Despite his bespectacled appearance, comedian Kyle Grooms is not a geek. "Nah, not at all," he says, laughing. "I do stuff about how people perceive me and how I perceive myself. Because I wear glasses people automatically assume I'm going to be a little bit nerdy. Just wearing glasses and growing up in the hood with a name like Kyle, you know?" Grooms is not an impressionist, though he does do a spot-on Barack Obama that audiences really enjoy. It's not very political, though. "News gets old fast," he says.  

Comedian Darrell Joyce loves an audience, no matter the venue. Cruise ships, corporate gigs or comedy clubs — he likes the variety. "It's boring if you're doing the same thing all of the time," he says. "I think I need to have that variety of young and old audiences. And there's a big difference between an audience that paid to see you and one that didn't." Still, that mix doesn't cover all of his creative aspirations.  

"I think when everything is going really shitty for you, that's the best time to try something, because it can't get any worse," says Lachlan Patterson about his first foray into stand-up comedy. "I guess after trying everything else in the world and sucking at it, I realized, 'Hey, maybe I should try it.' I got wasted one night when I was 19 and started doing some jokes I made up the night before."  

Robert Hawkins is America's premiere road comic. He wouldn't have it any other way. While he wouldn't turn down some TV money, he's happy entertaining folks in clubs across America. Despite the recession, he's never been busier. "(People) ask you all the time 'What do you want to do?' And my answer is, 'I'm already doing it.' I just want to make a little more money doing it and to do that you kind of have to be on TV," Hawkins says. He performs Thursday-Sunday at Go Bananas.  

Aficionados of Canadian television will no doubt recognize Jon Dore (no kin to America's Jimmy Dore), from his many stints up north on the small screen. From co-hosting a daytime talk show aptly named 'Daytime' to being a correspondent on 'Canadian Idol,' his quick wit and surprise punchlines are now winning him fans in The States. You may have caught him guest starring on 'How I Met Your Mother.' Now he's taking his act to the people. Jon Dore performs at Go Bananas in Montgomery Thursday-Sunday.  

'The Onion' describes comedian Troy Baxley's style as, among other things, "impish." It's a rather odd description for a stand-up comic. "If I show an impish side," he says, "it's probably in my crowd interactions. If the devil had a goofy fucker side to him, I'm definitely impish." Troy Baxley performs at Go Bananas in the Festival Market Place, Montgomery, Thursday-Sunday.  

What's comedian Marc Maron talking about on stage these days? "Everything," he says. "I'm doing a lot of stuff about relationships, divorce, drugs. The same conversations I have had over the years, topic-wise, though completely new. Older and wiser, less angry." Fans of the old 'Late Night With Conan O'Brien' are no doubt familiar with his work, as he had more appearances on that show than any other comedian. Maron performs at Go Bananas Thursday-Sunday.  

Pablo Francisco is widely known as a comic with a gift for making all sorts of sounds and doing funny voices, but that perception is a little inaccurate. In fact he's a talented impressionist who uses a variety of vocal effects and odd vocalizations to drive home those bits that involve impersonations. He performs Thursday-Sunday at Funny Bone on the Levee in Newport.  

Henry Phillips didn't always want to be a comedian. He started out in show biz as a serious singer/songwriter. However, to get people to pay attention in the coffeehouses and other small venues, he would drop in silly lyrics. "I've been writing melodies since I was 8 years old and didn't have any content for them," he says. "So, when I started doing comedy songs I said I'll just take these songs that I don’t have any lyrics for and put them in there."  

"Even after 25 years in the business, I'm like 'What do I do? What's my voice?' " says comedian Todd Glass. "After George Carlin died, I paid even more attention. It changes." Glass realized that he doesn't have to pigeonhole himself. "It's a little bit of everything. When I watched Carlin I asked, 'Am I social or silly?' And then I would watch him and go, 'You know what? You can do both.' "