The Comic Strippers is not just for the ladies - in fact, the show might just benefit the men because as one of the troupe members explained, "with our comedy bodies we make the rest of you look good!"
The male stripper parody and improvisational show will be presented at the Prince George Playhouse on Friday, Aug. 19 and Saturday, Aug. 20 at 8 p.m.
"At its core it's a shirtless Whose Line Is It Anyway? where we are doing improv, taking suggestions from the audience and they are definitely involved in our show," said Roman Danylo, one of the Canadian Comic Strippers. "It's quite silly, quite ridiculous and quite a lot of fun. It's unbridled silliness from the get go."
They want to reassure all audience members of what won't be on display.
"You're not going to see any horrible thongs," said Danylo.
The troupe of notable comedians do the show half naked - the top half.
"I really love that about the show - everybody gets the irony of what's happening," said Danylo. "I just think it's hilarious if Canada's answer to this whole male stripper genre - you know the US has Chippendales and Australia has the Thunder Down Under - if ours was this ironic version - that would be just great."
The Comic Strippers have toured across Canada a couple of times so they are well on their way to making that happen.
The team started testing out the premise in 2012 and then really hit the theatres in 2014.
The big test was when the comedy team attended the Adelaide Fringe Festival in Adelaide, Australia, the second biggest annual festival of its kind worldwide.
"We thought we'd test it out half way around the world and the response was great," said Danylo.
They knew they were on to something that appealed to Canadians when they sold out a 600-seat theatre in Fort McMurray weeks in advance of the show.
"So we thought OK, maybe there's something here," said Danylo.
Along with Danylo as a Comic Stripper who starred in Comedy Inc. on CTV, and also appeared at the HBO Aspen Comedy Fest and NBC's Late Friday, there is Ken Lawson, who starred in the Canadian sitcom Health Nutz and has performed all over North America with The Vancouver TheatreSports League and The Second City. Chris Casillan who is an improv comedy veteran with Vancouver Theatre Sports and a Canadian Comedy Award winner with his sketch comedy group Canadian Content and David Milchard who is an Internet sensation with over 90 million hits for his Youtube videos Convos With My 2 Year Old.
The troupe met as members of the Vancouver Theatre Sports League and each has been doing comedy for the last 25 years.
The Comic Strippers have been to Prince George twice before and since the Prince George Playhouse is a bit smaller venue, they offer two performances.
"And we love that - a Friday and Saturday show in one spot is just perfect," said Danylo. "The construct for the show is we're fictitious male stripper characters that have been stripping for far too long and we're demanding more respect in our lives by attempting a new genre of entertainment which is improv comedy and yet when the music comes on we still dance like idiots because old habits die hard."
During the show the audience will see many stripper-themed twists to the improv game like a private table dance theme and shower scenes.
"And we do something with ping pong balls you have to see to believe," said Danylo. "So there's all that going on."
Tickets are available at tickets.centralinteriortickets.com.
