Alberta-born comedian and actor Roman Danylo has done a lot: standup comedy, theatre, film, his own TV show… But what is Danylo’s niche? What does he like besides water sports, raisins, and some humans?
The answer: performing live. After being in front of the camera with enormous pressure placed on him to not waste anyone’s time or money, Danylo began to appreciate where his career began.
“I’ve been realizing that performing in theatres is sort of the Holy Grail,” he says. “So it’s just all about trying to get back into those environments.”
But getting back into intimate, sought-after settings proved to be tough for Danylo. When people became familiar with his name and work, he started getting called to perform in other places, and sometimes they were less-than-pleasant settings.
“I did one [corporate event] where they didn’t have any lighting or anything, and all they could do was stick me in the corner and turn up the heat lamp from the buffet on the side of my face,” he remembers. “So it’s so lovely to perform in theatres where everybody is kind of a little bit like, ‘Oh, this is an evening,’ and they’re all in nice, soft seats facing in the right direction. It’s wonderful.”
Danylo says that his interest in theatre began in high school when he noticed that entertaining people was easier than math. But despite what could come across as lazy beginnings, it’s clear that throughout his career Danylo learned that there’s more to performing than the entertainment value.
“There’s a lot about improv that you can actually translate towards life, like going along, saying ‘yes’ to things, accepting people’s ideas, and building off stuff as opposed to protecting yourself and negating things,” he says.
After starring in his own TV show, Comedy Inc., for five years, Danylo now tours theatres and performance halls with his improv comedy group, The Comic Strippers, a group of six 40-something-year-old men who pretend to be male exotic dancers in what he describes as “an untrained circus act.”
Danylo says he strayed from the screen back to rewarding, live performances to enjoy the magic of the theatre again. All the acting and improv skills he’s learned can lead to better communication and help people learn to just be happy, he says.
“Saying or pretending to have a good time even when you’re not, you can use that in life,” he says. “Like, you’re having a bad day and Dr. Phil says, and I hate to get philosophical, but Dr. Phil says, ‘Happiness is a choice,’ so you just kinda go, ‘Oh no, I have no real problems to worry about,’ and just choose to be happy in your situation, and then you actually start to become happy in your situation.”
The man who pretends to be a male stripper and makes people laugh for a living also gives great advice, it seems.
The Comic Strippers
Wednesday, October 29
$30-35, UVic Farquhar Auditorium
thecomicstrippers.com