C.A. Nolte Photo
Before he was roasted, Andy Sharpe stepped out of Joker’s Wild Comedy Club on Wooster Street for a cigarette. The interior of the club was dim, amber light filling the space everywhere except for the stage, where the spot light rested on an empty podium. Two rows of armless chairs lined the stage to the left, where the roasters would sit. A wicker chair with cushioned footstool, looking like a castoff from the set of Golden Girls, was positioned between the stage and the roasters’ bleachers. A few people milled about, ordering drinks.
Uncle Steve, the weekend doorman and self-styled “host with the most,” got ready for the evening. “Andy has been here since day one and we all love and adore him,” he said. “And he gives us a lot of BS.”
Having worked at Joker’s Wild behind the bar for over five years, Sharpe wasn’t worried that he’d be offended.
“This should be interesting,” he said, smiling. “Might as well give everyone a shot at me.”
The roast of Andy Sharpe, held on Apr. 23, wasn’t just a chance for New Haven’s comedic talent to give their all to Sharpe. It was also a chance for Joker’s Wild to host several of the area’s most promising comics at once, and pit them against each other.
The scent of whiskey clung to the air as roasters and audience alike slowly started trickling in.
“This is the first time I’ve seen him from here down,” said longtime patron Connie Luke, gesturing from midsection down.
John Romanoff, a comic veteran who has played the club since its start, called himself a reluctant roaster.
“I hate this shit,” he said. “But I’m here for the support of the club, and this is a fun group of guys. Also I’m looking forward to hearing Pat Oates catch some shit.”
Eventually an order was made to fill the seats in the lower tier of the bar, where the stage and makeshift roasting dais were located. The would-be roasters — John Romanoff, Darren Rivera, Dan Rice, Daniel Kalwhite, Stosh Mikita, Michael Weiss, Shawn Murray, Kevin Fitzgerald, Matt Heath, Darren Sechrist, Matthew Walley, and Pat Oates — talked together in small circles. Then the festivities began.
Stosh Mikita, the night’s emcee and a regularly featured comic, gamely started with a few remarks laying out the roasting process and giving the other roasters mild hell, including calling Fitzgerald “Hack Galifianakis.”
Sharpe’s first roaster, Matt Heath, didn’t take the mission of roasting Andy too seriously and his set seemed thrown together.
“Two weeks!” Stosh retorted, causing an explosion of laughter. “You had two weeks to write these jokes!”
Up next was Darren Sechrist. “I didn’t know your name was Sharpe until I saw the poster,” he said. “I thought it was just an ironic nickname. We are the same age and I don’t know if I can say anything meaner than that. Look at him and look at me, and I don’t look that good!”
Shawn Murray, young and slim, with an avalanche of dark hair cresting stiffly above his forehead, went after some of the roasters who had previously been left out. “Pat Oates loves his kids and judging by the women he dates, loves their friends too.”
From him, we learned that Andy was in a motorcyle gang. without owning a motorcycle. “Because it’s the thought that counts.”
Reluctant roaster John Romanoff hilariously called Sharpe the “third and least-talented Belushi brother.”
Beansie, better known as Darren Rivera, took aim at Stosh. “This was your first good idea. The second was inviting the newspaper. Third was shopping for those pants at Dickies.”
Trenchcoated Dan Rice demonstrated why many of the roasters treated him gingerly in their mockings. “John Romanoff is what I see in the mirror when I run out of Dopamine,” he said. “Shawn Murray looks as if the transformation stopped halfway between Stefon and Urkel.”
Kevin Fitzgerald came out and attacked with kindness, phrasing compliments as insults, and bringing a sense of goofiness to the proceedings.
“Welcome to Roastville,” he said. “Population: Andy.”
Pat Oates, general manager and regular headliner, rounded off the evening. “If you don’t laugh, you don’t get booked,” he said to the roasters. To Sharpe, he said, “the only reason we’re having a roast is because we wanted a real bartender here for a few hours.”
As the roast ended, comedians and audience drifted to the back to smoke and to the bar to drink.
“It’s such an underground community, like a weird comedic fight club,” Pat Oates said. “We push each other to make sure CT isn’t just another place in between Boston and New York.”
Shawn Murray agreed. “It’s a tight knit-community,” he said. What was his highlight of the night? “Seeing who was not prepared,” he said.
As for Sharpe, the roastee, the rest of the evening would be business as usual.
“It was a good way to open up the night — painful but painless,” he said. “They’re all good friends.”
The first man pictured (Andy ?) is a nice guy. I always thought of him as a retired strong-arm (enforcer) with a heart and a sense of humor. Jokers' Wild, the only club in the county available to budding comedians during "open mic night", should expand. So many of us have the need to purge our disgust with society. I have dropped out to leave room for younger talent who mob the place wednesdays.