Performers

Brent Mosher – Producer

Brent Mosher - Producer

This week I spoke to producer, audio engineer and DJ, Brent Mosher about his musical roots, the soundscape of space and the release of his debut EP, Event Horizon.

An Education in Music: Formal and Otherwise

Brent started in music like many others, learning to play the piano as a child, and then enrolling in band classes as a teenager. After a brief stint playing the baritone, he moved to the drums and percussion for his five years in high school. Percussion afforded him the opportunity to focus on beats and rhythms, something that eventually led him to develop an interest in DJing. Brent had a friend who was relatively new as a DJ but was nevertheless tasked with playing music for a house party that they both attended. While Brent was looking over the control board, his friend turned to him and said, “Hey man, I want to go make out with my girlfriend. Can you take over for a little bit?” When I’ve been asked this question, it has never been accompanied with any real responsibility; its more like “hold my beer,” or “get out of the hot tub”. Returning to the story, this “little bit” turned into two hours, and despite being a bit overwhelmed, Brent’s surprise debut was positively received by the crowd. This pushed him to delve deeper into electronic music, get a controller of his own, and begin exploring life as a DJ.

At the start of his studies at The University of British Columbia, Brent began recording mixes for his personal use but soon outgrew the audience of his dorm room. He received his first real opportunity to play for others at the end of his second year when he was hired to play half an hour at a party hosted by The Calendar. He remembers only a few people being at the party during his timeslot, but due to his performance, he rose to later and longer sets until he found himself closing the night. Brent faced a steep learning curve to keep up with these opportunities, saying that as a performer he had to learn that for this type of event “you’re playing for the people in the room… not necessarily what you want to hear”. Other key learning moments were learning to mix without train wrecking, “when you have two beats that aren’t aligned when you’re playing them,” and dealing with the unpredictable climate of the crowd, weather, and power outages of a party.

As his university degree came to a close, Brent realized that he didn’t want to pursue a career in the field of Kinesiology, his chosen major. He also realized that while he was DJing on a consistent basis, he didn’t see a future for himself in this field either. Neither the life of a commercial DJ playing weddings nor the life of a resident DJ playing clubs every weekend presented him the opportunity to use the music he wanted to play. Moreover, he wanted to shift from playing other artists’ songs to learning how to produce his own music. He completed his kinesiology degree as a nod to his parents and the time he spent at university but decided to continue his education at the Nimbus School of Recording. A surface-level look at Brent’s journey at Nimbus thus far includes modules in sound engineering, electronic music production, and post-production game audio production, but the star of this article is his most recent final project. This resulted in the release of his first EP, Event Horizon.

Event Horizon

While the inciting incident to create his EP was to satisfy an assignment, the inspiration behind it came from the onset of COVID-19. Brent describes the beginning of quarantine as a time in which “anxiety and depression were at an all-time high,” and a period in which he found himself wanting to be far away from the troubles on Earth. His first song, “Day by Day”, imagines “what would it be like to just get in a rocket ship and blast off” from our rock. The title is also a mantra of how Brent got himself through the initial turmoil of quarantine; taking all of life’s sudden changes one day at a time. In this song he took vocal samples of conversations about space and processed them with a vocoder, introducing the sci-fi quality that is consistent throughout the four songs. These vocal samples are the glue that Brent uses to hold the EP together, and this was the first time he had released multiple songs with the same thematic overtone. Despite the environment in which this song was made being a place of adversity, Brent describes his dream for the music video as much more jovial, with an astronaut dancing around his rocket ship. Speaking on behalf of the astronaut, Brent says that “because he’s just hurtling through space, [he] might as well dance”. I know videographers read this blog, let’s make this happen.

