JUNE 14, 2018 // 9
LAUGHING
MATTERS
Cannon Beach
Comedy Festival strives
to challenge, entertain
By BRENNA VISSER
COAST WEEKEND
F
or Caitlin Weierhauser, the art of stand-
up comedy is all in the introduction.
In the liberal pocket of Portland,
Weierhauser, a gender non-conforming per-
former, may open their act with a joke about
being misgendered, or being yelled at in a
public bathroom.
But travel outside those city limits to
somewhere smaller — say, Cannon Beach
— and Weierhauser may open with a story
of what it was like to grow up in rural Doug-
las County, Oregon.
The way to the punchline may take
different routes, but Weierhauser’s comedy
has an unsubtle, unapologetic and universal
goal: to make every audience laugh at and
question the world around them.
“I think (comedy) is the easiest way to
process ideas. I’ve always been attracted
to stand-up specifically because it presents
ideas and ways of thinking that aren’t right
on the surface,” Weierhauser said. “They are
layers below.”
Weierhauser is joining a cast of seven
comics featured in the second annual Can-
non Beach Comedy Festival, which takes
place Friday and Saturday, June 15 and 16.
What started as one night of three comedi-
ans performing in a packed Tolovana Arts
Colony building with a budget of $268 has
ballooned into a two-day event, with shows
at both the Colony and the Coaster Theatre.
‘A delicate dance’
The festival is the brainchild of the Arts
Colony director, Andrew Tonry, who spent
years covering comedy as a journalist in the
Portland area. Tonry found himself missing
the art form when he moved back to the
North Coast, and decided to find a way to
bring comedy to the community.
“There’s an audience here — whether
they know it or not,” Tonry said.
Thanks to a $4,000 grant from the
Tourism and Arts Commission in Cannon
Beach, the lineup grew from three to seven
PHOTOS COURTESY TOLOVANA ARTS COLONY
ABOVE: Caitlin Weierhauser is one of the new
comics featured at this year’s Cannon Beach
Comedy Festival. LEFT: Lachlan Patterson is
the headlining act for the Cannon Beach
Comedy Festival.
IF YOU GO
mostly Portland-based comedians, including
headliner Lachlan Patterson, a runner-up on
NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” and featured
guest on Comedy Central’s “Tosh.0.”
One of the goals of the festival, Tonry
said, was to “provide a little bit of every-
thing” for a North Coast audience.
“It’s a delicate dance,” he said in refer-
ence to finding comedians. “There is still
a misnomer that (comics) are all filthy and
horrible, which is not true.”
The current line-up balances this sensibil-
ity with comedians Tonry hopes will “chal-
lenge audiences in the way they think,” from
comedians like Mohanad Elshieky, whose
act focuses on world politics and Arab
stereotypes, to comics like Weierhauser, who
dives deeply into the world of gender and
sexuality politics.
Weierhauser doesn’t shy away from the
challenge. In fact, it was part of their journey
to get into stand-up comedy in the first place.
‘Wake-up call’
After the death of their sister a few years
ago, Weierhauser had a “wake-up call,”
quit their job as a software manager and
moved to Portland. Comedy became a tool
to filter their grief, so much so that they gave
stand-up comedy a shot on the advice of a
therapist.
“I remember she said, ‘All this sad stuff
is somehow funny when you say it,’” they
laughed.
Since then, Weierhauser has performed at
the All Jane Comedy Festival, Bumbershoot
and Bridgetown Comedy Festival, often
being branded as a “political comic” and
fervent enemy of the patriarchy.
But Weierhauser sees their comedy less
as a political weapon and more as a mecha-
nism for persuasive but accessible storytell-
ing, punctuated by punchlines.
“Can you imagine the pain of doing a
TED talk about gender theory? Ugh. With
What: The second annual Cannon
Beach Comedy Festival
When and where: 7:30 p.m. Friday,
June 15 at Tolovana Arts Colony
and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 16 at
Coaster Theatre
Who: Lachlan Patterson, Caitlin
Weierhauser, Alex Falcone, Katie
Nguyen, Phil Schallberger, Mohanad
Elshieky, Anthony Lopez
How much: $10 for Friday night, $15
for Saturday night, $20 for weekend
pass
comedy, it lets you get these kind of ideas
out there and process them,” they said.
“You’ll recall it with fondness. (Comedy)
fast forwards the learning process. It does all
the work for you. As long as you’re hav-
ing a good time, you’ll go home with that
information.” CW