“If I can make it there,” Frank Sinatra once sang about New York City, “I’m gonna make it anywhere.” Maybe, but Los Angeles is no picnic either.
That city’s bleached avenues run both ways, beckoning wide-eyed souls to the Western world’s entertainment mecca and ushering them right back out when their celebrity dreams turn sour.
Denver native Ben Kronberg fled the Mile High City for L.A. last year to pursue his own slice of that dream, and so far the servings have been relatively healthy.
“I came here to have opportunities that I wouldn’t have otherwise,” the stand-up comedian said over the phone from his apartment in Koreatown. “But I’m not even 100 percent sure it’s a direction I want to go in. I’m sucking it up by working at Starbucks. But would I rather not suck it up just to do something closer to what I want to really do?”
It’s an age-old question Kronberg hasn’t quite answered. Good things have happened, for sure: He snagged a literary agent after his first break, a well-received appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in February that introduced his sharp, deadpan one-liners to a national audience.
Denver will have a chance to see how experiences like that have colored his stand-up when he headlines the Oriental Theater tonight and plays the Comedy Works Stage at Sobo 151 on Saturday as part of the Denver Post’s Underground Music Showcase.
The latter set reunites Kronberg with cohorts from Wrist Deep Productions, a local comedy collective he co-founded before heading west. Kronberg sat near the top of the local comedy scene in Denver, opening for national stand-ups at Comedy Works and greasy hipsters at the Orange Cat and Larimer Lounge.
He was one of a handful of Denver comedians to get invited to the now-defunct HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen (which got him a manager and meetings with Comedy Central, HBO and Spike TV). And since hitting L.A. he’s performed at some of the most respected, cutting-edge shows in the country, including Comedy Death-Ray at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.
“It’s been long enough that I miss Denver terribly,” Kronberg said. “But then I’ll have an experience here like doing Death-Ray a second time, or getting to meet Sarah Silverman.”
Kronberg said that even though Denver will always be his favorite place to play, its obvious differences from L.A. make it less appealing from a career perspective.
“In Denver the restrictions and limitations are more about the cliques and social caste,” he said. “Some of that’s here (in Los Angeles), but what keeps you from doing a show is more the sheer number of comedians.”
The whole enterprise is still an experiment as far as he’s concerned. He realizes that for every star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame there are tens of thousands of deluded schmucks stumbling around the city, oblivious to their likely failure.
For now, Kronberg is staying busy. He appeared on — and was eliminated from — wacky ABC game show “Wipeout.” He employs his film-school training in freelance editing jobs, and, in any event, his wit seems to be intact.
“I get a free pound of coffee a week for the two pounds of pride,” he quipped about his Starbucks gig.
It’s a tough ratio, but unlike so many others, at least he’s getting something.
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