Following “Day by Day” is “Landing Zone”, a song about the moment when our hero arrives on a calm, desolate planet. As the astronaut explores the landscape of this planet, he discovers that he is not alone, encountering hostile aliens in the third song, “Contact”. Brent describes “Contact” as “the most chaotic song on the EP,” as well as the song that would best fit into a club set. He built this song around a simple driving bassline, using other techniques to evoke alarms, flashing lights, and a fight between warring spaceships. He also dots the track with “ear candy,” which he denotes as the extra bits in a song that “tickle your brain a little bit”. ***Not to be confused with what my uncle assured me was delicious, homemade taffy***. Finally, the last song on the EP is the title track, Event Horizon. Brent says that he spent the most time on this track to achieve it’s celebratory and light-hearted sound. It began as a specific in-class assignment in which he received ten sounds to make a track with, despite the sounds being disjointed to one another. After manipulating them to develop some cohesion, he created Event Horizon and closed the book on the astronaut’s story. Having escaped the aliens, the astronaut and his ship approach a black hole, unaware of what new beginnings may lie on the other side. This EP combines Brent’s loves of house music and outer space, but he adds the caveat that this may not be indicative of future work. With this EP finished, he says that “I still feel like I’m very early in my artistic journey” and is excited to explore new sounds and new horizons. Pun damn well intended.

Producing

Speaking about the process to make this EP, Brent says that a common misconception is that all producers eventually have an “a-ha moment” in which they break through their creative block and arrive at a finished product. Like many other creatives I’ve spoken to, he says that while his workflow has become more efficient, “a lot of it is just generating unsuccessful ideas, and making bad music”. To mitigate this he says that over the last two years he has attended concerts with critical intent, to “figure out why I like it and why the room is responding the way it is”. Working backwards to break down the individual components of a track and identify the structures of music he enjoys has consequently helped him grow his skillset for his own original content.

A recurring theme in our conversation is the trials of building confidence as a creative. A formative moment for Brent was attending Bass Coast, a music festival he simply describes as “my favourite place in the world”. The community-oriented art installations and a carefully curated lineup are what he values most about this festival, and what drove him to move from an attendee to volunteering in several capacities and joining the Bass Coast street team. Brent describes a night in 2018 when he worked his first shift as Stage Keeper of the Radio Stage. Seeing the organization on the back-end of the festival, meeting some of the artists, and more importantly, becoming more confident in the space in which he sought to work affirmed Brent’s original conviction to enter this industry. Holistically, he says this night “showed me what a world-class event in my eyes would look like, what it would sound like, and how people would work as a team”.

Looking back on all his different projects, he says that being able to share his music with others has been the most rewarding part of this journey. Brent still enjoys the occasional DJ gig but has found that the ownership and creativity as a producer gives him more satisfaction in his work. While he doesn’t view his growth as finished or even always where he would like it to be, his goal is to keep creating tracks “better than the last thing I made”. For more on Brent, and to check out Event Horizon, click this link. Also, if you are in need of a recording or mixing engineer, contact Brent through his Instagram page.

Make sure to follow A Musing on Facebook and Instagram for more content on Brent and the other creatives in this series.

Finally, check out last week’s article with Doodle Artist, Sofia Shamsunahar.

-BF

Amanda Sum – Theatre Artist & Musician

 Photo by Olivia Pannu

This week I spoke with Amanda Sum to talk about her roles as a soccer-playing teen, a local cricket star and the upcoming recording and release of her original music.

Growing up, Amanda says that while “performance was always kind of around,” she didn’t decide to pursue this lifestyle until the end of high school. Throughout her five years there, she found herself in band and choir classes but wanted to explore music outside of these domains. After teaching herself to play the guitar, she shared some covers singing on Youtube. However, let it be known that the catalyst behind her channel “was not for self-growth, it was for me to try to impress my grade 10 crush”. I am in no position to judge, none of my attempts to impress love interests have resulted in any tangible skills. While this strategy ultimately didn’t work, she still finds value in it and “leave[s] up old embarrassing videos just to keep humble”. Despite all of these involvements and other creative endeavours, Amanda’s decision to study theatre in university largely came through the elimination of other options. She says that unlike classic origin stories, “I wasn’t blessed with knowing” that this career lay ahead.

