When Rory Scovel first stepped on stage to headline at The Wilbur, he was very nervous. Happy with how the show went, yes, but nervous nonetheless. Now, after many more miles covered, bigger venues filled, and a brand new hour of jokes written, he’s ready to bring a different vibe back to the city – for friends and his enemies alike.
Coming up on 22 years in comedy, Scovel brings his Know Your Enemy tour to the city on Thursday (February 19) with a fresh run of jokes powered by his critically-acclaimed improv and writing skills, and after taking the opportunity to watch his friends and fellow comedians work on stage from the other side of the mic, he has a few lessons to employ within his own process and approach to the stage. After the first four months of the tour, he’s feeling a rhythm of sorts that is bringing his skill set to the next level, and thus giving the shows a fresh energy that he’s excited to bring to the masses.
“The tour has been great because you just get the repetition of the shows, and the shows themselves start to really mold and smooth out the edges of the actual show as you go, so we’re about four months in now, and it’s been great,” Scovel tells Vanyaland. “It gets more fun every night, and to bring it to Boston, I mean, the city is already so much fun, and the comedy history of Boston is already its own thing, but to get back to the Wilbur, and to know that we already sold more tickets this time than we did last time, already feels so good.”
While his notoriety as one of the most well-respect improvisational and joke writing comedians in the game today has helped him fill venues of different sizes all over the country, Scovel has felt more locked in over the course of the first four months of this tour than ever before. He’s consciously leveled up with a renewed perspective on editing and making his jokes tighter (something he admits he should have started doing a decade ago) which has resulted in him being able to tailor his show to the theater-sized crowds he works with now, and feeling better about his presentation even after just a few short years since his last tour, which later became his most recent hit special, Religion, Sex, and a Few Things in Between.
“I would say the difference between that show then and this hour now is that I’ve learned structurally how the show needs to go in these bigger spaces. So instead of just taking the jokes that I had, now I kind of prepare a show from the beginning, knowing that I would be saying it in bigger spaces, and I decided, at least with this one, to be more personal and more honest about my deeper opinions about politics, and religion, and family,” says Scovel. “Even though there are moments that are silly, there are also moments where I really try to take the opportunity to say something I really feel more vulnerably now that I have more people’s attention.”
With that new sense of connection to bigger rooms has come an even bolder confidence in Scovel taking bigger creative swings. As if his 2020 tour following Tool around the country wasn’t enough evidence, Scovel is a big fan of musicians who don’t stay anchored to one specific genre or sound, thus inspiring him to do the same with his comedy. As a result, he feels a definitive validation in the direction he’s moving with his art.
“It’s a bit of a validation in a way, because it is art, and you’re just kind of making a thing and it’s validating when people show up and want to see the show,” says Scovel. “It just feels good that all these artistic weird choices you’ve made were correct. You might not be correct every single time, but to finally go like ‘all right, I think I’m on a path of really connecting with a bigger audience now’ feels really satisfying.”
In the same vein, Scovel is in tune to his own creative evolution well enough to know that timing and where he is in life as a husband, father, and human being has played a major factor in why this particular batch of material, and his bulked up approach, have worked as well as they have on this tour.
“I feel like if I had this material that I’m doing now three years ago, then I wouldn’t really know how to do it, and therefore I don’t think it would be delivered properly, and I think because of that, it wouldn’t be received properly. So, I think it was all a matter of evolution and getting myself to this point,” says Scovel. “I see a lot of my friends, and I see their success, and it gives you that little seed of jealousy because you want that success as well, but also, because of that jealousy, it plants the seed of motivation to work harder and figure out how to get there. I think I kind of needed to see my friends prove that we can succeed on a massive level in this business if we really apply ourselves, so I’m lucky. I do think I’m good at stand-up and I think the only thing I needed to learn at 45 years old was how to apply myself.”
Within finding how to apply himself more directly to his process, Scovel has also found a fresh perspective with this new hour, in that he’s found validation in fans coming to see him for what he has to say, instead of his screen credits, which has brought about a renewed willingness in him to be more real and vulnerable with a room full of people.
Of course, he admits that element naturally strokes his ego a bit, but being able to dig deeper and get a bit more serious with his fans about his life and the state of politics and society in general, in addition to his familiar litany of easily palatable silliness, has Scovel feeling a deeper sense of purpose in his position and platform. Not only is it important for him to remind his audience that he’s not as good of a person as he could, but he’s also made it a point to make them aware that they also need to practice what they preach in hopes of improving the big picture.
“Those people exist on both sides of the aisle politically in our country, so it feels validating to know that I feel like I’m in the right space about it, and I think what feels good is that I’m on stage telling people ‘I’m not necessarily a good guy either.’ None of us really are in the way that we’d like to believe, but we could all be better. If that gets a good response, then that’s great if I travel this whole country and I see people responding that way,” says Scovel. “I mean, who knows, maybe it never means anything, but I don’t just want to be a comic who goes around and gets paid to tell jokes. I’d like to think that maybe someone sees the show and it changes their perspective of something that is really important, and something that really matters.”
There’s no way around it – whenever Scovel makes his way to town, he’s thinking about how to get to Neptune Oyster or the best coffee shop. Aside from that, though, the road-tested comedy vet is excited to feel the energy of Boston once again after falling in love with the buzz while biking around the city while filming I Feel Pretty with Amy Schumer a few years back. It also helps that his southern roots, made most apparent by his smooth drawl and unrelenting charm on stage, have prepared him to be in an environment where people are so proud to be from there, and take their history of iconic comedy seriously in a way that makes Scovel feel welcome time after time.
“Boston’s a major city, so it’s got good everything across the board. Um, but, you know, it’s also one of those cities that does have a good energy, and a good vibe, and it just feels good to be there. I like that,” says Scovel. “I grew up in the south, so I have grown up in a place that has a maximum amount of pride about where it is and who it is. Boston is no different. So I feel that when I’m there. I got to say that, to an extent, I really appreciate that. I kind of like it when people are like that.”
RORY SCOVEL: KNOW YOUR ENEMY :: Thursday, February 19 at The Wilbur Theatre, 246 Tremont St. in Boston, MA :: 6:30 p.m., $38.50 to $49.50 :: Advance tickets