Laughing through the hardship

In late May, Drew Lynch received some major props on “America’s Got Talent,” when his self-effacing stuttering stand-up routine earned him this season’s Golden Buzzer.

The honor, bestowed on the 23-year-old comedian by judge Howie Mandel, automatically sent him from his audition to the show’s live competition final rounds, set for August at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

Since first airing on NBC on May 26, the nearly nine-minute segment featuring Lynch’s stand-up routine and back story has been viewed more than 2.4 million times on YouTube.

That new-found fame comes after Lynch’s Hollywood dreams were nearly dashed four years ago on a baseball field at Olive Recreation Center in Burbank. He was playing shortstop for the Flappers Comedy Club team when he misplayed a few hard grounders. The first hit him in the head. The second in the throat. He shook them both off and insisted he was OK. He just wanted to go home and sleep it off. His boss, Barbara Holliday, who was also on the team, told Lynch he could have the night off from his usual duties at the club, where he worked as a ticket taker while pursuing TV auditions during the day.

When he awoke from his nap and turned up for work later that night, he was having trouble speaking. “I guess you’re not supposed to go to sleep on a concussion. I know that now,” Lynch joked during his televised audition. “You live and you learn.”

“I was actually talking much slower than how I talk now,” he explained during a recent phone interview through his heavy stutter. “At the time it was devastating because I had a lot going on that week in terms of my acting career.” That week, Lynch recalled, he had call-back auditions for “How I Met Your Mother,” a Disney Channel hosting gig and an industry showcase in front of casting directors and studio executives. Instead, he was laid up in the hospital.

“The representation I was with dropped me,” he recalled. “They told me I could come back when I’d get better, which I was told, I would.”

As a child, the Indianapolis, Indiana-born aspiring actor moved to Las Vegas where he attended a performing arts middle school and high school. After graduation, he moved to the Los Angeles area to pursue acting full time.

Lynch never really aspired to be a stand-up comic. He tried it out a few times prior to his accident simply for the experience, but it wasn’t necessarily his thing. Yet following his accident, after taking some time to evaluate his situation, Lynch tried performing at an open-mic night. One of those in the audience was Samuel J. Comroe, a comedian who suffers from Tourette syndrome. “It went OK, I guess, because I was vulnerable and raw from the accident, “ Lynch recalled. “And Sam was like, ‘Hey, I watched you and I think you can become a full-time comedian within six months if you work hard enough.”

The following day, a lengthy email from Comroe arrived in Lynch’s inbox. “It had a bunch of questions about my accident and how I felt about it. He said if you answer all these questions, your material will start to build and you’ll have enough to do this full time. It was really because of him that I was even able to consider this as a possibility.”

Comroe also threw down a challenge to Lynch, noting that the two-week period in which the doctors said he would recover had long-since passed. “He said, ‘You have two options — you can stay here and be this ticket person for the rest of your life or you can try and use what you have to make something positive,’“ Lynch recalled.

Lynch knew exactly what Comroe was referring to. Prior his accident, while he was working as a ticket-taker, Lynch caught Comroe’s act. “I would watch him perform and he was so amazing, because he used what he had as a strength, as opposed to trying to avoid it or hide it from everybody. He used it, so you weren’t feeling bad for him, you were laughing at him.” The pair have since joined forces, visiting college campuses on what’s dubbed the Preferred Parking Comedy Tour.

In Lynch’s segment on “AGT,” Comroe wasn’t mentioned. Instead, the show’s producers decided to play up his relationship with his girlfriend, who has been by his side since the days prior to the accident. On the show, Lynch said she took on three jobs to allow him to pursue comedy. He also admitted in that prior to his accident, he was a bit of a snob. “The person that I was before would probably never hang out with who I am today,” he said. “I thought people were lucky if they got to talk to me. I was a jerk.”

Holliday, the owner of Flappers who now serves as Lynch’s manager, remembers her first meeting with him a bit differently. “He was 19 and he was like a little GQ actor boy,” she says. “He came to town to be an actor and he was kind of asking about comedy, but what he really needed was a job.” She offered him employment working the ticket booth at the Burbank comedy club. “He was a little too cool for school,” she says. “He was here to become an actor.”

Following the accident, Holliday watched as Comroe, who is also her client, mentored Lynch. She had encouraged Comroe to talk about his Tourette syndrome in his act and Comroe passed on that knowledge to Lynch. “That’s what we do in comedy,” Holliday said. “We talk about what’s wrong with us, not what’s right with us.”

It was that method of stand-up that so moved the judges on “AGT.” In his act, Lynch mocked himself ordering and working at a drive-thru and hilariously suggested and demonstrated how his voice could be used on a GPS.

His performance won approval from the judges. Howard Stern, who made “Stuttering John” Melendez a star on his radio show, noted how Lynch won over the audience. Former Spice Girl Mel B. loved how he turned his disability into a positive, but the biggest praise came from Mandel.

“I know you’re here to make people laugh, but I can’t tell you how emotional you make me, because comedy usually comes from a dark place,” he said. “A lot of comedians are depressed. Personally, in my life, I have used laughter to try to gain some happiness. What you did is you looked for the light at the end of the darkness. That light is your comedy. I’m telling you I haven’t been moved by an act like this until this moment.” He proceeded to hit the Golden Buzzer for the first time in his tenure as a judge on the show.

In that emotional moment, in a hail of gold, glittering confetti, Lynch broke down and cried. He now finds it all a bit embarrassing. “It wasn’t something I expected,” he said. “It’s cool because a lot of people have told me they were moved by it also, but I didn’t go up there to inspire anyone. I just wanted to make the four judges laugh.”

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Who: Drew Lynch

When: Friday, July 31 and Saturday, Aug. 1, 8 and 10 p.m.

Where: Flappers Comedy Club, 102 East Magnolia, Burbank

Contact: (818) 845-9721, flapperscomedy.com

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CRAIG ROSEN is a frequent contributor to Marquee.