Crickets & Wolves: Fitness in the Theatre

While attending Simon Fraser University, she received tutelage from Maiko Yamamoto and James Long, the co-founders of the experimental theatre company, Theatre Replacement. Amanda struck up friendships with both of them outside of class and even interned at their Pantoland children’s summer camp. She had many roles there, serving as someone who “tamed kids tantrums” as well as serving as someone who served lunch at noon. Last year, Amanda earned a role in East Van Panto, one of the most well-known installations from Theatre Replacement. Donning a plaid blazer with an extra set of arms, she played “Jiminy Pattison,” the Jiminy Cricket/Jim Pattison hybrid in their take on an East Vancouver Pinocchio. After three weeks of rehearsal, she embarked on a performance schedule of eight shows a week over a total of seven weeks. In addition to this commitment, she was arranging music for a project that I’ll touch on later, along with finishing her final classes at SFU. Amanda describes this workload as both a physical and mental marathon but adds that she learned a lot from this experience and was also “the most fit I’ve ever been”.

Before her time in East Van Panto, Amanda earned a role in a stage production of The Wolves, not once but twice. In the initial run (2017), she saw a casting call for nine teenage girls, a demographic that she obviously had some experience in. However, the more unfamiliar territory was that all of these girls were members of the same soccer team. Pushing any inhibitions aside, Amanda thought “I’m so bad at sports, but how fun would it be to act like I’m good at sports?”. After a crash-course on dribbling, she got the part and completed a successful, albeit unpaid four-day run. But due to the positive reviews of the cast’s performance, the show was picked up for a larger, paid, remount for the following year. Amanda said that receiving news of this was both very exciting and validating as their passion project was garnering appreciation on a larger scale. Unfortunately, as rehearsals began for the remount, and Amanda returned to the physical nature of the role, she developed a nerve issue in her foot. She says that “I woke up one day, and I thought my foot was asleep, but then it never went away”. In the spirit of athletic perseverance and something about a show going on, she pushed through without any major incidents right up to the preview, the first night with an audience.

During the preview and midway through a scene in which the cast was doing some warmup exercises, Amanda tripped and was unable to catch herself due to the numbness in her foot. She suffered a sprained ankle with half a show to go. She still had lines, so leaving the stage wasn’t the optimal solution, but neither was changing the tight blocking she had with the rest of the cast. Without many other options, she says that “it was such a team effort” to adapt as she stayed seated for the rest of the show. One small silver lining was that since her character was concussed and “always kind of out of it a bit,” the audience proved never the wiser to her static nature in the second half. However, due to her injury, Amanda was unable to return for the entire four-week run of the remount. While she initially felt “devastated” at this prospect, she was extremely proud to see the camaraderie between her understudy, her original castmates and the new team members over the successful run.

Artistic Integrity

Over the last year, Amanda has shifted focus towards her music and has been awarded grants to record and release some singles with her band later this year. While “music was always something that was like a hobby,” she found herself integrating her music more and more into her work in the theatre. She makes the distinction that she isn’t very interested in performing in traditional musical theatre, rather that she is interested in how music and theatre can intersect “without being a flashy thing”. ***jazz hands***

Due to COVID-19, her original recording date in April has been moved to July. Amongst obvious difficulties rescheduling recording time, this shift also jeopardized her dream of having an all-Asian female band. Since she was in a position to curate her own team, she wanted to collaborate with individuals who share similar experiences and values to those influencing her music. But due to the rescheduling, her guitarist was no longer available to record. To fill this need and stay on schedule, Amanda was sent a list of session guitarists; all of whom were White men. She felt that bringing one of these guitarists in for the sake of staying on schedule would be “rubbing directly against the value[s]” at the core of the project itself. Instead of accepting this as an inevitability, she rewrote the guitar arrangements to be played on a synth and is excited to have hired a new musician to join her team. This solution required much more work to rewrite and rearrange the parts, but she is “happy to do the work to make both process and product something I can stand by”.

Expanding on this ideology, Amanda derived these principles of artistic integrity from her experience in the theatre. She said that she has no desire to make generic pop songs, and wants to tell stories that are important to her. The personal aspect of this project is also unique in that “this has been the first time where I feel complete agency” in the work. In theatre, she is generally “some sort of vessel for someone else,” whereas now she is bringing her own stories, inspiration and team together to create an original product. Speaking about her body of work as a whole, she says that as a theatre artist and musician she is constantly confronting societal norms that do not necessarily line up with her own perspectives or experiences. However, she sees opportunity in polarity, and says that “when I don’t match up with these norms, that’s even more exciting”. Hell yes.

