Clean Stand-up Comedians Shaun Eli, Tony Deyo and Kerri Louise at the Spruce Peak Arts Center

Saturday February 25, 2023  7 PM
Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center
122 Hourglass Drive
Stowe, VT 05672
(802) 760-4634
Tickets

Wali Collins headshot

 

His first time on stage Wali Collins was convinced that he had bombed, but the manager paid him and asked him to come back every week as a featured act. Wali moved to New York City to work on a show for Comedy Central called “Stand-up Stand-up”. He hosted the largest, funniest, most varied collection of stand-up comedians in the world.

Nominated three years in a row as “College Campus Entertainer of the Year,” Wali is also sought after for corporate events. One of Wali’s greatest achievements was hosting an event for First Lady Michelle Obama. Collins’ television stand-up credits include NBC, CBS, FOX, HBO, ABC’s “The View”, Comedy Central’s “Tough Crowd” and Commentary on VH1. David Letterman caught Wali’s act and recruited him to warm-up for his show. Later that season Wali performed his stand up on the “Late Show with David Letterman”. In the words of Robert Klein, “Wali Collins is versatile, smart and very, very funny.”

 

 

 

 

Headshot of comedian Tom Ryan

 

Tom Ryan has been a full time standup comedian for over twenty years. He has made two appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman.

Tom Ryan works steadily at comedy clubs, concert venues, corporate functions and colleges across the U.S. In addition to his Letterman appearances, he has also been featured on Showtime, A&E, Comedy Central and NBC. He has performed as the opening act in concert for B.B. King, Natalie Cole, Jeff Beck, Earth, Wind and Fire, Aretha Franklin, Tim Allen, Steven Wright, Jerry Seinfeld, and Dennis Miller just to name a few.

His original style makes it easy for him to write for special events. He has contributed monologue jokes to the award winning “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” and regularly headlines corporate events.

Tom believes that the best comedy comes from the most unlikely sources. Here is an example from his act: “I was driving around the other day and my oil light came on. But that little symbol looks nothing like an oil can. When it first came on I thought well, apparently my car is low on gravy.”

 

American clean corporate stand-up comedian Shaun Eli on stage at South Africa's Cape Town Comedy Club

 

Shaun Eli has rightfully been called one of America’s smartest comics. Whether it’s a story about dining with a vegetarian or successfully fighting a parking ticket, master storyteller Shaun Eli shows you that there’s hilarity in the ordinary if you approach life with a comedic warp. Job interviews? Serving on a NYC criminal jury? How about the Ten Commandments? For just about anything he’s experienced he has a hilarious story at the ready. Shaun has been profiled in The New York Times.

With a sense of humor that’s both cheerful and universal Shaun has headlined shows on five continents. His jokes have been quoted everywhere from the New York Post to Forbes to Readers Digest to Healthcare Finance News. In both Reform Judaism magazine and the Christian Science Monitor, where he was the subject of the cover story. He’s been featured on CareerBuilder.com and CNN, in local papers like the Scarsdale Inquirer and the Asbury Park Press and in the college papers the Yale Daily News and the Daily Pennsylvanian. Even in The Journal of Irreproducible Results, a scientific humor magazine. Yes, there is one. And his group The Ivy League of Comedysm was the subject of a front-page story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

More than just smart, funny and clever, Shaun is determined to express his opinion passionately, not surprising for someone who wrote his first satirical essay at age ten. When profiled in Fortune magazine “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno quoted one of Shaun’s jokes, citing it as an example of the type of “smart comedy” he’s happy to include in his opening monologue. Jay and other late-night hosts have used Shaun’s topical material in their monologues for more than a decade.

Drawing on his vast wealth of clean, clever material Shaun quickly became one of New York’s brightest, funniest, most in-demand stand-up comedians. When he takes the stage other comedians stop and watch.

Outside the world of comedy Shaun was a world-class athlete in two obscure sports (rowing and dragon-boat racing), worked as a lifeguard instructor and is an instrument-rated pilot. He is also an award-winning economic forecaster who once sold his car to a hitchhiker.

Shaun is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. You can watch his videos and read some of his writings, including satirical political essays and hundreds of jokes he’s written for late-night television, on his web site BrainChampagne.com where his slogan “Brain Champagne: Clever Comedy for Smart Mindssm ” rings true.

 

 

Shaun Eli leaning and holding a microphone