Introducing Free Laughter Productions
Having grown up in Lake Tahoe and made the rounds in New York City, Mike Milton moved to Vegas three months ago and found himself immediately dissatisfied with the entertainment capital. "There’s no underground scene. It’s all major shows, it’s all on the Strip, it’s all in the casinos,” he says.
To that end, he and partner Myracle Speakman have formed Free Laughter Productions, a multi-pronged endeavor with surprisingly lofty goals:
“What we want to do is bring that underground scene, the up-and-coming people, the people that are trying to become a better comic or actor or anything in the entertainment industry, give them venues that they can go to get that stuff going, and at the same time bring quality comics to locals. Locals can have something that they can be proud of and not just, ‘Oh look, we have the Strip that everyone in the world knows about.’ They can say, ‘Look, this is our little place; this is our little secret,’ and they can see the up-and-coming stars on their own turf, so to speak… It’s been the hardest thing for us to work on right now, finding places that want to do it because it either hasn’t been done before or it hasn’t done well. Everybody’s leery about trying it again, so we’re fighting.
“One of the main things about creating an underground scene is to start where people start dreaming about what they want to do, kids in middle school saying, ‘I want to be a movie star; I want to be a comic.’ We want to go talk to them about what it really means to get into the entertainment industry, to be a comic, to be an actor, and how much hard work is really involved, not just what they see in the news and the tabloids and all that exciting stuff, but it’s actually years and years of work you have to put in to get there. If we can get them excited about it, they can become the next up-and-coming people and hopefully after that will be the next stars, whether it be comedy or acting or any other form of entertainment. It’s a slow process to say, ‘Okay, this is what we want to do, these are our credentials, this is how we’re doing it,’ but after the summer, right as soon as fall classes start we will have some stuff for the schools. But I also do want to offer some summer classes for middle schoolers and high schoolers.
“At the end of April, beginning of May, we’re going to have a benefit show for cancer research. My wife’s mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a few years back. We’re hoping to do an annual event, a black-tie affair, dinner; the goal is five or six comics on the show, and we’re tentatively calling it Laugh at Cancer.”
Free Laughter Productions’ debut show features Milton, Speakman and host Matt Markman. February 28, 8 p.m., $10. Bugsy’s, 871-7194.