Without resorting to a hacky cliché, what is the best headline for a teaching and education-themed stand-up comedy show?
Whatever it is, Portland comic and high school social studies teacher Don Gavitte says, just don’t mention a teacher’s lounge. “Most schools haven’t had a teacher’s lounge in decades,” Gavitte says.
As summer winds down and parents and students prepare to return to school, Gavitte hosts “The Teacher Show: Comedy from the Classroom” Saturday, August 24, at Wildish Community Theater in Springfield, showcasing a group of five stand-up comedians, including Gavitte, who are also teachers with material inspired by, but not limited to, their experience working in education.
Gavitte says these are not teachers who moonlight as comedians, but committed comics who have day jobs in classrooms.
“We all teach full-time and do comedy at night, but not hobby comedy,” Gavitte tells Eugene Weekly in a phone call. “These folks,” he says, “are very serious comedians, and they’re also passionate about their teaching.”
Joining Gavitte at Wildish will be Portland comics Todd Basil, Katie Nguyen and David Seung, and Salem comedian Tina Hogstrom.
While the show covers school-related subject matter, Gavitte says, it’s not for children.
“There’s going to be adult content,” he says.
“People talk about other aspects of their lives,” Gavitte adds. “It’s heavily teacher-themed, we interact with the crowd as if they’re mostly teachers, and usually they are, but not always. I think that’s why the show works. You don’t have to be a teacher to enjoy the show.”
Gavitte has hosted similar teaching and education-themed comedy showcases in the Portland and Salem areas with rotating lineups since 2022. The Wildish show is the first in Lane County.
As a teacher with decades of classroom experience, Gavitte adds, “Humor’s always been a way that I reach students and get through my day.”
In an early “The Teacher Show” performance on YouTube, Gavitte, who started doing comedy in 2018, says he got into stand up because “I wanted to have more hours in every day when I’m talking at people who are really high.”
As a teacher, leading several groups of students each day, Gavitte says, “You’re going to bomb constantly. You have to say the right thing to get people’s attention. There have been several years where my students have presented me with a book of quotes from things I’ve said in class.”
The internet wasn’t even a thing when Gavitte started teaching, and he remembers taking attendance on paper.
“The older I get, it’s not that I don’t try to know where they’re coming from, but they get farther away. It’s getting so far away that things are going full circle. The ’80s and ’70s are trendy right now with the kids. So, I got plenty of things there to connect with them,” Gavitte says.
Of his own material, Gavitte says, “It’s mostly absurdist takes on a job that frequently is impossible. And what I mean by impossible, it’s the amount that you can do, and you wish you could do, is never as much as you physically or mentally can. That’s an absurd job in some basic ways.”