Alex Zerbe is a man who has accrued many talents over the years.
There is one part of the multi-talent prop comic’s repertoire that he is still fine tuning after a 16-year career that includes appearances on America’s Got Talent and Last Comic Standing.
“Comedy is the hardest part. Learning a trick is relatively straightforward. You practice this trick and eventually you get it, whereas comedy is a little trickier,” Zerbe said.
Zerbe will be the first Children’s Showcase performer of 2015 and his zany on-stage antics head to the Cleland Theatre Jan. 11.
The Seattle native got his unlikely start with a competitive hacky sack team in his teenage years. He toured the U.S. with a group performance that would play at school assemblies throughout the country.
“I was really into hacky sack and got this job doing school assembly shows. I was living in a van down by the river and travelled all over the U.S.,” Zerbe said. “I actually don’t even do hacky sack in my shows anymore, it’s kind of weird.”
Zerbe has picked up a multitude of talents since his hacky sack days, from juggling and balancing acts to cutting pieces of celery by throwing playing cards. Zerbe initially learned juggling for the school assembly shows, but his inquisitive nature had him adding to his skill set as his career progressed.
“I just kind of picked up random skills along the way like, oh, maybe I’ll pick up drums for a bit, so it was just a little bit here, a little bit there,” Zerbe said.
When he parted ways with the hacky sack team, Zerbe joined up as part of a team act called Brothers From Different Mothers who he performed with from 2001 to 2011. The group eventually broke up and he started performing solo.
“We were kind of ready to be done with each other at that point. It was nice, it was kind of liberating to go our separate ways,” Zerbe said.
He found after more than a decade of performing with groups and teams that going solo was ultimately freeing.
“I can take the shows I like and do what I want to do, I don’t have to run it by anybody or anything,” Zerbe said.
He continues to add to his deep roster of talents today, and said that his favourite tricks to perform are usually the newest ones. Zerbe’s currently working on a trick he will debut for the first time ever here in Penticton.
“It’s short and sweet, there’s not a lot of commitment to it. So I’m going to do it and see how it goes as sort of a testing ground, so I’m kind of excited to do this new trick,”
He said the new trick is a way of combining rhythm and juggling. He recently taped himself performing the minute-long trick on his phone to see if it was ready for debut.
While he is self-described as a “living cartoon,” the appeal of Zerbe’s act stretches beyond a younger audience.
“It’s a family show. I think about it like Shrek or an episode of the Simpsons. There’s a lot of stuff for the kids, but there’s stuff that goes over the kids’ heads for the adults. It’s definitely entertainment for everybody,” Zerbe said.
The show is suitable for ages three and up and starts at 2 p.m. Tickets are $12 and will be available at the door. For more information call 250-493-0475.