If the Earth were to suddenly stop spinning…I mean really came to a screeching halt….with everything hanging in suspended animation. I know two things for sure:
- Stevie Wonder would still be loving whomever he was talking to in “As” …
- If he happened to be on stage at the time of the incident, Tony Woods would still be swaying back and forth whenever you found him.
As unpredictable as he is measured and as accessible as he is edgy, Woods has been making audiences (and comics) laugh out loud since before that was an expression ubiquitously abbreviated in chat windows.
Tony is one of those rare comedians, who has deciphered the DaVinci code of entertainment. The job is to entertain the audience.
Its too easy with comedy, as a craft to use the mic, blinding lights and a dark void…for sonic validation. For every person who thinks “I could never get up there”…there is a subculture that lives among you that thinks “I can’t quit this”…but in both examples the decision to go on stage is anything but selfless.
Then there’s Tony.
If he’s on stage, the audience is why.
In fact he smiles and engages so much (with a sauce-swagger that would make Dean Martin proud)…that when he stops smiling even THAT feels like a punchline.
A comic’s comic he’s respected in every room he enters. Largely because the longer most of us study this craft, the more we realize just how effortlessly good he is at it.
Tony and friends are doing a special Mother’s Day performance at the DC Improv at 5:30p.m.