By Diane Villano-Prokop
Times Staff Writer
Leave your stereotypes at the door of the Keswick Theatre on Saturday night when Josh Blue, a winner of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, takes the stage.
Blue, who has cerebral palsy, won the comedy competition last August during the fourth season of the reality TV show, beating out nine other finalists to earn an NBC contract and a stand-up comedy special on Bravo.
"What a cool opportunity to be on national TV for thirteen weeks and get to make America laugh. I made some really good friends," Blue said of the experience.
On Saturday night, he’ll be at the Keswick in Glenside with two of those Last Comic Standing friends — Michele Balan and Kristin Key.
Blue started doing stand-up in college and has been enjoying the professional life for two years, "which means I’m one-hundred percent living off of comedy," he said during a phone interview last week.
Much of the 28-year-old comic’s act focuses on his having cerebral palsy — a topic that some might not regard as a laughing matter.
Blue’s mission is to show audiences that life can go on.
"I talk about my life and disability. I’m really comfortable with who I am," he explained. "My comfort with it makes you not have a choice but to . . . if you’re not cool with it, I am."
The United Cerebral Palsy organization was cool with it. After Blue’s Last Comic Standing victory last summer, UCP’s national headquarters applauded the triumph and praised his talent, in particular saluting Blue for "breaking down barriers" that face people with disabilities and showing Americans that those lives often thrive without limitations.
The way Blue sees things, he’s not doing anything all that different from other comedians and their approaches to material.
"I’m just doing it through my perspective, like a lot of comedians," Blue said. "As far as groundbreaking, Richard Pryor did it with being black and swearing, Ellen DeGeneres did it with the gay and lesbian aspect, and I’m sort of doing this with the disability aspect."
Blue would like to think that support for his material can be found in his fan mail. He receives a lot of it these days, especially from people with disabilities.
"Not just cerebral palsy, but all disabilities," he noted. "They don’t even have to be disabled. They might be someone who knows somebody. They say thank you for putting disabilities in the limelight. It’s a very cool thing to have people have that reaction."
But you should understand one thing. Being a role model isn’t Josh Blue’s goal, he says. His purpose is far more modest.
"I’m here because I really love making people laugh. If you take inspiration from it, that’s pretty amazing," he said.
Actually, comedy is just one dimension of his life. Blue also is a phenomenal soccer player, an athletic prowess that he demonstrated while playing in the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece.
"The unfortunate fact is that disabled sports doesn’t get enough recognition. Most people don’t even know the Paralympics exists," he said.
Touted as the second-largest sports competition in the world, after the Olympics, the Paralympics involves competitors with disabilities, but also with high degrees of athletic skill. The public is more familiar with the Special Olympics, the widely promoted competition that is open to all with intellectual disabilities, regardless of their level of athleticism.
Blue hopes to use the power of the stage to shine a light on the Paralympics competition and its athletes.
His other interests include art, and he does seem to be a talented artist. Some of his charcoal drawings, oil pastels and wood sculpture can be seen on his Web site at www.joshblue.com
"I bring art supplies on the road with me," he said. "As far as the wood-carving goes, airports don’t like me to bring power tools and big hunks of wood."
Blue recalls that his interest in art took root when he was a kid growing up in St. Paul, Minn. He may have sown his early comic seeds in school back then as well.
"When you’re a kid, you don’t know if you’re funny or not, or smart or not. With my friends, I was quick with a joke and full of energy," he recalled. "The cool thing was I always got away with it. You can’t really send a disabled kid to detention, even if you want to." ••
Reporter Diane Villano-Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dvillano@phillynews.com
Lighter side of life . . .
Josh Blue performs at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside on Saturday night at 8. Tickets are $33.50 and $26. Order online at www.keswicktheatre.com; by phone, 215-572-7650; or from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Saturday at the Keswick box office, 291 Keswick Ave.
If you can’t get to the show, you can see Josh Blue on an upcoming episode of Comedy Central’s Mind of Mencia, or check out his 2006 Bravo special on DVD, 7 More Days in the Tank, or his CD Good Josh Bad Arm, recorded at the Comedy Works in Denver in 2005.