Down in the dark, Wi-Fi-less Memorial Union Building (MUB) basement, a crowd waited right outside of the entertainment center. They looked for laughs and memories to share with friends, and they weren’t disappointed.
On Saturday, Feb. 4 at 9 p.m., Steve Haas took the stage in place of Jenny Zigrino, the original performer. Like many in the packed entertainment center, I was confused, but adjusted my focus quickly to accommodate this new entertainment. I felt that a new comedian would be much more interesting to interview than someone who was fairly well known such as Jenny Zigrino. I mean she had her late night debut on Conan O’Brien, what more do people need to know? So I snatched up the opportunity to bring light to a lesser-known form of entertainment.
Steve had the room laughing from wall to wall as he told stories about using an app to make friends (in which he ended up going on an awkward “date” with some random guy), to a story of himself and one of his past girlfriends making a “Sim” of their lives. He apparently made her “Sim” character too fat and caused his actual girlfriend to go on a no-carb diet.
He had no problem with going on the diet with her, as he thought a carb was a fish and not the complex sugar that makes up our breads and pastas. I too am guilty of getting involved in the activity of creating a fantasy Sim world with a girlfriend and decided in my interview of him to ask if it was a true story. I was happy to learn that this story wasn’t just for the show and that I wasn’t alone (I still question the part about him thinking that a carb was just a name for a fish, though. I should’ve asked him about that).
Steve Haas, originally from Chicago, lives in Los Angeles where he works full time as a script consulter during the day and performs comedy at night. He went to school at Columbia University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in film.
I asked him about how he started doing comedy and he told me, “I went to an open mic one night at my school where I performed comedy. I like to write and I look at comedy as another form of writing.”
When I asked him about what he would say his best experience is while doing comedy, he said, “traveling.” He said he likes traveling around to different places and schools to perform.
