Triple Threat Comedy Jam Tour presented by C.E. Consultants brought the city out on Saturday (Jan. 28) night for an evening of chuckles and playful banter inside Westport Playhouse. The sold-out funny affair featured some of the internet’s hottest viral online comedic sensations including St. Louis’ own Willie C, Atlanta-based Calimar White, and Dallas-based Richie Fontane.
Triple Threat Comedy Opening Act auditions were hosted the night before (Jan. 27) to find openers for the show and give emerging comics in the city a chance to show off their comedy skills.
One winner was crowned Shante Love, and she held it down as the only woman and opener on the bill.
Love, comedy novice, receives lots of love
Shante Love, a newbie to comedy, has been on the scene less than a year. The fact that she doesn’t have much experience under belt didn’t interfere with her ability to keep the crowd entertained.
Who would’ve thought a ten-year marriage ending in divorce could be equivalent to serving a jail sentence for the same amount of time? Love hilariously compared her marriage to doing hard time which sent everyone into hysterics.
She added it also felt like jail because she married a man from the East Side (East St. Louis). Some guests from the other side of the river gasped at her revelation, but it was all in good fun.
Her material drew from her life as a divorcee, her family dynamic having two kids and caring for her mother, and reentering the dating world.
She found therapy in [expletive] her ex’s belonging up, including damaging his xbox and removing his shoe laces.
She also received a lot of family support from the crowd.Â
Her brother called out, “That’s my sister!” and her cousin shouted out words of encouragement, “Yeah cousin!”
Love left the stage and made room for the other acts to bring the heat.
Willie C, St. Louis favorite
Willie C fans anxiously awaited his set.
“Where you at, Willie?”Â
“You better bring your [expletive] out.”
The hometown comic walked out to Young Beano’s “Money Snap,” and flipped the lyrics to “Yeah, that’s that income tax. That’s that [expletive] refund,” referencing the current income tax refund cycle.
He poked fun at the people who use that money toward unnecessary items like buying patio furniture while living in an apartment.
“How many of y’all going to heaven?,” Willie asked and almost the entire theater raised their hands.Â
It was a perfect segue. Wille joked that when Black women get to heaven they’re going to be “doing too much.”
“Can you please take this picture of me sitting on this cloud?,” he joked. “I don’t know if my friend will be up here with me.”
He also mentioned how everyone who goes to Kobe’s, also in West Port Plaza where the Playhouse is, always uses the Kobe’s sign for photo ops, but don’t use that same energy to take photos in front of Aldi of Saveway grocery store.
He left the stage on a high note for his successor Calimar White.
Calimar White, Mr. “Never Do [expletive] At Work”
How fitting?! Florida native, now Atlanta-based comedian, Calimar White walked out to his popular “Never Do [expletive] At Work” song, which mocks taking jobs seriously.
He had some of the ladies in the audience swooning over his looks. A couple women ooed at him and his response was, “Don’t Waste Your Time.” Their comeback was, “I got time to waste.”
In line with his theme music, a lot of his set incorporated job jokes.
He’s had an estimated 30 temp jobs, and classifies himself as a great job getter, with the caveat that he doesn’t let jobs take advantage of him and work him like a slave.
“Other people get jobs to provide for their family,” White said. “I get a job to horseplay and spread rumors. I’m the one who tells everyone the supervisor is racist.”
While jobs come and go, he takes advantage of the jobs he stays in for a while to get in good with women.
“Some women let you move in if they see you working hard,” he said. “I used to hold a job long enough to convince them I’m a hard working man. They let me spend one night with them and I quit. Your turn to take care of me now.”
The rest of his jokes included making fun of his zodiac sign, Taurus, waist beads, scammers, and women with natural bodies that don’t rely on surgery.
Richie Fontane, popular internet comedian, bombs
Richie Fontane, Los Angeles-born and Dallas-based comedian, often goes viral on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok for his funny takes.
His entrance onto the stage was out of tune. When he didn’t receive the response he wanted from the crowd, he told everyone to make some noise and stand-up for him.
He threw some of the audience off with this tactic and they refused to stand up.
He exited and returned to the stage, and a majority of the crowd did stand and applaud for him.
His standup proved that not all online social media stars perform well in person.
He began his set with a long winded story about how a woman he was seeing made his pockets hurt from morning to evening because she wanted to turn up all day. He concluded the story saying he had to cut her off someone else’s tab and hit her with a bottle to knock sense into her.
His set went further downhill as he took too long to get to the punchline of a lot of his jokes and spent more time acting tipsy than actually garnering an authentic interaction with the audience.Â
At the end of his set, he likely reached his limit with alcohol as he asked Willie C to come out on stage and end the night.
CDK on the Mic, a celebrity host from North Carolina, was the master of ceremonies and Major 88 Keys held it down on the 1s and 2s.
St. Louis was the first stop on The Triple Threat Comedy Jam tour, Atlanta is their next city.