Acting Skills Give Him the Edge as Traveling Recruiter for UCI
It was Christmas Eve and Jim Birge was busy. With less than 24 hours before his girlfriend’s arrival at LAX, he spent anxious moments making last-minute preparations at his Irvine home.
“I’m going to pick her up at the airport in my Santa Claus outfit and my daughter Kym is going as an elf. My girlfriend is gonna be dressed as an elf, too,” he said.
Welcome to the zany world of Jim Birge--actor, comedian and, since September, UC Irvine’s community college outreach officer.
Birge and his boss, Juel Lee, who directs the university’s transfer student services office, travel a strenuous circuit that includes visiting at least 80 of the state’s 106 community colleges. They are part of the university’s push to increase its number of transfer students, Lee said.
What do acting and recruiting have in common? They both involve selling.
In this case, Birge, 39, who founded UCI’s Comedy Club last year, pitches the Anteater way of life at student fairs and high school auditoriums throughout California.
“It’s great for me because when I travel and talk to kids, I like to try and recruit for the comedy club.”
With stiff competition among recruiters, Birge notes that his acting ability, including public speaking, stage presence and sense of humor, gives him an edge at student fairs usually attended by 100 or more college representatives.
In his spare time, he teaches stand-up and improvisational comedy and play writing as a part-time instructor at Saddleback College.
“I gotta tell you, I really enjoy my job but I love to be an actor,” he said.
In fact, Birge left his job as a UCLA academic adviser in 1981 to act full-time. A year earlier he had founded UCLA’s Comedy Club. But instead of success, he said he “hit the skids” during a strike by writers and directors and returned to the more secure world of academia.
As an undergraduate, Birge studied theater arts at UCLA and received a bachelor’s degree in 1975. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in the same field.
After his acting stint, he was hired at UCI as a temporary outreach officer and became full-time in September.
“And we haven’t been the same since,” Lee said.
Last fall, UCI became “much more popular” among incoming freshmen, with the result that more freshmen entered than there were classroom seats, Lee said. Now, he said, UCI is trying to beef up its recruitment of transfer students.
Birge said he finds the time to write plays or new comedy skits between recruiting schedules.
“The odd thing about the job,” he said, “is the big warp of time between activities. But that gives me a chance to do some writing.”
He has written a script, assisted in part by Kym, 10.
“Kym read the unfinished script and ever since, has kept telling me to finish it,” he said.
Former comedy club members have gone on to capture some of Hollywood’s big money, he said.
The most notable has been Ed Solomon, who immediately after graduation from UCLA landed a job writing for the television comedy series “Laverne and Shirley.” Solomon now writes for comedian Garry Shandling’s TV show.
Birge befriended Shane Black, another comedy club alumnus.
“That was October of last year, when Shane was having trouble paying rent and needed a place to stay and write a screenplay,” Birge said.
Black eventually sold the screenplay, titled “Lethal Weapon,” which is being made into a movie, and filming has finished on Black’s other project that is being considered as a cartoon series.
UCI Comedy Club members write their own material and also perform on stage, Birge said. The club’s first performance with stand-up comedy material will be this Wednesday at Reagan’s Irish Pub in Mission Viejo.
On Jan. 6, 13, and 20, Birge’s play-writing class will read original plays at Montevideo Elementary School Auditorium, 24071 Carrillo Drive, in Mission Viejo. The reading begins at 7 p.m.
Both performances are free to the public.
