Debbie Lockhart
When Debbie Lockhart takes to a comedy stage, the audience is treated to something unusual. Lockhart exudes a warm, sweet energy as she flits around the stage with a childlike inability to stand still. Just as you’re beginning to believe she is some innocent, naive to the ways of the world, you catch the meaning of the racy, edgy things she’s uttering and realize you’ve been duped. This lady is not what she seems. A side-splitting wolf in sheep’s clothing, Lockhart takes a subversive approach to cracking people up.
“I think I've always been a little devil,” the Los Angeles-based performer says. “That’s what my mom used to call me — sweet but devious. It’s a persona I formulated at the age of four.” Lockhart confesses what people see on stage today is an “exaggerated portrayal of me.”
Lockhart is just one of the many must-see comedians in town to close FunnyFest (www.funnyfest.com), which continues at venues throughout the city until Sunday, May 11th.
Spontaneity is another prime component of Lockhart’s comedic arsenal. “Improv is in my blood. It’s a part of who I am and a part of my act. When I headline I get to improvise a lot more — and that’s when I have the most fun with the audience. I feel like they become a part of my act, so if they don’t like my set that night, it is entirely their fault.”
Like Lockhart, Flip Schultz is a comic living in L.A. who loves to mix things up and improvise with his audience. He’s also in Calgary cracking folks up during the final days of FunnyFest, but in his case you don’t always know which performer you’re going to get. Most nights the people who come to see him get Schultz the lanky comedy pro, skilled at exposing the absurdities of modern life. Other times, fans get an in-your-face guy seemingly plucked from another time. “Skippy Greene is my alter ego,” says Schultz. “He’s this character I have created and have been developing over the last few years.”
An old-time Catskills comic with a ’40s and ’50s Sid Caesar or Milton Berle-style, Skippy Greene is also, in Schultz’s words, ”Completely filthy and obscure in a lot of ways. Every time — and I mean every time — I have done the character over the last year or so, it gets an amazing response. So there’s something appealing and likable about the guy, even though he’s a dirty old man.”
Schultz is confident that Skippy Greene will turn up in Calgary at least a couple of times during FunnyFest, so those who are easily offended or embarrassed are duly warned. This crotchety dude takes no prisoners.
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