Wayne Brady for $90/hour

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes 28 seconds

We didn’t know why we had gone to the Mohegan Sun Casino until we were there. On our way to hit the obligatory buffet to stuff our fat faces with absurd quantities of mashed potatoes before some low-stakes slots, I noticed a poster advertising a performance that evening by Wayne Brady, the improv comedian made famous by his stint on TV’s Whose Line is it Anyway.

“What pleasurable happenstance,” I thought as I stared into Wayne Brady’s way-too-white teeth on the performance bill.

Like that hot dog cooker you bought on impulse at Target, the Wayne Brady show was our first impulse comedy show.

However, tickets were $45 apiece. I don’t know if it was because we were in a casino, where matters of money seemingly cease to exist, but $45 didn’t seem too steep.

Told the show was sold out, we learned that there was a special line to stand in for the chance to purchase tickets on a first-come-first-serve basis if they become available due to cancellations.

Since there is no scalping on the reservation, as we learned earlier, I supposed the special line was the only way people without tickets could change their circumstances.

After the buffet, where I successfully put away four desserts, we went to stand in the Schlubs Without Tickets line a recommended-yet-inconvenient 1 hour and 15 minutes before Wayne Brady and his teeth sparkled in front of a live audience. We were the second couple in line.

Here are some of the highlights we see during that time:

**A kid with the babyface of a 10-year-old who was 6-foot-3. I desperately want to ask him if he had some sort of anti-aging disorder and was really 28 or if, as expected, he is indeed a grotesquely tall 9-year-old.

**The Connecticut Sun of the WNBA play a playoff game that night at the Mohegan Sun Arena. We watch thousands of fans headed to the game walk past. At first we recognize many of these fans only if they wear Sun gear – jerseys, hats, sweatshirts, etc. However, the closer we look, the more we notice couples or groups of women headed to the arena. I note that there is not a lot of long hair on these women. Or femininity. I am reminded of a story about the marketing tactics of the WNBA that I had read years earlier. Recognizing that the sight of hundreds of lesbians shuffle past is quite unique, I wonder what the gay male equivalent of a WNBA game is.

**The couple in line ahead of us is handed a ticket for free by a woman who claims “I don’t really want this.”

**A section of the floor in front of us has the slightest raise in the carpet, so slight that you can’t even tell by looking closely. This doesn’t stop a number of people from tripping, looking back to see what had tripped them, only to see nothing but ordinary casino carpet. Sorry saps, I mutter.

The Wayne Brady show began very impressively. To start, his stooge/assistant/fellow performer solicited the audience for words you wouldn’t find in a gangsta rap song. People shouted words like “dude,” “marshmallow” and “serendipitous” which were written on large sheets of paper.

Wayne came out to a hip-hop beat and performed an improv rap incorporating the words. I was quite impressed.

Unfortunately that was the show’s peak.

The rest of the improv sketches were what you would expect. People shouted out movie styles or occupations which Wayne would then incorporate into a song or sketch.

However, seemingly every other sketch ended at Wayne’s insistence because it was not funny and/or failed to go anywhere. Wayne had his moments – some good impressions of a mime, an Italian gangster and the band Creed. But ultimately his performance came off as hopelessly average, lacking the comedic zip he has displayed on bigger stages, for bigger audiences.

To make matters worse, the show ended after an hour, forcing us to shrug our shoulders and walk out of the theater wondering if Wayne would run back on stage and make us feel like we didn’t just waste $45.

Erin contemplated how much money we had just paid per minute for the show. I tried a quick calculation in my head before settling on “Too much.”

Call it buyer’s remorse.