Meet Chris Putro of The Crispy Comedy Show in North Hollywood

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Putro.

Chris, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Born and raised in Philly. I was a freakishly smart kid and still am. Got a bachelor’s in chemistry from La Salle, then moved to LA to pursue my PhD in organic chemistry at UCLA. I didn’t survive, but they gave me a master’s as a consolation prize. Eventually moved into a career in finance. But all that time, despite people labeling me as “shy” (confusing brilliance and introversion for shyness), I was drawn to entertainment and had an urge to perform. Here and there I found a creative outlet: a game show my friend and I recorded on cassette tapes as teens (I still have them), the chemistry show I produced in my senior year of college (part of the annual open house for prospective students) which I hosted in the guise of David Letterman, a few spec scripts, and a few Groundlings classes. But my strongest urge was to do standup comedy. Santa Claus gave me two Steve Martin albums for Christmas in 1983 and few things have inspired me more. Unfortunately I forgot about that inspiration for a quarter-century, but finally after six years of writing material I developed a solid 4 minutes and hit the open mike (don’t get me started on mike vs. mic) at the Pig ‘N Whistle in Hollywood. Instant addiction.

Like most comedians, I spent my first year doing open mikes and my second year doing bringer shows, and my third year trying to figure out where I go from there. Someone suggested in her MySpace blog that if you want to create stage time for yourself, start your own room. So I did! First I had to come up with a name for my show. Years ago my sister made a “Chris P./Crispy” pun in an e-mail. Then on a hike my friend Stella proposed the brand “Crispy Comedy”. A few months later, I debuted The Crispy Comedy Show at Beauty Bar in Hollywood. I ran it there every week for nine months until the bar closed, then two random shows at Los Globos in Silver Lake, then a one-off at Flappers in Burbank (that was canceled before it started due to low attendance, and my name was removed from the marquee before I even left the building), and then in December 2012 I found a home at Universal Bar & Grill. I’ve been running a 6-hour marathon of a show pretty much every other Monday since then.

Has it been a smooth road?
Those first couple of years of trying to find a permanent home for the Crispy show were tough. I contacted ~50 venues and the few who replied said they didn’t have an entertainment license. Thankfully one of my Facebook friends was running a spoken-word show at UBG and offered me his time slot and I’ve been there ever since.

One challenge lately has been dealing with the ownership change at UBG. For a while, the new owners weren’t committed to keeping comedy on Monday nights. It created far more work for me because I was having to put shows together on short notice. But evidently, they’ve accepted that comedy isn’t going away. 🙂

Please tell us about The Crispy Comedy Show.
The Crispy Comedy Show is a bar show. Not every comedian can handle it. Those who can seem to like it. I’m proud that I’ve been able to run a standup comedy show for eight years (7 at UBG) and that I’ve provided happiness to hundreds of comedians. And I’m proud that of all the comedy shows at UBG, mine draw the most money. I don’t see any of that money, but still. Friends have suggested that I do volunteer work as a means to meet girls. The Crispy Comedy Show IS my volunteer project. No girls, though. That didn’t work.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Bar shows and open mikes will forever be training grounds for future superstars. I’ve had plenty of comedians on the Crispy show who have gone on to TV shows like Corporate, Roast Battle and SNL.

Contact Info:

• Address: The Crispy Comedy Show
  Universal Bar & Grill
  4093 Lankershim Blvd
  North Hollywood CA
• Website: http://crispycomedyshow.com
• Phone: (310) 770-5615
• Email: cputro@roadrunner.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chrisputro
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisPutro

Image Credit:
Anne-Marie Symons, Dave Putro, Stella Cohen, Angelo Di Nallo

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