Why it matters: Big city comedy at small town prices. Drive a little and save a lot ... wait, I stole that, and in retrospect it didn't work out so well for them.
Tucked away next to a salsa dance studio in Gilroy's old downtown is a nondescript door plastered with show-bills. The door opens to a long, narrow hallway into the best entertainment venue this side of San Jose. The Gaslighter Theater reminds me of some of the great music venues I used to visit along Haight Street when I lived in San Francisco during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Nothing fancy but a whole lot of cutting edge music.
The acts are shuffled -- Saturday night piano bar with a focus on jazz, show tunes and pop. It's a sing-along Vaudevillian evening with no cover charge. Occasionally a concert with four or five acts for $12 is tossed in to mix things up. Fridays feature DJ-hosted and music-video dance nights for $7 a head. Comedy takes center stage on selected Thursdays. These acts are no slouches.
My wife and I visited on a recent Thursday to catch DNA, Sal Calanni and Don Friesen -- all for $10. Friesen http://www.donfriesen.com/newback.html headlined with his self-effacing husband shtick -- an absolute hoot.
At the bar we bought a couple of Polish. My wife added a beer to wash it down; I got a Diet Coke. We split a free bowl of pop corn. Total damage: about $10. Simple tables and chairs on the floor and along the elevated perimeter provided an intimate setting that allowed for great back-and-forth between comedian and audience. Behind us a gaggle of women were enjoying a Sex in the City night out. They were bawdy and boisterous -- the perfect com
edy club patrons.DNA was good; Calanni was better. Freisen was top shelf -- every bit as good as many of the acts I've seen at the far pricier Improv Comedy Club in San Jose.
Freisen won the prestigious San Francisco International Comedy Competition, the same competition the helped launch the careers of Robin Williams, Dana Carvey, and Ellen DeGeneres. He returned to San Francisco in 2005 to win the competition again, becoming the only comedian in the 30-year history of the San Francisco International Comedy Competition to win it twice. Freisen's style of physical comedy harks back to Red Skelton and John Belushi.
On the same block, at the Corner of Sixth and Monterey streets, is a great little tapas house called Lizarran http://www.lizarran-ca.com/. On the night we were there Lizarran offered a dinner package that included discount tickets to the comedy show. Ring them for more details.
All told we dropped less than $40 on the show, grub and drinks. That's a ratio of laughs per dollar you cannot beat in the South Bay.
"Eat, Pray, Laugh," to steal and then mutilate the title of Elizabeth Gilbert's book of a similar title, is an occasional romp through the South County's small but beloved arts community, its religious community and all the yuk-yuk stuff that happens in between. Send your ideas for EPL to dscribe@hotmail.com, and write "Gilroy Post" in the message line.
About Gilroy Post: http://gilroypost.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-blog-about-south-county.html
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