Kansas-related jokes.
“People in Kansas I think getting my tornado jokes and I never been to this part of Kansas I’ve only been to Wichita and yeah this was really fun,” Slay said. “It’s a great setup, great people, and I enjoyed watching them laugh the whole time.”
