This Edmonton comedian is getting a big break, but the timing could be better
Sterling Scott will perform in Amazon Prime series after COVID-19 loss and career break
After an enforced break because of the COVID-19 pandemic, comedian Sterling Scott is taking the next step in his career and will make his U.S. TV comedy debut next month. He will be appearing on the third season of the Amazon Prime standup comedy series Laugh After Dark.
He's a little anxious about the opportunity.
"I feel like a brand new father getting ready to have 19 kids at once," he said.
It's one of his first shows in front of a live crowd after an eight-month hiatus from in-person performances.
Scott has appeared on multiple Canadian TV comedy series and specials, including several with Just for Laughs, and won the San Francisco Comedy Competition in 2019, a competition that helped launch the careers of comedians like Robin Williams and Dane Cook. This upcoming performance is an opportunity to reach a broader audience.
"The reality is, it's not the funniest people you see on TV, it's the people who have the most credits — or did something to get recognized," he said. "If this goes great, it could potentially elevate [me] to the next level."
Typically, Scott would prepare for a TV special by travelling around North America, performing the same set about 100 times. In the last 16 months, he's only done standup about 35 times. And for the last eight months he could only perform online.
That leaves him very little time to readjust to being on stage and work out his timing. Even the sounds of laughter from a crowd feel unfamiliar after months away from the stage.
"Before I would perform six times a week, minimum," he said. "Normally I'm razor sharp."
A bittersweet return to the stage
Thirteen years into his standup career, Scott said he struggled to adapt to a world where he could no longer perform live.
From late November until June, Alberta imposed health restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19 and a result, banned indoor performances. Outdoor gatherings were also restricted in the winter after a third wave of rising cases. It wasn't until this month that regulations began to ease again.
Scott saw firsthand the devastation that COVID-19 could cause.
Scott's last comedy show was in November before Alberta reintroduced health restrictions that shut down performances. His friend Ricky Lam, a well-known figure in Edmonton's entertainment scene, was there.
Lam was diagnosed with COVID-19 later that month and warned Sterling to get tested as well. Sterling tested negative for COVID-19, but Lam fell seriously ill. He shared his worsening symptoms on social media for six days before he died.
"I was destroyed," said Scott. "Twenty-four hours before he died, he texted me and said, 'When I get better I want everyone to know how serious this is.'"
Scott said after Lam's death, he was extremely careful to avoid crowds and stay home.
"Every time I touch a stage or a mic, I think that Ricky is gone," Scott said. But as a tireless promoter of the local arts scene, he said, Lam would have wanted him to be back on stage.
Now that more people are vaccinated and places are beginning to reopen, he said people need to laugh together again.
"It's one of the most liberating things in the world to laugh for real — to laugh from the gut," he said. "When I see their joy, I feel it. I feel its healing benefits."
Standing up again
Scott's first night back on stage was performing at a live standup comedy show in Edmonton on June 19.
Instead of laughter from the audience, there was the sound of honking cars.
It was a drive-in show where the audience tuned into his set through their car radios and honked their horns when they laughed at a joke from their vehicles.
Even in this limited way, Scott relished the chance to do crowd work again.
"For the older people in the crowd, like for example my Ram 1500 over here," he said to an audience member, "this is a classic Albertan."
As Scott prepares for his big show in the U.S. he's also working new material into his set.
"You can't come out talking about things from 2019," he said.
Scott said standup is most relevant when the story helps the audience see something about the state of the world around them.
"The great thing about being a standup comedian is that we speak on the world as is, not as was," he said.
Scott will be recording the Laugh After Dark episode in Las Vegas on July 17.