Arts

Audience interaction headlines comedy show

On Thursday night the Frederick C. Hobdy Assembly Center was packed to nearly full capacity with students ecstatic for the comedy show.

This year’s homecoming had an interesting and varied lineup that could make or break te event. The performers included Jennifer Thomas, Keraun King, Toya Turner and the night’s headliner D’Lai. The event was hosted by the very funny and charismatic, Steve Brown ,who is no stranger to the university. Brown has hosted several events including the comedy show at GSU last year.

The show started off with Thomas spreading her message about body positivity and encouraging plus-sized women to be more confident in themselves.

The second act was King who recounted some of his life stories. Initially, the audience wasn’t interacting with his performance. Once King eventually noticed the audience was not feeling his jokes, he tried to turn his performance around. King decided to switch his act into a story about his life in prison. The audience was even less receptive to this and continued booing.

When comedians are not up to par with the students comedic taste, the student body will boo performers offstage as they have done in years past. King unfortunately made himself the next sacrifice for this homecoming tradition.

Out of anger from the bad audience response comedian King began to single out hecklers from the audience to try save face. He singled out one girl on the main floor, After the back and forth King said, “Your mom should’ve swallowed you.”

The audience began booing even louder. King then switched to talking about his daughter, however the audience had already had enough of his performance. He only made it to the start of his story about his daughter, the student body continued loudly booing.

King could not handle the pressure and soon left the stage miffed about being unable to tickle the fickle student audience’s funny bone.

Next was the audacious Turner, with her performance that would make a churchgoer blush. Turner’s performance ranges from both verbal and physical comedy that helped win both male and female attention. Turner used a lot of sexual innuendos and very explicit experiences she’s had. Ultimately, Turner encouraged students to practice safe sex and grooming.  

Finally, the headliner for the D’Lai came in to save the show. D’Lai was overwhelmed by the sheer difference with HBCU’s and PWI’s. D’Lai really showed his entertainer chops with a mix of improv, impressions and memorable one-liners which had the audience rocking with laughter.

D’Lai’s success was also helped by audience interactions. One such interaction was with a student simply named JoJo who became the talk of homecoming.
“I would give it an 8.5/10. [I would have preferred] a different caliber of comedians.” Casey Henry, a CIS/marketing senior from the Dominican Republic, said.