For more, follow Amanda on Instagram for updates, content, “and other performance-related antics”. If you went to high school with Amanda and would like a do-over, I’ll also link to her Youtube channel. Stay tuned for her singles later this year, but in the meantime check out New Societies, an interactive theatre game that can now be enjoyed online at 7pm on June 25th.

Follow A Musing on Facebook and Instagram for bonus content on Amanda and more!

If you missed last week, check out my interview with filmmaker, Corim de Guzman,

-BF

Kevin Saxby – Sketch Comedian

Kevin Saxby - Sketch Comedian

This week I chat with Kevin Saxby, a sketch comedian known for his features on Funny or Die and Byte. We talk about why more people should be watching horror-comedy, overcoming performing in public, and what exactly a meth circle is.

At the time of writing, Kevin has been producing comedy videos for seven years, but it took him a while to see comedy as more than a hobby. Early on in his career, he experienced relatively high levels of viral success, even achieving 25,000 Reddit views on a video titled “I Got a Moustache”. A combination of slow camera pans across Kevin’s (real) moustache, the opera music from The Matrix Revolutions, and a punchline of shaving the moustache off struck a chord with a large audience. He was 19 when he posted this video and admits that such early success may have put unrealistic expectations on himself to maintain such viewership.

Bikes, Bubble Baths, & Other Short Films

During his first year at Western Washington University, he found himself struggling to find any particular direction to pursue. Underlying his day-to-day studies Kevin said, “I was too embarrassed to admit that I wanted to, at that time, be a comedian and be an actor”. To clear his head, he decided to embark on a cross-country cycling trip from Seattle all the way to New York. I prefer a walk around the block or a decently-cold beer but to each their own. On the course of this trip, he describes bear encounters, being blown around in a storm in the middle of Montana, and relying on trespassing as a way of life. During one memorable night, he was even invited to what he described as a “meth circle” at the campground he was staying at. Despite the salesmanship, he politely declined; a decision which Kevin deems probably “a better story to tell my kids”. In between these escapades, he says that all the time by himself allowed him to achieve some clarity on his life. After returning from his trip, he decided to switch gears and attend film school at The University of British Columbia.

While at UBC, Kevin began creating content with more intention; beginning with his first short film, Bubble Bath. He followed this up with another short-film titled Tofino, alongside Colin Williams, who you may remember if anyone is reading this blog with any regularity. Kevin says that having a partner to film with is what made Tofino an especially enjoyable experience; what began as a normal trip between the two of them resulted in a film that won selections and awards at several festivals. Between these two films, Kevin materialized his long-standing passion for horror-comedy. For those who stay away from horror, myself included, Kevin argues that the “communal feeling” and emotions an audience shares when watching a horror movie together is what attracts him to the genre. Speaking about horror-comedy in particular, he enjoys that this combination is “a little bit less mainstream, and a little bit less formulaic,” to stand out from traditional horror. The interrogation of the Gingerbread Man from Shrek is far enough for me, thanks.

Byte

After completing film school, Kevin began producing more short-films and using Youtube as his primary platform for sharing content. However, he struggled with diminishing returns and the challenge of finding consistency with his views. To work more efficiently he began producing shorter videos to also post on Instagram and diversify his audience. After gaining more traction, he received a message from someone who had found him while searching the hashtag #sketchcomedy on Instagram. From this conversation, Kevin was eventually invited to become a beta tester for Byte, a platform for short, six-second videos made by the creators of Vine. Would this be a Byta tester? Byte has since increased its video length from six to sixteen seconds, but this is still an incredibly short amount of time. Kevin said that one of the biggest difficulties transitioning from traditional length to what he calls “punch line humour” is that “it’s really just enough for one or maybe two jokes,” and that it’s difficult to establish any kind of character in such a short amount of time. Kevin also says that one of the biggest difficulties he has faced is that due to only posting shorter videos, he has felt the pressure to release content on a much more consistent basis than when he was creating longer sketches on Youtube.

