Once Santa Clarita resident Don McMillan appeared on “America’s Got Talent” in 2022, the “nerd crowd,” he said, really came out of the woodwork, even after he’d been doing comedy for years.
McMillan and fellow standup comics Randy Lubas and Fritz Coleman are scheduled to perform starting at 7 p.m. Dec. 21 at the Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center on the College of the Canyons campus.
“It all ties into the mindset of the nerd, believe me,” said Lubas during a telephone interview earlier this month. “So, it’s going to be great fun.”
McMillan, who’s known as the PowerPoint engineer comedian, actually used to be an engineer. Lubas said he was raised by engineers, and so, both will be doing engineer material.
And then there’s Coleman, the Emmy-award-winning comedian, who’s perhaps best known for his work as a weathercaster on NBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles from 1982 to 2020. According to Lubas, Coleman is a perfect match for the other two.
“I am a non-technological nerd,” Coleman said over the phone. “I have a one-man show going on right now called ‘Unassisted Living,’ which is about coming into the age where there’s no turning back. It’s people of a certain age — people who are carrying Medicare cards and Social Security cards and those things. And I talk about that generally, but my presentation is sort of nerd-like, and I’ll fit right in with those guys.”
This is the second show that Lubas and McMillan have done at the performing arts center. Last year they did one with comedian and actor Paul Moomjean. It was quite successful, Lubas said, which is why he and McMillan wanted to do it again.
Coleman is a welcome addition. All three are old friends who are familiar with the Santa Clarita Valley comedy scene, all of them doing comedy in the SCV for years. It was Lubas who brought J.R.’s Comedy Club to the old Valencia Marie Callender’s restaurant on The Old Road in 1998.
“We were in Marie Callender’s for about 20 years until they lost their lease and Santa Clarita decided they needed another McDonald’s,” Lubas said.
J.R.’s now operates out of Mimi’s Café on Magic Mountain Parkway in Valencia – though, once Mimi’s moves, J.R.’s will be on the move, too.
“We’re going to be looking for a new location in the New Year,” Lubas said. “Mimi’s new location, at least at this point, doesn’t have a dedicated room where we could do comedy.”
McMillan said he met Lubas at J.R.’s Comedy Club when it first began.
“I’ve been playing in the (Santa Clarita) Valley for years,” McMillan added. “I probably have half an hour just on Santa Clarita.”
McMillan said he’ll certainly be running some of that local humor at the Dec. 21 show. He and the other guys feel it should be a good time for all.
“It’s a clean show,” Coleman said. “There are no politics. We all adhere to the recent comic mandate, which is, ‘Don’t tell people how depressing the world is. Just take them out of their heads for an hour or so and have a good time.’”
For more information about the show or to purchase tickets, go to PAC.Canyons.edu/shows.
