COMEDY : Henry Cho: Never Out of Character

Tennessee native Henry Cho likes to tell audiences about growing up as the “only Asian guy in, like, four states” and how he hated playing army, because the teams were always the same:

“All my buddies would go, ‘OK, it’s the neighborhood against you.’ ”

But in retrospect, it wasn’t such a bad deal. Cho, who headlines at the Irvine Improv through May 1, didn’t know it at the time, but he was laying the groundwork for what would become a specialized niche in a highly successful stand-up career. The personable comic is the only known full-blooded Korean raised in Knoxville working the comedy circuit.

“A lot of people say, ‘You’ve got a great character.’ Well, it’s not a character, it’s me,” he told The Times in an interview last year.

But shtick can carry a comic only so far. Cho continues to earn fans because of his ability to expand beyond the ethnic core. He still addresses the Asian/Southern contradiction at the beginning of his act because if he doesn’t, he says, too many first-timers don’t know what to make of him. But once he calms the initial uncertainty, Cho moves on to the bulk of his act, drawing personal anecdotes from friends, family and youthful experiences.

Meanwhile, the Brea Improv is featuring the “LoveMaster” himself, Craig Shoemaker, in a one-man show.

Slipping in and out of multiple characters, Shoemaker takes the crowd on a romp through his life, revealing that his mother belly-danced at his high school graduation party and that his father runs mule rides and a tepee village in the Poconos. Shoemaker also does more than 100 impersonations, from Barney Fife to Sean Connery.

But the Philadelphia native’s main man is the deep-voiced, sex-on-the-brain LoveMaster (“Hey, Baby, you look so tasty my eyes are getting fat”). As a counterpoint, Shoemaker brings in Freedom Spivey, a prissy apologist for LoveMaster.

The comedian--who says he was “a wedgie waiting to happen” in high school--will be in Brea through May 22.

At the Centerfield Sports Bar & Grill in Huntington Beach on Tuesday night are co-headliners Keith Evans and Bobby Gaylor.

Gaylor, after starting his career as a very blue comic, has changed gears, building his set around family life in general and a cantankerous but loving father, specifically. Television appearances include “Evening at the Improv,” “Comic Strip Live” and ABC’s “Into the Night.”

Evans has opened for George Carlin and Sam Kinison as well as working top clubs throughout California.