Lighten up at comedy festival
He would have called me sooner, but he had been hiking up the side of a mountain, not a regular activity, and scraped his knee.
"It's a little embarrassing," said Sammy Wegent. Although, the 2005 winner of the Battle of the Bay Comedy Competition usually is not concerned what others think. Named "The Funniest Person in the Bay Area," surely he was joking.
After his cell phone cut out, he called me back to say it was no big deal, "just spiraling down the side of the mountain."
Wegent will return to Seaside Repertory Theatre on Wednesday, July 30, for the fifth annual Gulf Coast Comedy Festival. He is the leader of SPF 7, the improv troupe formed at the Rep in the summer of 2001, the same year Craige Hoover founded the theater company.
"It was selfish, in fact," said Hoover, a Nashville native. "I had been vacationing here and thought this was a good place for one. This is a community that embraces culturally progressive arts."
Hoover doesn't try to dictate material, but does make sure it is appropriate for most audiences.
"Improv always has been a staple of our season; fills a good niche for teens and adults," said Hoover.
‘Hell to the Chief'
In addition to improv and stand-up, Wegent also will perform his one-man show "Hell to the Chief," a political satire that has been staged in San Francisco, Austin and New Orleans.
Wegent went to graduate school in Washington, D.C., which fueled his interest in political satire. He joked it was a requirement to talk about politics while living there. "Half the battle of a comedian," he said, " is looking at everything and having an opinion about it."
Sources for his presidential expertise: He heard the past two presidents speak while living in D.C, and he was student council president in school. "I used to want to be the president," said Wegent. He said he's a decision-maker, "even if it's a board game."
Wegent said he takes an anti-authority position. "Just to question anything that's out there," he said. "The point is not to know what I'm talking about. Why can't I just be passionate about it?"
Regarding this year's presidential election, Wegent is excited about how much attention it is getting, spanning generations.
"College kids are having arguments," he said. "Young people are seeing how much responsibility they have."
The dream
After leaving D.C., Wegent headed to San Francisco, a far cry from the small town of Selma, Ala., where he spent his teenage years.
No one really wanted to hear about his dreams of becoming a comedian. "Guidance counselors were pretty pessimistic," he said. "They really hurt my feelings a lot."
Wegent admits he was a "class clown, but not in a disruptive way." He finished his work early, so he could "do class clown things," which seemed to really annoy his teachers.
While in college, he ran into his high school football coach, and again, spoke of his ambitions. "He said, ‘just tell me when you're famous,'" said Wegent. "Everyone else viewed it as an impractical career, silly, impossible."
Well, coach, you might say he's famous now.
"It's been weird and hard, and sometimes I get paid and sometimes I don't," said Wegent.
When he goes home and tells his family of all of the things he's done and seen, the people he has met, they still can one-up him. "They still think they are funnier," said Wegent. "When I go home, I see where I got it from. I had to learn how to be funny just to keep up with them."
But, unlike guidance counselors and coaches, his family always has supported him.
"I think that part of my dad wanted to be a comedian," he said.
Wegent recalls his dad coming home and venting about his day by exaggerating what had happened.
"I didn't want his job, because it didn't sound fun," he said.
But, he realized, he wanted to know how to do what his dad did, how to tell people something and make it funny, make them laugh. "Making somebody laugh and being around people, that made me happy."
And making people laugh is exactly what he's been doing.
"And then I go home, and they wipe the floor with me," said Wegent.
Seaside beginnings
The first comedy troupe Wegent started in college was "This, That and the Other," a reference to a Jerry Seinfeld episode. "My two major influences were Jerry Seinfeld and George Carlin," said Wegent.
Through a classmate, he heard about auditioning for the Seaside Rep comedy troupe. As for the name SPF 7, Hoover wanted them to have a name that tied to the beach theme. The name is a reference to sunblock, and there were seven members. At first, though, they lengthened it to Seaside's Professional Fools, so others could know have some idea of who they were.
"It really didn't make much sense to people, and I liked that," said Wegent. "It got people talking about our group."
After the members went back to the name of SPF 7, he said others would try to guess what it meant.
"Nothing ever made sense about it," he said, because the number of members was always changing, "and I loved it."
Other members of SPF 7 appearing at this year's comedy festival include Justin Lamb and Bob Brindley. Also scheduled to appear is Kevin Boyle, comedian, improviser and star of Seaside Rep's recent production of "Fuddy Meers." Another familiar face to festival audiences is Roger Hailes, whose stand-up act recently appeared on Comedy Central's "Live at Gotham." Hailes was named "Comedian of the Week" in Time Out New York.
"To be honest, I went to college with Hailes, now a writer for VH1," said Hoover. "I like to think, since we've been friends so long, I contributed to it (his success)."
Hoover describes Hailes' comedic style as dry storytelling. "Like any great comic, (he) takes a story we all know and tells it in a different way." Hoover said great comics are about finding humor in things we can relate to. "He was always the funny one," said Hoover.
The Gulf Coast Comedy Festival has become a comedic reunion at the Rep. This year, there will be three distinct styles, stand-up, sketch and improv comedy, where comedians take suggestions from the audience. "It's always a big hit," said Hoover.
Summer ending
The festival winds down The Seaside Repertory Theatre's 2008 Summer Season with a four-day celebration of laughter.
"The comedy festival in a way is fun for us to do," said Hoover. "The crowd loves it. Summer is a time for comedy."
The festival runs in the Meeting Hall Theatre on Wednesday, July 30, through Saturday, Aug. 2, with two shows nightly at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Tickets are $15.
"I think theater, and especially the way we do theater, is a unique form of entertainment that is so lacking in this area," said Hoover. "We're the only professional theater company between Jacksonville and New Orleans, higher acts and pay. The difference is in the quality of performers."
The Comedy Festival does not mark the final act of summer, though. The following week, the Rep will present an evening of vignettes directed and performed by members of the 2008 class of interns from South Walton High School. This year's class will perform selections and monologues from contemporary comedies. This is the first year for The Intern Show, with shows at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, Aug. 6-9. Tickets are $15, and a portion of the proceeds will go to support the South Walton High School Drama Club.
For more information or tickets, visit www. seasiderep.org or call (850) 231-0733.