The first time Chris Alan saw Vince Morris do his stand-up was on an episode of “Def Comedy Jam.” “After watching it, I go, ‘What the hell was that? Was that even comedy?’” Alan reflects. “It was funny, it was very poignant, and—this was the early 2000s—it was pretty pro-Black stuff. And I was like, man, this guy is just—he’s so different.”
Some years later, Alan was starting to do his own comedy while stationed in Las Vegas. One night, after his show ended, he met a friend at Harrah’s casino. “We’re at this outdoor club party thing,” Alan says, and his friend wants to introduce him to someone who’s working the Improv Comedy Club on weekends. “He taps this guy on the shoulder and he turns around, and there’s Vince Morris, the guy that blew my mind.”
Morris showed Alan how to get started in the world of comedy. And a lot of Alan’s signature style—his love of crowd work, his quick wit, his firm belief that comedy can speak to people’s real lives—came from Morris.
When Alan retired from the military (his last duty station was here in central Virginia), he decided to make a go of comedy full-time. Then the pandemic hit.
The last year has been a surprisingly fruitful time for Alan. He did a number of Zoom shows with The Southern, where he’d already been hosting the LYAO Comedy Showcase for a while. He produced live shows called “He Got Answers” and “Do You Believe?” and a podcast called “Negro Please.” He got a new laptop and started writing sketches. And he recorded his first full comedy album, Off Script.
One thing the pandemic has taught Alan is that he’s more comfortable off script, even in his comedy. “I’ve learned so much about myself, why I operate the way I do, why I think the way I do,” he says. “I hate being put into boxes and given all these restrictions, which is weird because that’s exactly what the military was for 20 years.” Like his mentor, he’d just rather be different.