By Nick A. Zaino III Globe correspondent,Updated December 27, 2021
On a normal New Year’s Eve, every room becomes a comedy room. Clubs and theaters, restaurants, function halls, convention centers, public libraries. It’s the biggest night of the year for comedy, and any space that can support a microphone, a spotlight, and an audience is potentially a stand-up venue.
But this won’t be a normal New Year’s Eve. It’s the second year of a pandemic, and a few months after venues started getting regular crowds, variants of COVID-19 are dampening the holidays. Some cities and towns are enacting new mask and vaccine policies. First Night, which usually offered stand-up shows in pre-pandemic times, has cut back on indoor events. Even so, a year after most rooms went dark for the champagne toast, comedy is making a tentative comeback.
“I believe it’s a necessity,” says Tony V, who’s doing two shows at Giggles in Saugus on a bill with Lenny Clarke and Johnny Pizzi. “And I think it’s the right thing to do. I think if you can do it properly and safely, then it’s a needed thing.”
Whether it will feel like the same celebration as years past is yet to be seen. “The telling is in if people show up,” says Tony V. “I know the last couple of weeks some of the clubs have been a little on the slower side, and I don’t know if that’s just because of the season or the worry about the variants.”
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