When he first began his partnership with Byte, Kevin released content every single day for three straight months to build, grow and maintain his following. He said that to accomplish this he developed a structure in which he spent at least 90 minutes every day in front of his computer, trying to write. Not every session was successful, but he says that “if I didn’t write a single word, that was fine. As long as I set aside that time to do it”. This discipline allowed him to stick to his content schedule over the three months, but his creative process has evolved to now be more akin to “improv with a camera”. He still posts six times a week but has found that this workflow is more sustainable. When I asked him what is most difficult about releasing content almost every day, Kevin said that like many creatives, he can still find himself “not in a mood to do anything funny,” or slip into prioritizing his work over maintaining a healthy lifestyle. He also touched on his efforts that go on behind the scenes to market his videos. Between Byte, Tik Tok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Discord, YouTube and other forums, managing these platforms alone takes up a large portion of his time.

Some of Kevin’s most popular videos share a common theme of being filmed in the public. A recent example of the difficulties that come with this is the filming of his submission to The Vancouver Quarantine Project. This sketch revolved around someone who has to cross the road but is unable to do so due to constant distractions from the environment. In the absurdity of the sketch, Kevin started “dancing, and doing pushups and spanking [his] ass” to get a variety of takes to choose from. This prompted an inquisitive citizen to ask Kevin what was going on, amongst stares from other passersby. Kevin says that he is not immune from embarrassment from filming in public, nor does he seek out attention during filming, but pushes himself to go big to get the best content. He says that you can tell if a performer is “too nervous or embarrassed to give their character 100%”, and that this warning brings him solace when he finds himself filming while half-naked up a tree.

Eventually, he sees himself moving sketch comedy to the side as a hobby and passion project while pursuing acting as his primary goal. But regardless of the medium, Kevin says that the best part of performing is that “I get to make people laugh”. Speaking about his earliest videos he says that looking back “I always knew that I wanted to be an entertainer” and is now excited to make that goal a reality. To keep up with Kevin, check him out on Instagram and Byte for new releases. For more content, he’s also on TikTok, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. One Spotify account away from a Royal Flush.

Follow A Musing on Facebook and Instagram for bonus content!

And if you missed last week’s article with Amanda Sum, check it out!

-BF

Nathan Hare – Improviser, Sketch Artist, Comedian

This week, I had a chat with a very funny improviser, sketch performer, stand-up comedian and co-creator of Soda Fountain, Nathan Hare. We talked about his journey through comedy, taking his work on the road, and which bombs are best.

A Student of Comedy

Growing up in Kelowna, Nathan discovered his love for comedy by watching SNL and listening to comedy podcasts throughout high-school. As the end of these studies grew near, his passion grew until he left home and began his post-secondary journey at The University of British Columbia. He chose to major in English Literature and minor in Creative Writing, but more holistically Nathan said, “I just remember coming into university being like, I want to do comedy”. In addition to honing his writing through his formal studies, Nathan also joined the UBC Improv team in his first year to begin exploring his own comedic style. He admits that while he was excited to make the team, it “hadn’t really clicked” for him over his first few shows. This changed when Nathan turned 19 and was able to see improv by The Sunday Service.

I don’t think I could properly sum up all they have accomplished, but if you’re not familiar with The Sunday Service I highly recommend you check them out. I’ll also mention that while they haven’t been able to host their weekly shows at the Fox Cabaret, they have been putting on some great digital shows throughout social isolation. Watching them for the first time was a formative moment for Nathan; he shares that after this performance he realized that “this is the sort of improv I want to do”. With this fresh in his mind, he began evolving his own improv at UBC and enrolled in both improv and sketch classes at Blind Tiger Comedy. All things considered, Nathan is one of the most comedically educated people I know. When I asked what drew him to try sketch comedy, he said that much like The Sunday Service was a huge influence on his improv, watching The Hero Show was an equally inspirational push to explore sketch. Things have come full circle as he has now performed at both of these shows, as well as creating, producing and hosting his own monthly show, Soda Fountain.

