Tickets priced for escapist fun
By Elna Seabrooks
Staff Writer
HOULTON — If it’s laughter you’re after, Toxic Comedy Productions’ James Pinard says he has four top-notch comics booked to fill the bill this Friday for two shows at the John A. Millar Civic Center on Randall Avenue in Houlton. The comedy festival, starring the Mighty Warriors of Comedy, according to Pinard “is not dirty and ultimately clean for Houlton and Aroostook County standards.”
Pinard says if you think of the word “toxic” as something harmful — don’t. He says his toxic comedy show will “only make you hurt from laughing.” He booked Houlton resident and popular comic and impressionist Mark “Chappi” Chaplin to emcee. Other seasoned comics are Larry Norton, Teddy Bergeron and Ryan Gartley who have appeared on late-night TV and various comedy circuits around the country. Norton even toured with a troupe to entertain in Iraq.
Pinard says the two 90 minute shows normally pull in three times more in other areas than he’s asking at Friday’s $15 ticket price for Aroostook County. The first show at 7 p.m. is followed by another at 9 p.m. Both are 90 minutes long. It’s an attempt, he says, to bring more options for live entertainment into the area.
“We are so happy to be in Aroostook County and hope to do this again. We want to bring more shows here for people and bring business into the area.” Pinard added that he expects to draw an audience from Canada and the northern part of the county as well as points south. He has a tie-in with the Courtyard Café to cater the event and says he hopes people will stay over in the local motels and shop in the area.
But, he consistently repeated how happy he was to be doing this in Houlton and expressed enthusiasm about helping people forget their anxiety and the troubled economic news, even for a little while. A Saturday show is booked for 8 p.m. in the Caribou Performing Arts Center.
Since comedy is the best medicine, Pinard is encouraging people to come and cure what ails them at the shows which also, in part, benefit the country’s men and women in the armed forces.
Tickets are available at York’s Bookstore in Houlton and Dead River convenience stores in Houlton, Presque Isle and Caribou.
