Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
COMEDIAN CHARLIE Berens, right, raffles off items with the help of theatre board member Cole "Lahtida" Lahti Saturday after his show at the Historic Ironwood Theatre.
By RICHARD JENKINS
Ironwood - The Historic Ironwood Theatre was the hot place to be Saturday as comedian Charlie Berens performed at a stop on his "Oh My Gosh" tour.
Berens, known for his popular "Manitowoc Minute" online series, entertained with his variety show - featuring standup comedy, singing and prerecorded sketches.
The "Manitowoc Minute" features Berens putting an exaggerated Wisconsin spin on some of the day's top headlines and topics of interest in roughly minute-long videos.
He said he has found memories of visiting the Upper Peninsula as a child.
"I love the U.P. The U.P. has pretty much always been synonymous with up north for me," Berens told the Daily Globe after the show.
"I grew up going to Land O' Lakes, so we'd go vacation there every year and we'd always go to the U.P," Berens said. "A lot of my friends had cabins in the U.P. (I'd) go skiing as a kid over at Blackjack or one of those ski hills."
Saturday's routine touched on everything from growing up Catholic in a family with 12 kids to the peculiarities of life in Wisconsin and the upper Midwest - including the meaning of the phrase uff da and the difficulty of coordinating meetings at either Mills Fleet Farm and Blaines Farm and Fleet.
With the entire main level sold out and roughly half the balcony filled, the departure from the theatre's usual offerings seemed popular with locals.
"We haven't done comedy in a long time. So to do a show that was all comedy - we've done little sketches here and there in other variety shows - but to do a whole night of comedy (was different)," said Bruce Greenhill, the theatre's operations manager. "And clearly, ticket sales would suggest it's something we should do a little more often."
He estimated between 550 and 600 tickets were sold for the show.
"It's just so good to see so many people here and so many new people that haven't been here previously," Greenhill said.
After the show, Berens met with some audience members during a meet and greet. He signed autographs, answered question, took pictures and recorded videos to those who missed the show.
A Milwaukee native, Berens got his start in journalism before transitioning into more of a traditional entertainment/comedy career.
More of Beren's comedy can be found on YouTube or manitowocminute.com.
