April's Fool

Budding stand-up comedian Tony Traver—an 18-year-old Syracuse native and Boston College freshman psychology major—placed third based on popular vote from fellow classmates and audience members at BC’s Comedy Team tryouts in February. Now Traver, along with his seven other teammates, will go up against Connecticut Sunday, April 5, in the Regional Rivals round of the Rooftop Comedy competition, where judges will pick the four best comics from each team to continue competing. 

From there, each team will be vying against one another to hopefully advance all the way to the final round June 11 to 14 in Aspen, Colo. There, four lucky teams will get the chance to prove they’re the funniest college in America. While just making BC’s team would have been an impressive enough feat for any coed, it turns out that the tryouts were also the first time Traver ever took to the stage.

A real stand-up guy: Tony Traver of Syracuse competes in the college Rooftop Comedy challenge this week in Aspen, Colo. MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTO

“I’d never performed or done anything, but I was like, I’ll give it a try,” Traver said. “I think I’m funny enough to come up with good enough material, and I guess it proved itself. And I think that a lot of comics there felt that way: None of them had very much experience coming in, and they were just hoping to get into the tournament. Some of them were better than the guys who had actually done the comedy clubs.”

Even though he entered the stand-up arena on a whim, comedy has always been an important part of Traver’s life. A self-proclaimed funny man, Traver grew up religiously watching comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin, studying just what makes these men masters of their craft. He also said he has a knack for observing the small details of everyday things and finding a comic spin to them. All of this, he believes, may have given him an edge during tryouts.

“I think I came out with maybe a bit of a different style,” Traver said. “I was going with a comedic storytelling aspect. A lot of the other comics did straight-up jokes, and I think I had good material and I prepared well enough. I had two stories. Both of them were themed to the topic that girls don’t really know the things they {put us} guys {through}.”

Like any good comic, Traver draws inspiration from his own life experiences and uses that to reach out to others and get them to laugh. He feels that growing up in Syracuse and being an alumnus of Nottingham High School played a big part in that, helping him to broaden his horizons and better connect with a wider range of people. 

“{Nottingham is} a really a great place because I think a lot of people don’t get to see a lot of different aspects of life,” he explained. “I love having all the diversity around me in the school and the city. It’s great because I can relate to a lot more people, I feel, because I grew up making jokes with everyone in school and messing around there.”

If all goes well, Traver’s universal stand-up style will appeal to the masses and earn him and the BC Comedy Team a trip this June. Those curious to see Traver’s and all the other college Comedy Teams skills, check out www.rooftopcomedy.com/college. There you can watch each comic’s performance and vote your favorite college Comedy Teams into the next rounds (Rooftop Comedy also has another comedy category on the site for student-made comic short films, which online lurkers can vote for as well.) 

But regardless of how far he and the BC Comedy Team makes it in the Rooftop Comedy competition, this seems like only the beginning for Traver’s stand-up days. “I’d love to see some success in stand-up,” Traver said. “I just feel {it would be} such a thrill if I could make that happen. It’d be a dream come true. As long as I can make people laugh, I’d love to do it. If I can get paid for that, that would be a sweet bonus.”

—Jennifer Brown