This St. Pat's Weekend, Scotty's Will be "Rich" with Comedy

Chris Rich considers herself lucky to have begun her stand-up career when she did.

During the late 1980s and early ‘90s, comedy was booming all over the country and was all but exploding out of TV sets.

“You would go into a 7-Eleven, and a comedian would pop out of the microwave,” Rich said. “If you were a comedian, you could perform from coast to coast across the entire United States and work every night.

She added: “That was such a great training ground for me.”

Another key training opportunity for Rich, who takes the microphone this weekend at , was the abundance of USO tours in which she was able to participate.

Early on in her career, another comic from her native Philadelphia who had been involved with a few tours had asked her to go abroad with him to fill a need for a female comic.

“He saw me perform and said, ‘Do you want to go out there?’” she said. “My response was, ‘Are you kidding? I think I can fit that in.’”

Now with more than a half-dozen tours under her belt – her own comedy “boot camp,” sometimes performing three times a day – and most of the world map covered, she said performing in front of comedy club audiences is a simple task.

One particular experience she remembers is performing for a group of soldiers who had just spent the winter camping out in Germany’s Black Forest.

“We performed for them in a garage,” Rich said. “That was the greatest thing. I learned how hard you had to work sometimes to get certain audiences to laugh.”

Although these opportunities have given her ample stage time to hone her craft, Rich also said her clean style of comedy has helped her to book many and different types of gigs, from New York clubs to corporate and motivational speaking events to TV appearances, throughout the years.

“Cruise ships, which I did a lot of for six or seven years, won’t even look at you unless you have three hours of clean material,” she said.

She said many young comics nowadays get on stage with filthy material, wanting to live up to the reputations of big-shot comedians, such as Richard Pryor.

“They want the audiences to come to them because they think that is their ‘style,’” Rich said. “And you know what? Richard Pryor was squeaky clean…until he became famous.”

In addition to being clean, Rich said her act is a mixture of relatable topics, such as family, marriage and politics.

And, not one to “simply wander around up there and tell stories,” she delivers all of her material in a quick, boom-boom-boom manner.

“I’m a real fast talker,” Rich said. “I could never do deadpan.”

The weekend's lineup also features comedians Ed McGonigal and Matt Jenkins as well as Green Beer, Corned Beef & Cabbage, Bangers & Mash, Shepherds Pie and more. Admission is $15.