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Going For Bully Laughs: USF Comics To Compete Against UF

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By PHILIP MORGAN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 11, 2008

TAMPA - A funny thing happened on the way to the University of South Florida comedy competition.

Everybody won!

USF class clowns vying to become one of the eight regional semifinalists representing their school got a big laugh when only six contestants showed up for the tryouts. That qualified all six to go on to the next phase in the national college comedy contest: a showdown against University of Florida on Sunday.

All but two have no experience at stand-up, but they're ready to take on the silliest Gators at SideSplitters Comedy Club in Tampa. Judges will pick one winner and a runner-up. The winner goes on to nationals.

The contest to find America's funniest college student is sponsored by RooftopComedy, a company that videotapes acts from comedy clubs across the country and puts them online.

Christopher Biemer of Tampa went to the tryouts on campus April 4 to encourage a funny, but less extroverted, buddy to do it. Biemer, a 20-year-old sophomore, figured his pal, Michael Vicens, 19, of Pembroke Pines, would never agree to try, so he just signed him up.

Confronted with a done deal, Vicens said, "Fine. I'll do it."

Biemer opened his routine with a risque bit, which got a big laugh from the audience of 30 to 40 people.

"I felt a wave of tension release from my head to my toes," he said. "Somehow in my heart, I knew they wanted to hear a dirty joke."

Vicens donned a persona with attitude, ranting about all the terrible souls in the world while revealing, gradually, a mock personal background that rivaled the worst.

"He got some solid laughs," Biemer said, "but it was very sporadic. I thought he was disorganized." They'll work on that before the show Sunday, he said.

The winner of the SideSplitters contest will compete in an online voting contest pitting the 16 regional winners, plus one fan favorite chosen from the 16 runner-ups, against each other. Online voters will pick four in the stand-up category and four in short film categories, and they'll compete in a live Internet broadcast May 30 and 31 from a comedy club in Aspen, Colo.

Scott Diaz, 21, hasn't decided what he will do on Sunday. The junior from Clark, N.J., has made five open-mic night appearances at SideSplitters in the past year. He figures he'll pick material from the routines he's written.

"I'm really a random person," he said.

Mike Mayo, 21, of Tampa, the other USF student with stand-up experience, couldn't be reached for comment. Nor could Yoni Haim, 19. Diaz said Haim, a fraternity brother, told him he has a conflict and won't make it to the competition Sunday.

For contestant Suzan Bekiroglu, 22, of Walpole, Maine, the tryout was a concerted effort to overcome stage fright by diving right in. She sings and plays guitar, and has always been interested in comedy, but wants to get comfortable in front of an audience.

She got the trembles and had to stare at an object in the back of the room, rather than at the audience, in order to deliver the routine she had memorized, she said. She talked about dating and relationships.

"There was laughter," she said. "I didn't hear it, but other people told me that people were cracking up."

Reporter Philip Morgan can be reached at (813) 259-7609 or pmorgan@tampatrib.com.

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