The North Star Theater is about to get a whole lot of laughs.
The Alaska B4UDie Comedy Festival is landing in Cordova on April 4, as part of a week-long, statewide tour eliciting gut rolls and laugh-cries. It’s the first time the festival will include a Cordova show.
Sarah Phillips, Cordova Arts & Pageants Board Member, said the prominent arts scene in town was a major driver to get the comedy festival to Cordova. Phillips is also the founder of Smack Box Entertainment – an event and performance company based in Cordova, and partner of the Alaska B4UDie Comedy Festival.
“The decision to host festival comedians ensures Cordovans can enjoy quality performances without traveling long distances,” Phillips told The Cordova Times. “The welcoming atmosphere that Cordova is known for fosters strong connections between audiences and performers, encouraging artists to return and contribute to the ongoing vitality of Cordova’s arts scene.”
Kass Smiley, a co-founder of the Alaska B4UDie Comedy Festival, said the group has been trying to get down to Cordova for a while now.
“We have been trying to infiltrate Cordova for such a long time,” she said. “We’ve been talking about it for years.”
While the majority of the shows happen in Anchorage, Smiley noted that the festival has made stops in other small towns across Alaska – including Talkeetna, Seward, Homer, Kenai-Soldotna, Girdwood, Palmer, Whittier, and Wasilla.
“Our goal is to try to bring comedy out to these rural cities,” she said. “Now, we have national comedians who are so excited to make multiple trips up to Alaska to experience these remote road gigs.”
In its fifth year, the Alaska B4UDie Comedy Festival was born from a “drunken night of homegrown Alaskans” at Chilkoot Charlie’s bar in Anchorage, according to Smiley, who were “riffing and ‘what-if-ing.’”
“We eventually decided Alaska needed its own international comedy festival, so we could connect our Lower 48 comedian friends to the comedy scene and wilderness we are fostering in Alaska,” she said.
Jake Armstrong, another Alaska B4UDie Comedy Festival co-founder, said the Last Frontier is a great comedy setting.
“I think the funny people come from difficult-to-live places, like rural Alaska,” he said. “People that grow up near a sunny beach with money and no problems don’t have a sense of humor.”
Armstrong described comedians taking ferries, milk-run flights, and driving to “the end of the road” for stand-up gigs.
“People that come see you in those places truly appreciate you for that,” he said. “Even if they’re not into your jokes, after the show they’ll come over and be like, ‘Hey man, at least we both love mountains. How about a shot!?’”
This year’s festival will run April 1-6, and feature more than 25 shows from Cordova to Talkeetna. The festival begins at Chilkoot Charlie’s in Anchorage, otherwise known as Koots, on April 1 with a “Local Legends” comedy competition.
The April 4 Cordova show will feature comedians Shawna Blake and Zach Williams, and Matti Ray Harvey.
Blake, a comedian out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, said comedy is her favorite thing in the world.
“I like to say it’s because I enjoy being able to connect with audiences and share things from my life that others can relate to as well and not feel alone in their thoughts or ideas,” she said. “But really I do it to pick up men.”
The Cordova show begins at 7 p.m. at the North Star Theater on April 4. Tickets are $20 each, and can be purchased online at https://www.smackbox.biz/.
For more information about the week-long comedy festival, visit https://www.alaskab4udiefest.com/.
