That’s the strange dichotomy of Les’ life. He’s an innovative and highly successful businessman disguised as a laid-back, happy-go-lucky joke teller. It’s easy to figure out where his work ethic comes from. His grandfather owned a restaurant back in Chattanooga, and the whole family pitched in to run it. “It was across the street from the high school, the high school hangout. I learned how to work hard and I learned how to work fast,” Les says.

As a kid, Les was famous for his mouth. “They thought I’d be a lawyer or a preacher. I loved to talk,” he says.  Instead he chose to go into acting. After attending the University of Memphis, he decided to head for Los Angeles and become, he says, “the next Gabby Hayes.”

He made it as far as Denver, where his old friend from grade school, Ken Sons, was living. The two of them began working on material they hoped would get them an audition for Saturday Night Live. It didn’t, but while trying it out at local comedy clubs, they discovered they made a great comic team.

Les was hooked. He spent the next eight years performing in clubs and helping to run them, something his family’s restaurant business had made second nature to him. His first club in Sarasota was at the Holiday Inn at the airport. When the motel was sold to new owners, he moved to the Big Kitchen on Clark Road.

He and Pam began looking for a more permanent location. The old Teatro was available, though everybody warned against it. The McCurdys were scared. It was a major risk. There were bank loans, renovations, the hard work of building up a new business.

Then one night Les had a long talk with nutrition guru Harvey Diamond. Harvey, the best-selling author of Fit for Life and a Sarasota resident, often dropped into the club. When Les explained the dilemma he was facing, Harvey had some advice. “All you have to do is believe it,” he told Les. “You’ve moved to Sarasota and created all this positive energy. Of course it will work. How can it not work? You have the laughter place.”           

 

It’s almost 10 p.m., and Caroline Rhea is about to begin her Friday night late show. The early show was a triumph. A packed house, including state Sen. Mike Bennett and former congressional candidate Jan Schneider, rocked with laughter at her hour-plus of material. I sat in the back and watched in amazement. Good standup, when it really works, can be exhilarating. Clearly, it’s what God put Caroline on this earth to do. There is not a moment when she is not in complete control, not a moment when the audience isn’t totally with her, their facial muscles sore from laughing so hard.

Her comic persona is that of the funny, slightly overweight girl we all knew back in high school, the one who had such a gift for mimicry and the pointed barb that she kept all her classmates in stitches. Her forte is recalling embarrassing moments, as when she tells the story of how, back when she was a “cater waiter” in college, the Crown Prince and Princess of Japan were being honored at an official event and through a strange but perfectly logical series of misunderstandings, she thought the Crown Princess was calling her a whore. What happened next was so perfect and so bizarre and so completely humiliating for both her and the Princess that the audience had tears of laughter running down their cheeks.

But that was the first show. Can she do it all over again?

Les opens all his shows with a series of music videos projected on a screen onstage. This gets the energy going. Then there’s a short comedy film—tonight it’s comedian Mitch Fatel doing one of his “on the road” pieces for The Tonight Show. It’s very funny, plus it promotes Fatel’s upcoming appearance.

Then Les comes out.

At the first show he just introduced Costaki as Caroline’s opening act. For the late show he takes more time. He talks about a recent safari he and Pam went on to Africa and the problems of leaving the tent to pee in the middle of the night not knowing what wild animals might be lurking in wait.

Costaki does pretty much the same routine he did for the first show, about 10 or 15 minutes of observational stuff. He’s in an awkward position. He certainly can’t be funnier than the headliner, but in this case the headliner is also his girlfriend. What primal tensions must exist in that relationship. Fortunately, they do the only thing they can—turn the situation into a joke.