Ritch Shydner Show Marks Long-Awaited Return of Standup to Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara’s Brasil Arts Cafe is not what it appears. Walk through the restaurant proper to the shadowy back of the place. A grinning bruiser parts a speakeasy-like curtain and you enter a hidden grotto the police could raid at any moment. Welcome back! Local standup impresario Kimmie Dee’s aptly named NO INDOOR VOICES (NIV) triumphantly returns to Brasil Arts with comic mayhem that’ll have you snorting like a wild boar in front of your horrified date. Closed by COVID, the beloved standup space grandly reopens this weekend with Ritch Shydner’s History of Comedy (directed by J. Elvis Weinstein). Shydner’s Letterman-Leno-Carson pedigree, his gig on Married with Children, his writing for TV, his award-winning documentary I AM COMIC make him the perfect Reopening Act.
“Ritch is always moving forward,” Dee says with uncommon deference. “Improving, learning, sharing, teaching… he’s the true definition of a mensch.” Meaning? “He’s one hell of a funny human!” She suddenly hollers. As she will. “That, and he’s from NJ!”
If You Go
Ritch Shydner’s History of Comedy, directed by J. Elvis Weinstein.
Dec 2, 3, 4 and 9, 10, 11 at 7pm
Brasil Arts Cafe – 1230 State St. in Santa Barbara
Tickets @ Nightout.com – $15 online, $20 at the door
Limited seating each night per COVID bossiness.
Proof of vaccination and face masks required.
