Thursday night will be stand-up comedian Brain Regan's sixth performance in Fayetteville. He was here in 2007, 2009, 2012, 2013 and 2016. But even if you've seen him perform five (or more) times, he's bringing all new material on Thursday. In fact, Fayetteville's audience will get a sneak peak at the material Regan will perform in his upcoming Netflix special, which he films next week.
"There might be a handful of jokes that I use as a transition, but just a handful at most," Regan says from his home in Las Vegas. "It's fun doing [older content], but I describe [new material] as running on virgin snow, you know? I like when it's a big, white landscape of snow with no footprints, and I'm going and making fresh footprints."
FAQ
Brian Regan
WHEN — 7:30 p.m. Thursday
WHERE — Walton Arts Center in, Fayetteville
COST — $65.10
INFO — 443-5600, waltonartscenter.org
Regan jokes that he and I should find a field of fresh snow to run through making footprints, but when I remind him what a rare occurrence that is for Arkansas, he says chuckling, "Maybe I should pick another analogy for Arkansas ... Your readers are going to be going 'What's he talking about? What's snow?'"
Regan admits he has a tendency to get "cutesy, but not necessarily funny" with his analogies, and even with his writing when he actually sits down to write. It's once he's on the stage that he finds his best content.
"You're in the heat of the moment, and you end up saying things more succinctly. There's something fun about that. It's like something inside of you -- it does what it needs to do to cut to the quick."
Regan's style of observational comedy comes out of everyday moments, some mundane, that become something relatably hilarious when seen through the right lens. He references an equation-like formula that often unfolds in comedy: comedy equals tragedy plus time.
"But it doesn't have to be something tragic like a death or something horrific -- it just means something awkward or uncomfortable," Regan clarifies. "And so they say a period of time goes by afterwards and you look back and see now I can make that funny. But for me as a comedian, while it's happening, you're usually already going, 'Hey, something might be funny here down the road,' but I'm not laughing while it's happening."
Such was the case with Regan's bit about going to the emergency room. Understandably, he wasn't laughing as he rolled down the hallway on the gurney, but down the road, the experience ended up as a bit in his comedy.
If you can't make it to Regan's show at the Walton Arts Center on Thursday, you can catch his special on Netflix soon, or the one after that to release in 2019.
-- JOCELYN MURPHY
JMURPHY@NWADG
NAN What's Up on 06/09/2017