University alum brings comic stylings to Lethbridge

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on March 3, 2022.

Conner Christmas will be bringing his comedy Thursday night at the Canadian Brewhouse, before taking his act to Good Times Lethbridge for shows Friday and Saturday.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Conner Christmas has turned the dramatic chops he developed while studying at the University of Lethbridge into a burgeoning career as a stand-up comedian.
And for three days, the High River native will be bringing some laughs to Lethbridge audiences.
Christmas will be playing Thursday night at the Canadian Brewhouse at 3521 Mayor Magrath Drive South before taking his act to Good Times Lethbridge for shows Friday and Saturday.
Thursday’s show starts at 8 p.m. with tickets priced at $10.
The Good Times shows also start at 8 p.m. and are priced at $15. That venue is located at 314 7 St. S.
Christmas studied in the U of L’s drama department starting in 2012, and after leaving school has begun making his mark in the difficult world of standup comedy.
He had an acting role in the Netflix dramatic zombie apocalypse series “Black Summer,” which filmed around Calgary where he lives and works.
He also appeared as the character Stubby in five episodes of the CBC series “Fortunate Son,” which starred Lethbridge native Kari Matchett. And Christmas has worked with Lethbridge’s Theatre Outre.
He’s also finished work on an upcoming Disney project that he can’t discuss yet. That project should be released later this year or in early 2023.
This weekend’s shows will be his first headlining at Good Times.
“I went to the U of L for the drama program and performance and just based off of that, I started doing standup. A lot of people in school when I was growing up, I was kind of the class clown and a lot of them told me I should try it. When I started acting, I figured it was similar enough in that realm that I should and here we are about six years later,” he said in a phone interview this week.
Christmas came to the city right out of high school to study at the U of L.
When acting jobs come up, that takes time away from his comedy work, said Christmas, who generally performs three or four times a week. He also has a part-time job working with a company that helps charities find funding.
Most of his standup now is focused on Alberta with some performances in B.C. but occasionally he has gone to Halifax, Montreal and Toronto to perform.
Comedy can be a tough performing market to crack but Alberta “is a really good place to get into it because there’s just a lot of decent opportunities because there’s not a ton of people that do it,” he said.
In Toronto on the other hand, open mics would be packed from evening to late at night with comedians waiting their turn to take the stage.
Most of his material comes from personal experiences growing up in southern Alberta and not being what he calls “kind of Alberta stereotype, not the cowboy. So I do a lot of contrasting material about that, I do a lot of storytelling and bring in a lot of my tools that I learned from school and acting into my standup.
“It’s a pretty wild ride, I would say. It’s kind of immersive at some points and then I’ll speak directly to the ground. It’s a little all over the place,” Christmas said.

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