For the seventh time in more than a decade, the Comic Strippers are set to hit a Surrey stage.
The improv-comedy performers are back at Bell Performing Arts Centre on Friday, Feb. 9, for another night of their male-stripper parody at the 1,000-seat theatre.
The adults-only show was launched in 2012 on a comedy stage at Granville Island. Roman Danylo and Chris Casillan first performed as a duo, then added Ken Lawson for a tour of Australia.
Over the years “we’ve done Kelowna and Coquitlam a lot, over 10 times each,” Danylo reported.
“But Surrey and Nanaimo is where we’ve had some of our biggest crowds,” he added.
This time, the show at the Bell will feature Danylo and Casillan along with Pearce Visser, Denise Jones and David Milchard.
The comedy troupe’s winter/spring tour launches in Alberta, continues in Surrey and four other B.C. cities and then rolls east to Saskatoon, Halifax and other locations before heading west again. In all, 27 dates are listed on thecomicstrippers.com, where show tickets are sold ($56 for Surrey, or $51 each for groups of six or more).
Over the years the comedy show has evolved a bit, but the core idea remains: These guys try to be sexy, it just comes out funny. Constantly grooving and gyrating between scenes, the Strippers banter with the crowd, sing, “dance,” and make people laugh.
“No extreme nudity, just extreme hilarity,” clarifies a post on tickets.bellperformingartscentre.com.
When COVID-19 killed live comedy, Danylo said the Comic Strippers considered pivoting to online shows. Instead, they “parked the race car in the garage and waited out the storm” until last spring, when they put the keys in the ignition and hit the road again, with some changes, he said in November 2022.
“We still get suggestions from the crowd and banter with people, and there’s probably more of that now, but the COVID protocols resulted in us not going into the crowd or having anyone come up on stage,” Danylo explained.
“It’s interesting because now there’s just more improv that comes out of just us being on stage, without audience participation in the show, interaction. We’re now just more pure improv.”