BY HANNAH GOLDFINGER
HGOLDFINGER@OPELIKAOBSERVER.COM
AUBURN — Brian Regan is on his way to Auburn.
The comedian is making his first stop to the Lovliest Village on The Plains Thursday night with a show at the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center.
“Stand up comedy is very simple in one way,” Regan said. “It is a person behind a microphone and that person is hopefully going to make you laugh.”
Unlike other kinds of performances, all Regan will bring on stage is a microphone and a bottle of water.
Regan is generally on the road about half of the weekends each year and Alabama has brought him pretty far from home — Las Vegas. He has done shows in Alabama before — Birmingham, Huntsville, Mobile.
“I’m looking forward to this Auburn show,” Regan said.
He joked that everyone who comes to the show will leave with a $100 bill.
“If I can get a roomful of people together to have a good time, it makes me feel good,” he said.
Regan said the inspiration for his shows comes from a lot of places.
“There’s an expression and that expression is, ‘comedy equals tragedy plus time’,” he said. “And what it means is, it doesn’t have to be tragedy like a death. It just has to be something weird, or odd or uncomfortable is the tragedy. While it’s happening, it’s not all that funny. But then some time passes, and you look back on it and when you’re telling the story, it can be funny. So time is an interesting component in comedy.”
Regan creates specials for Netflix, in addition to the tours, and once that content has gone into a special, that’s often when he’ll switch up his material, he said.
Making people laugh is the accomplishment of connecting, Regan said.
“Humans like to connect with each other and when you make someone laugh, you’re agreeing on a very odd level,” he said. “I mean, comedy is an interesting thing. It means that you agree on something, you agree on looking at something a certain way. And it’s nice to laugh but it’s also nice to make somebody laugh.”
Regan said he’s looking forward to coming to Auburn.
“Thats one of the wonderful things I like about what I do is being able to travel around … being able to go to cities I might not have gone to other than because of having to do a show. People are nice everywhere, so it’s nice to happen upon new places and get to experience new places, even if it’s just for a day.”
