Rory Scovel’s April 14 show at 191 Toole is part of what he’s calling “The Last Tour,” But it’s by no means certain that he won’t be back. After all, his 2016 Netflix special, “Rory Scovel Tries Standup for the First Time,” was far from the first time he’d done standup.
Scovel’s characteristic whimsy is behind the tour name titles. Still, a mix of talent and good luck have lately put him in a position to reconsider his career choices. He just wrapped his third season as co-star in the best streaming series that almost no one has ever heard of, the Apple+ sleeper hit, “Physical.” The series has an 81% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The third season drops in June.
It was Jack White, of the band White Stripes, who plucked Scovel from obscurity. The two had “met cute” as strangers at neighboring tables on the patio of an Atlanta fast-food restaurant. Scovel was in town to do a show, and on the way out of the restaurant patio, he stopped to invite White and his friend. On an impulse, he also handed them a copy of his first record.
“Maybe a year or so later,” he said, “I randomly got a call from (a friend of White’s) and he said, ‘I’m with Jack White right now, and he wants to talk to you. I got on the phone with him, and he said, ‘I’ve listened to your album so many times. I make people listen to it. I know it by heart. I want you to come to Third Man and do a show.”
Third Man Records is White’s Nashville label. He started out supporting other musicians’ work, but now includes comedians in his roster. Scovel joined the likes of Dave Chapelle, Conan O’Brien, Neil Hamburger, John Waters and Stephen Colbert.
White invited Scovel to record an album for his series, “Live at Third Man.” The Netflix special followed in 2016.
In 2021, Scovel updated his comedy for fans in a novel 70-minute “documentary,” “Live Without Fear,” on YouTube. He saw the project as important to updating material that had aged out with the 2016 and 2020 elections. It also gave him greater freedom to play with both his environment and the notion of “story.” Above all, he was enthusiastic about expanding his use of improvisation.
“When I first started doing standup,” he said, “I was learning and doing improv at the same time. They sort of fed each other. Everything I was learning in improv, like, ‘use all of the buffalo all of the time,’ I started to apply that to stand up.
“It also gave me the confidence to really act out jokes and sit in the silence for a long time. In those moments I was able to (find) tags and directions.”
Scovel also credits the support of more accomplished comedians on the scene in Washington, D.C., and New York City. He said, “They were great at tagging your jokes and helping you learn how to write.”
Over time he learned to drill down and stretch a premise to the exquisite detail. As a result, a bit like this character quote from his 2016 special — “I’m one of those people who doesn’t believe in global warming, but I’m pretty sure Noah’s ark was a true story” — can turn into ten or even 20 minutes of one- or two-line jokes.
That particular line is representative, too, of the content of Scovel’s comedy. He’s a brilliant tight-rope walker of the fine line.
“I had a lot of sex jokes very early on,” he said, but if someone asks me core topics, now, I always land on drugs, sex, religion, politics.” He stresses, though, “I try to not have any of them exist in a preachy format. I try to figure out a way for it to feel like it’s coming from a place of innocence.
“I was raised Catholic, so I’m fascinated by religion, and I think politics is something that we can’t ever escape from.”
How Scovel was raised looms large among his comic influences. He said his whole family shared a great sense of humor.
“I’m one of seven kids. My dad was one of five. My mother was one of three. It was just a big, extended family. All my aunts and uncles, when they got going, that was funny.
“I noticed that getting a laugh, you got a lot of attention, and I think once you get that drug a little bit, you’re kind of always chasing it. It’s how you connect dots socially in conversations. So, I became a class clown.”
Scovel grew up in South Carolina and earned a degree in journalism and communications. After graduation, he went to visit a sister who had moved to Washington, D.C., and that’s where the class clown became a comedian.
His sister encouraged him to try an open mic and brought all her friends to cheer him on. “She was naturally very excited to get all her friends together,” Scovel said. “So, I showed up at the show with the whole audience. They were very willing to give me stage time.
“After that night I looked in the city paper and saw all these open mics and thought, ‘This may be a great place to move.’”
It was 2004, when he made the move, and the first thing he did was sign up for improv classes at Washington Improv Theater. “I had come across a video of Upright Citizens Brigade performing ASSSCAT. I don’t even remember how I came across (it), but I had never seen long form improv before. I’d only seen stuff like ‘Whose Line (Is It Anyway).’ I was, like, ‘Oh my gosh, I really would love to do that.’”
Scovel said he continues to lean on improv techniques in his standup comedy, and it provided the spine of “Live Without Fear.” He also continues to look for opportunities to perform. “Just yesterday I filmed a scene in ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm.’ It was a fully improvised scene. I’d never been in a trailer where I wasn’t studying lines and trying to feverishly memorize them. And there was nothing.”
All along, Scovel also has been writing. “I’ve worked on a couple scripts, one of which became my TV show (“Robbie”) on Comedy Central, but I haven’t written as much as I’d like to be doing by now. These things seem to come at a natural pace that I don’t force. I’ve recently become very obsessed with painting. I can’t seem to knock that.”
Rory Scovel, 7 p.m. Friday, April 14, 191 Toole, 191 E. Toole Avenue, 191toole.com, tickets start at $35
Other shows this week
Laff’s Comedy Caffe, 2900 E. Broadway Boulevard. 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Friday, April 7, and 7 and 9:30 p.m. Saturday, April 8, laffstucson.com, $15, $20 preferred seating. Ken Garr, scion of a firefighting family, mines laughs from blue-collar life
Tucson Improv Movement/TIM Comedy Theatre, 414 E. 9th Street, tucsonimprov.com, $7 each show, $10 for both shows, same night, free jam and open mic.7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 6, Improv 301 and “Harold Eta;” 8:30 p.m. Open Mic; 6:30 p.m. Friday, April 7, Improv Jam; 7:30 p.m. “The Soapbox” with Julie Evans; 9 p.m. Stand Up Showcase with Rich Gary, Dom DiTolla, Brady Evans, Sylvia Remington, Lisa Kristine, Zo Thomas; 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 8, “Your Favorite Movie Improvised” and “The Meeting;” 9 p.m. “LOL and Order”
Unscrewed Theater, 4500 E. Speedway Boulevard, unscrewedtheatre.org, $8, live or remote, $5 kids. 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 7, From the Top Improvised Musical; 9 p.m. Unscrewed Fridays After Dark (pay what you will); 7:30 p.m., Saturday, April 8, Family Friendly Improv; 9 p.m. Uncensored Improv Comedy with house teams NBOJU (Not Burnt Out Just Unscrewed) and The Big Daddies
