Chris Tan Has a Roadmap

I’d ven­ture to say that rel­a­tive­ly few com­e­dy ori­gin sto­ries quite match Chris Tan’s. You see, it all start­ed for Tan with a bor­ing local col­lege-prep high school, fol­lowed by an unsat­is­fy­ing invest­ment bank­ing job in NYC, and, final­ly, the linch­pin: a therapist’s sug­ges­tion to try stand-up. Sound famil­iar? I didn’t think so.

You know that Tan has a real pas­sion for com­e­dy because he’s tried a lit­tle bit of every­thing. He’s stud­ied reli­gion, gone camp­ing for months in the mid­dle of nowhere, gone solo back­pack­ing to Ecuador, and taught Eng­lish to immi­grants. He’s even tried his hand at being rich: ​“You know you’re sad when you’re, like, at Rock­e­feller Cen­ter … just star­ing at a Nin­ten­do Switch you just bought with invest­ment bank­ing mon­ey, and then being like, ​‘Holy shit, I don’t feel any bet­ter,’” Tan explains.

Out of all his many expe­ri­ences, Tan still asserts that one of his most ecsta­t­ic moments was his first time try­ing improv. And as he wad­ed into try­ing stand-up after that (at the afore­men­tioned behest of his ther­a­pist), his sec­ond open mic had him feel­ing sim­i­lar­ly grat­i­fied: ​“You know when you get those but­ter­flies in your stom­ach? It just, like, lets you know that you’re scared, but you’re also alive,” Tan reminisces.

Tan has been par­tic­u­lar­ly for­tu­nate in that he’s divid­ed his time between two of the country’s great com­e­dy mec­cas: New York and Austin. (Although, in one of those cities, he’s been mis­tak­en for Hans Kim about eight times, so there is that unfor­tu­nate draw­back. I’ll let you guess which city.) Get­ting to see so much com­e­dy in NY, Tan gained a sol­id idea of how to be his own favorite come­di­an — tak­ing after the Chris Rocks, the Richard Pry­ors, the Doug Stan­hopes. For Tan, it’s all about being real and break­ing the fourth wall. Plus, he loves to incor­po­rate a lit­tle bit of riff­ing off the dome — a tes­ta­ment to his improv days.

Despite being forced home by the pan­dem­ic, Tan’s morale and tra­jec­to­ry have been unde­terred. His focus has remained on get­ting onstage as much as pos­si­ble, and he’s been able to achieve that quite well with­in the Austin city lim­its. He’s even put him­self through his own lit­tle com­e­dy pro­duc­tion boot­camp here, pro­duc­ing around 55 shows with­in the span of a year and a half.

These days, Tan has been get­ting into fes­ti­vals, pro­duc­ing his show The Laugh­ing Stock, and build­ing up his YouTube chan­nel, but he also keeps his eyes on the prize(s). He finds the fun­ny as much as he can off­stage — turn­ing on his per­former mind­set at fam­i­ly din­ners and the occa­sion­al cig­ar shop. And he fol­lows his roadmap that he keeps in his back­pack — a map poised to take him all the way to land­ing late night com­e­dy tele­vi­sion spots and gig­ging around the world. We can’t wait to see him get there.

Fol­low Chris

• Link­tree — link​tr​.ee/​l​a​u​g​h​i​n​g​stock
• Insta­gram — @devoutlychristan
  
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​d​e​v​o​u​t​l​y​c​h​r​istan
• Youtube — Youtube​.com/​C​h​r​i​s​t​o​p​h​e​r​T​an988
  

Chris can be seen and heard:

• Laugh­ing Stock — Host, Alamo Draft­house Mueller
  • Decem­ber 23^rd — 2 shows at 7pm and at 9pm
  • Decem­ber 30^th — 7:30pm