On a recent Saturday, a crowd of about 400 people, mostly Bridgeport natives, has gathered in a large skybox at White Sox park. The place is dark except for a Jumbotron, which is illuminated with a portrait of the late stand-up comedian Pat Brice. Tonight is a tribute show in honor of Brice’s 40th birthday and a fund-raiser for the families of Chicago comics Steve O. Harvey, who lost a bout with cancer in September 2015, and Prescott Tolk, whose father, an Uber driver in New York, was recently killed in an altercation with a man carrying a hockey stick.
Other stand-ups lean more on gallows humor. “Who had to die so we could get this venue?” Kinane says to no one in particular as he peeks out from behind the black curtain. Onstage, Emily Dorezas recalls a time when an inebriated Brice asked if she would give him a ride on her bike to friend and fellow comic CJ Sullivan’s house. Brice wanted to stand on the bike’s rear axle. The two collapsed after “four blocks,” she recalls. “And by that I mean four sidewalk squares.”
To donate to Steve O. Harvey’s family, visit their YouCaring page.
