When comedy and male strippers collide, you get The Comic Strippers; a male stripper parody and improv comedy show coming to a NL town near you.
It couldn’t be helped. When Comedic Stripper Chip (alter ego, Roman Danylo) picked up the phone, this writer asked what he was wearing. “Cords, actually,” he replied with a laugh.
Danylo, a stand-up comedian who has appeared on Just For Laughs and The Debaters, has been doing this show for about four years. Along with partners in crime Ken Lawson, Chris Casillan and Michael Teigen, Danylo, says they’ve just “been working in comedy for far too long.”
Fun & Goofy
Danylo‘s wife was actually the brain child behind the group. “My wife went to male strippers and she came back and said the place was packed and everyone was going crazy. I thought, we have torsos. We can do that. And it occurred to me that this was a particular genre of entertainment that everyone knew about but no one has really parodied in a full scale show level, and it seems to be a perfect match of energies; the fun, the party aspect of a show like that and the goofy, fun aspect of an improv comedy show.”
The concept worked. “I thought, let’s play fake male stripper characters that have been perhaps doing that job for far too long and are now demanding more respect in their lives by doing an imrpov comedy show.
“What happens, it’s kind of like a shirtless Whose Line Is It Anyway with ridiculous dancing in between because whenever the music comes on it’s like old habits die hard and we just can’t stop doing our ‘special’ moves.”
Danylo is excited to be coming to this province for a series of performances. In fact one of their first tours took them to enthusiastic audiences in Corner Brook and Gander. “We are so glad to be coming back, we’ve been trying to make it work for a while.” 
‘Comedy Bodies’
There are a few things to keep in mind. ‘‘We want to make sure everyone knows this is a parody of male strippers, they will not see any horrible things like guys in thongs and guys can feel welcome to come to our show as well because we always say we feel we have what we call comedy bodies and our comedy bodies make them look good, so it’s in their best interest to come, we feel.”
Don’t forget to stick around after the show for your picture with the shirtless b’ys. “We love meeting with the audience. It’s the best part of the show. Besides the fact that we get to make people laugh.”
For more info, pics and comedy clips, visit www.shantero.com or www.thecomicstrippers.com. Tour dates include Corner Brook (Oct.25), Grand Falls-Windsor (Oct 26), Gander (Oct.27), and St, John’s (Oct.28)