Saturday night I performed at the beautiful Pix Theatre in Lapeer with my friend Lynne Koplitz.  I’ve worked with Lynne a couple of times at the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase and she’s always completely fantastic.  The last time we were together in Ann Arbor, the people from the Pix asked her if she’d come back and do a show there.  Craig, who runs the Pix, has a philosophy.   Just because they’re in a small town, doesn’t mean the people should be deprived from great entertainment.   You only have to look back as far as last month and you’ll see they were bringing in icons like Leon Redbone.  It’s a nice theatre!

I’ve worked with Lynne a lot and she’s a class act!  She’s charming, upbeat, optimistic and professional.  I dig her.  She has a nice career too and I can only assume that’s because of two things.  She’s a pro both on stage and off.  On stage Lynne has a sharp wit.  Saturday night she opened with five minutes worth of solid material about the kid who interviewed her minutes before the show for the Lapeer Area View.  She’s quick!  Let me stress that again, the opened with five minutes of solid riffing.  She didn’t win them over and then break into new stuff.  She won them over with new stuff.  She’s confident!  Lynne’s act is candid and real.  She gives audiences a pretty uncensored look at her life and I dig that!   She is the kind of comedian I’m working hard to be myself.

Me and Lynne Koplitz with the staff from the Pix Theatre.

Rarely will I hang out after shows.  If I’m not with Christine, I want to get back to the hotel so I can call her to let her know I’m back to my room safe and sound and she can go to sleep.  If I’m with Christine, I assume she wants to get back to the hotel and sleep…which is ridiculous since she’s pretty nocturnal!  Christine was with me on Saturday and she clicked with the staff of the theatre too.  They’re all just really great people!  So Christine and I joined Lynne and the staff at a restaurant after the show.  It was a lot of fun!  Why have I been depriving myself from hanging out with like minded people who are as passionate about the arts as I am?  Yes, it’s a great thing to do from a networking point of view too, but aside from all of that, I got to bond with a lot of really neat people.  It was fun.

Here are some things I picked up on that Lynne does and I’ve also done instinctively, but could probably tweak my methods.  Lynne and I both have had newer comedians ask if they can shoot us a Youtube link of their act to critique.  The Mike Bobbitt way is to watch the act while taking notes and responding with a very thorough break down  of practically every sentence, then getting mad that the green comic only responds with something seemingly effortless like, “thanks” or even worse, nothing at all!  Here’s the Lynne method, which I think works better for everyone.  She’ll watch a clip and then ask the comedian to call her.  She puts it back in their court and if they’re serious about it, they’ll call her and then they’ll have a two way conversation where instead of just lecturing, Lynne can answer questions.  I think Lynne’s way is more personal and ultimately more beneficial to everyone.

Lynne pays it forward.  She helps out everyone.  Melissa and Joan Rivers saw Lynne, were enchanted and ended up working on various projects together.  Lynne is on Joan’s show Joan Knows Best? Joan appeared on Lynne’s show Z Rock.

If you’ve never seen Z Rock you should.  It was on IFC for two super funny seasons.

I don’t think Lynne helps people out while wondering how it’ll help her later.  I think she’s just genuinely a fan of trying to pushing talented people.  Chris Jericho did a cameo on Z Rock.  I think Chris was one of the greatest professional wrestlers because he was so good at using his microphone skills to elevate the other performers.  Lynne is sort of the same way.  In being able to bring her friends with her to perform on shows, it creates this whole package of comedy that works well together.   In turn, I have the people who I really like to work with too and will throw them a line any chance I get.  It’s just fun for the performers and its fun for the audiences too.

While typing this, Lynne sent me a text message telling me thanks.  First of all, how awesome is that?  She does me a favor by letting me do this really cool theatre show and then she thanks me!  I wrote her back and thanked for and let her know that I think she’s one of the funniest, coolest and most genuinely good people I’ve ever met.  Beyond the cool or the funny, the thing that made her happiest about that message was the “genuine” part.  And that’s why Lynne Koplitz is genuinely a stellar human being and performer.

Please do yourself a favor.  Lynne is headlining the Laugh Detroit Comedy Festival.  She’s going to be at the Comedy Castle on March 31^st through April 2^nd.  I’m unfortunately going to be out of town.  Go see Lynne live!  She is a blast.  Go to her website and find out when she’s performing near you.  Roger at the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase is also a big fan of hers and brings her to town pretty often.  Her Comedy Central Presents is a Netflix Instant View.  Also, put Z Rock in your queue and that’ll help get Netflix on the ball to add it to their list of things you can watch.