Emmett Montgomery is cuddly with an edge.
He’s like a teddy bear that way. A teddy bear with a switchblade.
The Seattle-based comedian/spoken word performer has had reactions to his material run the gamut from praise (he was named “Best Comedian” last year by Seattle Weekly) to concern (he once had a woman stay after a show just to see if he was going to be OK).
“Some people say it’s real dark,” Montgomery said. “Other people look at it and say it’s real hopeful.
“I think all that is true,” he laughed. “Some people assume I’m doing a character up there and other people like how personal I am.”
Reality may actually be somewhere in between.
Montgomery, one of City Arts Magazine’s 2015 Artists of the Year, was part of the top 100 in NBC’s Last Comic Standing last year, and has performed at festivals across the country including the Bridgetown Comedy Festival, Sasquatch Music Festival and the Women In Comedy Festival. He will take the stage at Bainbridge Performing Arts for a one-night-only show at 8 p.m. Friday, April 22, with special guest John Osebold.
The show is not his first on Bainbridge, though it is his BPA debut.
“I think it will be really fun,” Montgomery said. “I have really enjoyed everything I’ve done on Bainbridge before. As a kid from the desert, there’s a real fascination with Washington’s islands. It’s just so different. I’m looking forward to it.”
The acclaim-collecting funnyman began his career on a whim about 11 years ago, when he agreed to show up and support a friend who was performing at a Seattle open mic night. Though his buddy never showed up that night, Montgomery was intrigued. And then he was hooked.
“A lot of it was real bad,” he laughed. “But everybody was failing in so many different ways and I thought, ‘I could fail at this too.’”
Working at the time as the manager of a Hollywood Video store, Montgomery said that the few minutes a week he spent on stage performing at open mic events quickly became something he looked forward to more and more. It was a way to express himself, something to be excited about.
“You want it to feel like you’re having a conversation with the audience and that’s because you are,” he said. “You’re sharing something with somebody.”
Whether the conversation is silly or dark, Montgomery said that at the end of the day the best of comedy provides a kind of catharsis for both the audience and performer — a feeling that we are all in this together.
“A comedian’s job is to make people happy, to make people laugh,” he said. “Essentially, it’s seeing the burdens of the world on somebody else.
“Sometimes, on stage in front of hundreds of people is the only place I feel safe,” he added. “There’s something really wonderful about that moment. It can suck — and when it sucks it sucks. But, after a decade, it’s usually more wonderful than not.”
It’s a long way to have come for a guy who grew up with a speech impediment, freezing in terror during high school drama auditions (“I’d just kind of help build the set,” he remembered). But fear can also be a powerful motivator.
“I’m always finding new ways to be scared,” he said. Taking on new projects, he added, performing in new places and trying new things are all important parts of getting better as a performer, and enriching his life as a person.
Recently, for example, in honor of Tolkien Reading Day, Montgomery read from “The Lord of the Rings” at a game store.
“There was a surprising amount of stress about that,” he said. “I realized I’d never read ‘Lord of the Rings.’ My mother read that to me. Would they like it?”
They did. The reading was a big hit, and another victory in Montgomery’s own continual battle against fear and to perfect his performing skills.
Tickets to the Bainbridge show are $20 each and can be purchased at www.bainbridgeperformingarts.org.
Visit www.emmettmontgomery.com to learn more about Montgomery and his work.
Seriously silly
What: A special one-night-only performance by Seattle comedian/spoken word artist Emmett Montgomery, with guest John Osebold.
When: 8 p.m. Friday, April 22.
Where: Bainbridge Performing Arts.
Admission: Tickets are $20 each and can be purchased at www.bainbridgeperformingarts.org.
This show is not suitable for children.