Soda Fountain

During his time studying at Blind Tiger, Nathan met fellow student Graeme Achurch. After collaborating with one another throughout the program, they decided to continue working together after classes ended. Eventually, this led to their desire to create their own monthly show: Soda Fountain. When I asked Nathan the story behind this name, he told me that they were “brainstorming off of nostalgic words” to find something “fun and youthful”. However, he remarks that their struggles to capture this spirit felt like a bad marketing meeting because they were “so out of touch” with the values they were trying to embody. Graciously he also offered up some names that were left on the cutting room floor, including “Good Times” and “Heaven”; the latter rejected because they “thought it sounded too much like a rave from the early 2000s”. Cue boots and cats.

Soda Fountain would have celebrated its 2 year anniversary show a few weeks ago, but due to the obvious circumstances, it had to be postponed. However, running a show for 2 years is definitely something to be celebrated. They have also taken their show on the road to Toronto, and Nathan cites this as one of the highlights of his journey in comedy. Being able to travel and have success in a new place with fresh audiences showed him that “I’m not limited to the city I’m from,” and this is something he would like to do again in the future. I’ve seen their show several times and was fortunate enough to have a spot on their show last year. Nathan and Graeme have a comedic style and flow that is truly unique, and I highly recommend checking out Soda Fountain upon its return. They have put their blood, sweat, and tears into this show, and how dare you think this was a cliché?

If you were in doubt, Nathan shared a story that will put to bed any suspicion of hyperbole. He tells me that prior to one edition of Soda Fountain, he was unloading beer from Graeme’s car. As Graeme went to close the trunk and go back inside, Nathan’s head was still in the swing path of the door. Gravity and mass did their thing and Nathan was left with a gash on the top of his head, moments before the doors were slated to open. After a quick visit from an ambulance, Nathan was checked out and eventually cleared to perform. However, he admits that “we sounded insane” as they recanted this story to an audience who was not prepared for an anatomy-themed opening set. However, this turned into a one-of-a-kind show as they decided to forego the written material they had prepared, and instead “made the whole thing about how I had cut the top of my head with this car door”. You just never know what you’re going to see with live comedy.

Improv v Sketch v Stand-Up

With experience in several realms of performing, I asked Nathan about his favourite and least favourite aspects of improv, stand-up and sketch comedy. Perhaps non-surprisingly, bombing was a common con between all three, but he tells me that not all bombs are built equal. For example, Nathan says that in sketch, audiences can be less forgiving to a bomb due to the written nature. He says that some particularly critical audiences have reacted as if to say “why did you think this was funny, you had [an] infinite amount of time to prepare”. However, managing a bomb in improv comes with a completely different set of difficulties. Nathan says that while audiences may be more forgiving due to the format, it can be “especially humiliating because you’re pretending to be like an alien or something like that”. Lastly, we agreed that the individual aspect inherent to stand-up made this bomb uniquely difficult. He says that since “you don’t have someone to share the highs and the lows,” it can be tough to bounce back from.

However, we did not dwell on the lows and moved to Nathan’s favourite aspects of these styles. Out of the three, stand-up is his newest pursuit as he began performing in the fall of 2018. He tells me that the ownership he feels with his tested and proven material is what he likes best, along with the simplicity of the presentation. Moving to sketch, his favourite part is the collaborative nature of workshopping sketches with his fellow writers and performers. He enjoys fleshing out every nuance of a scene and working together to create a story as a team. This collaborative aspect is also Nathan’s favourite part of improv comedy; he simply says that “when you’re on a roll in improv, that’s the greatest feeling”.

When we discussed his personal style of comedy, Nathan admitted that “I don’t know if my stuff is really that traditional,” but that is my favourite part about watching him. Whether its improv, stand-up, or sketch, go check him out as soon as you can. He told me that he hopes to venture into film in the future and add yet another feather to his comedic cap. Hopefully, we will see the return of both himself and Soda Fountain soon, but in the meantime find him on Twitter and Instagram to stay updated and entertained. Thanks for reading this week, and we’ll see you at the next one!

-BF

If you missed last week’s article with Skye Portman, here is the link!

