Chicago stand-ups Mike Lebovitz, Stephanie Hasz, Katie McVay and others will perform in the critically acclaimed traveling comedy show Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction at North Bar, 1637 West North Avenue, tonight at 8pm as part of the Comedy Exposition of 2015.
Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction, developed and hosted by comic Bryan Cook, started as an addendum to his regular Valentine’s Day show in 2012 in Seattle.
“There’s a great comic back in Seattle named Travis Vogt who used to read a piece of ‘Cars’ [the film] erotic fan fiction at standup shows,” Cook said in an email. “Crowds really loved it or really, really hated it. I saw him do it and it happened to be right before my annual Valentine’s Day show and I thought it would be a great fit to have all the comics write erotic fan fic. It was a huge hit with the crowd.”
In the past three years, the show has run monthly at The Virgil in LA, toured music festivals throughout the country and blossomed into a popular weekly podcast on the Nerdist Network. It was last in Chicago in 2013, for the Just for Laughs festival.
The show features comics reading erotic fan fiction that either they have written or found online. During the latter half of the show, the comics devise fan-fiction pieces based upon audience suggestions. Cook said the eight stand-ups chosen to perform in the Comedy Exposition iteration of Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction were all people who had performed the show previously.
Cook said prior plans to come to Chicago coincided with the Comedy Exposition, which led to the show’s inclusion in the festival’s program.
“I know [the people involved with planning Comedy Exposition] and was planning to come through around now anyway, so they were gracious enough to produce it for me,” Cook wrote. “GOOD CREW [sic],” he added.
For those who cannot make the show, which is twenty-one and over, the podcast is available every Saturday on iTunes or Nerdist.com.
“Someone recommended the podcast to [famed stand-up] Doug Stanhope on Twitter, and he replied, ‘Every single word of that sounds individually awful and worse as a whole, starting with podcast,’” Cook wrote. “I’ve never been prouder.” (Marissa Page)
July 8 at North Bar, 1637 West North, (773)697-3563. Doors at 7pm. Show at 8pm. $10 tickets at the door.
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