Amelia “Amie” Gabusi figures that it was her youthful devotion to “The Jeffersons” and later to “Def Comedy Jam,” that inspired her passion for social work. The comedy came later.
“Even at a very young age, watching old Norman Lear comedies on VHS, I understood that all of the injustice in the world is stupid,” Gabusi said.
“I am Mexican, but there was something about marginalized communities in general that always spoke to me. So, I went to school to fight it and then I do comedy to get relief from it.”
In between a post-college stint at Epcot Center and graduate school in Chicago, she took a gap year or so to work in her Tucson hometown. Occasionally, she’d step up at Tucson’s only open mic at Laff’s Comedy Caffe. She remembered Roxy Merari as a one-woman support system, and the now-deceased Laff’s icon Gary Hood as a singular coach. “It wasn’t the kind of like yelling that was angry,” she said of “Hoodie’s” notorious counsel. “My dad’s a baseball coach, so I respond to that kind of structure. I want to hear what I’m doing wrong, so I can correct it.”
At the time, she said, “I didn’t appreciate improv for what it was, but what I noticed, and I will give both of them credit, was that Mikey Dean and Ben Dietzel were the two improvisers in town who I would watch for standup.
“I noticed that they just had a different stage presence,” she said. Dean and Dietzel encouraged her to try improv. “When I realized that improv was comedy as a team sport, with my dad being a coach, everything clicked. Everything changed.
“I started to understand comedy math differently,” she said.
That was the point when career aspirations took her to Chicago. She was accepted to the only graduate program she cared about, the legendary Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois Chicago. The school’s motto is “Advancing social, racial and economic justice.”
While in Chicago, she followed her fresh interest in improv to another legendary institution, Chicago’s IO Theater, founded by legendary improv innovator Del Close.
“I think the difference is that when it’s just me up there, if I bomb or something, it’s just me. But when my friends are involved, when my team is involved, that’s an emotional commitment, so I show up harder. The ego is wonderfully dissolved.”
Since returning to Tucson, Gabusi has landed in the best of all her worlds. A social worker by day, her standup sets are welcome all over town and she regularly performs in and coaches improv teams at Tucson Improv Movement (TIM).
Over the last year, she’s also been able to integrate her passions for social work, comedy and improv into a unique community via her original show, “Femme Drop.” She said she created it to fill what she saw as a gap in Tucson’s available comedy spaces. TIM’s intimate, 35-seat theater, she said, has become a world of its own.
“I think what happens is that because it’s a safe space because they know they’re walking into a place where they’re allowed to be themselves. I think they bring it harder.
“No Femme Drop show has ever been the same. The women who come to perform at Femme Drop bring it in a way that the energy is electric. The whole audience is engaged.”
With local comic Drake Belt, Gabusi recently launched a new open mic to capture and nurture that same level of energy and engagement in an intimate dive-bar-like space around the corner from Gabusi’s childhood home — the recently revamped Golden Nugget, 2617 N. First Avenue, Suite 2. For now, it’s the only open mic held on a Sunday night. The list goes out at 5:30 p.m.; mic starts at 6.
“Femme Drop,” Tucson Improv Movement/TIM Comedy Theatre, 414 E. Ninth Street, Tucson,
www.tucsonimprov.com, $9, Amie Gabusi hosts
Frank Caliendo at Desert Diamond
Frank Caliendo’s list of credits is exhausting, spanning TV, movies, arena stages and streaming services. And it’s diverse. He performed a three-year residency in Las Vegas and a prestigious dinner for radio and TV correspondents.
He’s been featured in two pregame shows for the Super Bowl and more than 20 times on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” The Night Show and The Late Show. This list doesn’t scratch the surface.
Few comics have better credentials, but fewer have so many memorable bits across the range of standup comedy styles, from storytelling to one-liners and observations to character work. Caliendo’s biggest fans, though, might be those who are in it for his impressions, especially those inspired by the noisiest politicians and the most recognizable sports and pop-culture figures.
Caliendo’s high-energy pacing continues to make him a hit on high-profile sports programs in particular, but he’s welcome in every crowd including political figures, celebrities and especially people looking for entertainment suitable for the whole family.
Frank Caliendo, Desert Diamond Casino’s Diamond Center, 1100 W. Pima Mine Road, Sahuarita, www.ddcaz.com, 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20, tickets start at $25
Other shows this week
Catalina Craft Pizza, 15930 N. Oracle Road, Suite 178, Tucson, 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20, “Comedy in Catalina,” free; Phoenix comic T. Dot Kingsley headlines; Chris Quinn features; Allana Erickson-Lopez and Kenny Shade co-host; Morgan Kuehn, Johnny Jello and Tyler B round out the lineup. Donations of nonperishable food and clothing benefit Impact of Southern Arizona.
Laff’s Comedy Caffe, 2900 E. Broadway Boulevard, Tucson, 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 19, and 7 and 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20, www.laffstucson.com, $15, $20 preferred seating. Alex Elkin, a finalist in the Laugh Factory’s International Donald Trump Impersonator Contest, is “Screaming at Shapes” album reached No. 6 on the iTunes comedy chart.
Screwbean Brewery, 103 N. Park Avenue, Unit 101, Tucson, $7:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 20, $7, Brass Knuckles Comedy presents “Screwballs: The Comedy Show;” Nicole Riesgo hosts; Tamale Sepp headlines; Max Adler, Casey Caruso, Chinna Garza, Mitchell Marroquin and Lux Shree round out the lineup.
Tucson Improv Movement/TIM Comedy Theatre, 414 E. Ninth Street, Tucson, tucsonimprov.com, tickets start at $7, free jam. 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 18, “The Dirty Tees;” 6:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 8, Improv Jam; 7:30 p.m. “The Soapbox” with Lynda Weigel-Firor; 9 p.m. “Femme Drop;” 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9, “The Game Show Show;” 9 p.m. “Fourth Avenue Confessions.”
Unscrewed Theater, 4500 E. Speedway Boulevard, Tucson, $8, live or remote, $5 kids, www.unscrewedtheatre.org, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 19, Not Burnt Out Just Unscrewed (NBOJU); 6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20, Unscrewed Family Hour; 7:30 p.m. NBOJU; 9 p.m. The Backyard Comedy Playground.