And a reminder to follow on Facebook and Instagram for bonus content!

Bradley Fung – Humourist

Photo Credit: @skyeoftheportman

Hello, my name is Bradley and I’m the creator of this blog. I hope everyone is staying safe and productive during these unusual times. The fight to stay productive is a major reason behind why I decided to start this project; I don’t think I’m the only one with some unexpected time on their hands. Naturally, this is something that I hope to continue beyond social isolation but for now, I’ll consider starting it a good first step. Before I feature anybody else I will begin with myself. When asked why I chose to do this Bradley replied, “because I’m a narcissist”.

Acting Out

Growing up, I never saw creative pursuits as extra-curricular activities, and I often found myself spending more time on these endeavors than traditional coursework. Maybe that’s why I currently find myself unemployed. I digress, but some of my earliest memories are with a pencil in my hand, drawing. To put my affinity for drawing into perspective, one year for Christmas I received a box of printer paper from my grandparents with the instruction to “Only do good work” with it. That was a damn good Christmas. As someone who was on the shy side, art was a great hobby for me, free from any reliance on partners or public adjudication.

That changed when I began high school and was accepted into a leadership program for grades 8 and 9. A requirement of this program was enrolling in four key subjects for the entire two years: English, Social Studies, Physical Education, and Drama. I greeted the first three subjects with warm familiarity, but Drama was uncharted territory. What happened next was a surprise to both myself and anyone who knew me, as I discovered a passion for acting. I was fascinated by the challenge of convincing someone that the person that stood before them was not me but in fact someone else. This was the only class where lying was not only allowed but encouraged. Over the next few years, my passion grew and I was fortunate to gain representation and begin performing in commercial work. But my relationship with commercial work grew complex; I loved pursuing a career in acting but also felt myself becoming unsatisfied with the peppy, ever-smiling nature of the industry. I wanted more dramatic material in the pursuit of what I thought was “real acting”. Don’t worry, I now also recognize the hypocrisy in feeling that acting was too artificial. Despite these efforts, I continued to find more success in comedic roles. When my university studies began, I decided that some success was ultimately better than none, and I committed to studying acting as my major.

Unfortunately, my passion for acting quickly waned both scholastically and professionally. It was difficult to accept that my complete devotion to something I loved wasn’t all I had dreamt it would be. However, this gave me great insight into the high failure rate of marriages. The inconsistent nature of professional acting combined with my theory-heavy courseload grew tiresome and I decided to pursue other professions. However, no matter what other hobbies I tried, I found myself missing the performing arts.

Starting in Stand-Up Comedy

Lacking any vocal ability to sing or calf-strength for ballet, I eventually decided to try stand-up comedy. I found comfort working in a genre that had treated me kindly, and I was instantly attracted to the individual commitment required by the performer. Whether I bombed or had a good set, there was no one else to credit but myself. I also appreciate the humility that I’ve found in comedy; the fanfare, ego, and artificiality I felt much too often as an actor could not be more different than the basic presentation of a person and a microphone. Comedy is also the most honest art form that I have encountered; the jokes that resonate the most with me are rooted in failure, insecurity, and embarrassment. To me, these are universal truths that far too often are dismissed despite being an inescapable part of the human condition. Comedy is a vehicle in which we can recognize our shared struggles without the promise of blind prescriptions or solutions. Falls, families, and farts affect all of us in one way or another.

Stand-up has provided me with the creative outlet I’ve always needed, and perhaps the most balanced one I’ve found. Looking back over the last few years, I feel very lucky for the opportunities I’ve had to watch, meet, and perform alongside the vibrant and hilarious stand-up community here in Vancouver. Hopefully, I will continue to be energized by stand-up; at the very least the futile pursuit of trying to “finish” a joke should keep me busy for a while. If you’ve stuck out this whole post, thank you. I promise this is the most I’ll ever write about myself, and I guarantee that the next post will expand into the community I claim to champion.

Find me on Instagram at @bjfung3 to follow my adventures in stand-up, as well as my beer photography. That’s right, I have a creative outlet that I didn’t even mention in this post. This blog is full of surprises. See you at the next one.

-BF