In his 11 years as a professional comedian, Tristian Spillman has performed on some nontraditional stages.
Adolf Hitler’s desk, for one.
Not an actual desk owned by Hitler, of course, but a re-creation. Spillman, 37, was living in Germany working as a cleaning person in an Armed Forces Recreation Center and went to an open mic at a club that had been made to look like an office. With no stage to perform on, Spillman took to the highest ground: the desk.
“I was up there performing and toward the end of my set, a guy told me I was standing on Hitler’s desk, and that night, that was my closer,” he said. “There was going to be nothing I could do that would’ve been funnier than that.”
More recently, Spillman moved to Portland in 2003 and started hosting shows at movie theaters. He runs a regular comedy night the first Thursday of every month at Kiggins Theatre in Vancouver.
“One of the things that’s cool about the Portland area is that movie theaters are more than just movie theaters,” he said. “There are theaters that were used for shows and other things that became movie theaters. They have a stage and surround sound, so it made sense to try comedy shows at them.”
‘A big venue’
Spillman hosted a regular comedy show at the Bagdad Theater in Portland starting in 2005 and running until 2013. The Kiggins show has been going on for two-plus years.
“It’s close to Portland, and it allows them to perform in a big venue and walk around a giant stage,” he said. “We’ve even had some out-of-town talent come specifically for the show. We’ve had someone from Los Angeles come, and a comedian from Seattle just came down for a show recently.”
Spillman said the show usually draws about 60 people, although it has gotten more than 200 on multiple occasions. He hopes the crowd grows and he can do comedy shows at the theater weekly.
As for why Spillman has been drawn to local movie theater shows, it’s a bit selfish, he said.
“I have small kids, so I’m city-bound,” Spillman said. “I don’t go out on the road too often, maybe once every three or four months or so. So this is a show I know I can regularly perform at, and regularly get talented people to perform at because there’s such a surplus of talent around.”
Spillman, who first performed comedy about 16 years ago, said a few other people thought he should be a comedian before he realized that’s what he wanted to do. When he acted up in school, teachers would refer to him as “Mr. Comedian.” At home, his family nicknamed him Jokey Smurf.
While he started out as a writer and actor, Spillman said he took to stand-up because of the quick turn-around.
“I wanted to perform my ideas, and stand-up comedy is an immediate delivery-response,” he said. “I can write something that day and get immediate feedback on it that night.”
The next comedy show at Kiggins is 8 p.m. Thursday, June 4. Doors open at 7 p.m., and tickets are $10.
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