Over the past four decades, Hermosa’s Comedy and Magic Club has built up loyalty from fans of comedy: those in the crowd, and on the stage
Guests take in an act Saturday night at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. The club is celebrating its 40th anniversary throughout July. Photo Last week, in a proclamation honoring the Comedy and Magic Club’s 40th anniversary and declaring July to be “Comedy and Magic month,” Mayor Jeff Duclos touted some of the innovations of the Club’s owner and founder Mike Lacey, including holding shows at earlier hours and deemphasizing alcohol sales. First among the trails blazed, however, was opening in the South Bay and breaking out of the Hollywood bubble that defined comedy at the time. “He gave comics and magicians a new performance venue in a popular outlying area of Los Angeles. By doing so he opened these popular forms of entertainment to a more diverse and less trendy audience,” Duclos said. Lacey describes the Club’s South Bay location as “probably the most important piece of the puzzle.” Although it draws talent from all over, the crowd remains overwhelmingly local. The club’s first decade coincided with the zenith of the local aerospace industry, and over the ensuing years, the Beach Cities became dominated by professionals. (During Saturday night’s show, when a member…
Read this story on easyreadernews.com